The
culture of the United Kingdom refers to the
patterns of human activity and symbolism
associated with the United Kingdom
and its people since its formation in 1707.
It is informed by the
UK's
history as a
developed
island country,
major power, and, as a union of four countries,
each of which have
preserved elements of distinct customs and symbolism.
As a
direct result of the British Empire,
British cultural influence (such as the English language) can be observed in the
language and culture of a geographically wide assortment of
countries such as Canada
, Australia, New Zealand
, India
, Pakistan
, South Africa, the United States
, and the British overseas
territories. These states are sometimes collectively
known as the
Anglosphere. As well as the
British influence on its empire, the empire also influenced British
culture, particularly
British
cuisine. Innovations and movements within the wider-
culture of Europe have also changed the
United Kingdom;
Humanism,
Protestantism, and
representative democracy are
borrowed from broader
Western
culture.
The
Industrial Revolution,
with its origins in the UK, brought about major changes in
agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation, and had a profound
effect on the
socio-economic and
cultural conditions of the world.
Popular culture of the United Kingdom in the
form of the
British invasion,
Britpop and
British television
broadcasting, and
British cinema,
British literature and
British poetry is revered across the
world.
The
social structure of
Britain has played a central cultural role throughout the
history of British
society. As a result of the
history of the
formation of the United Kingdom, the
cultures of England,
Scotland,
Wales and
Northern Ireland are diverse and
have varying degrees of overlap and distinctiveness.
Language
The United Kingdom has no
official
language.
English is the main
language and the
de facto official
language, spoken monolingually by an estimated 95% of the UK
population.
However, individual countries within the UK have frameworks for the
promotion of their
indigenous
languages.
In Wales
, all pupils
at state schools must study Welsh
until aged 16, and Welsh and English are both widely used by
officialdom. Irish and
Ulster Scots enjoy limited use
alongside English in Northern Ireland
, mainly in publicly commissioned
translations. The Gaelic Language Act, passed
by the Scottish
Parliament
in 2005, recognised Gaelic as an official language of Scotland,
commanding equal respect with English, and required the creation of
a national plan for Gaelic to provide strategic direction for the
development of the Gaelic language.
Under the
European
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which is not
legally enforceable, the UK Government has committed itself to the
promotion of certain linguistic traditions.
The Welsh Language, Scottish Gaelic and Cornish are to be developed in Wales, Scotland
and Cornwall
respectively. Other native languages
afforded such protection include: Irish in Northern Ireland;
Scots in Scotland and Northern
Ireland, where it is known in official parlance as
"Ulster Scots" or "Ullans" but in the
speech of users simply as "Scotch" or Broad Scots; and
British Sign Language.
The Arts
Literature
The earliest existing native literature of the territory of the
modern United Kingdom was written in the
Celtic languages of the isles. The Welsh
literary tradition stretches from the 6th century.
Irish poetry also represents a more or less
unbroken tradition from the 6th century to the present day, with
the
Ulster Cycle being of particular
relevance to Northern Ireland.
Anglo-Saxon literature
includes
Beowulf, a
national epic, but literature in
Latin predominated among educated elites. After the
Norman Conquest Anglo-Norman literature brought
continental influences to the isles.
English literature emerged as a
recognisable entity in the late 14th century, with the rise and
spread of the London
dialect of Middle
English. Geoffrey
Chaucer is the first great identifiable individual in English
literature: his
Canterbury
Tales remains a popular 14th-century work which readers
still enjoy today.
Following the introduction of the
printing press into England by
William Caxton in 1476, the
Elizabethan era saw a great flourishing of
literature, especially in the fields of
poetry and
drama. From this
period, poet and playwright
William
Shakespeare stands out as arguably the most famous writer in
the world.
The
English novel became a popular
form in the 18th century, with
Daniel
Defoe's
Robinson Crusoe
(1719),
Samuel Richardson's
Pamela (1740) and
Henry Fielding's
Tom Jones
(1745).
After a period of decline, the poetry of
Robert Burns revived interest in
vernacular literature, the
rhyming
weavers of Ulster being influenced by literature from
Scotland.
The following two centuries continued a huge outpouring of literary
production. In the early 19th century, the
Romantic period showed a flowering of poetry
comparable with the Renaissance two hundred years earlier, with
such poets as
William Blake,
William Wordsworth,
John Keats, and
Lord Byron. The
Victorian period was the golden age of
the
realistic English novel,
represented by
Jane Austen, the Brontë
sisters (
Charlotte,
Emily and
Anne),
Charles
Dickens,
William Thackeray,
George Eliot,
Alfred Lord Tennyson and
Thomas Hardy.
World War I gave rise to British
war poets and writers such as
Wilfred Owen,
Siegfried Sassoon,
Robert Graves and
Rupert Brooke who wrote (often
paradoxically), of their expectations of war, and/or
their experiences in the trench.
The
Celtic Revival stimulated new
appreciation of traditional Irish literature, however, with the
independence of the
Irish Free
State,
Irish literature came to
be seen as more clearly separate from the strains of British
literature. The
Scottish
Renaissance of the early 20th century brought modernism to
Scottish literature as well as an interest in new forms in the
literatures of Scottish Gaelic and Scots.
The English novel developed in the 20th century into much greater
variety and was greatly enriched by immigrant writers. It remains
today the dominant English literary form.
Other well-known
novelists include
Arthur Conan Doyle,
D.H. Lawrence,
George Orwell,
C.S Lewis,
Salman
Rushdie,
H.G Wells,
Mary Shelley,
Lewis
Carroll,
J.R.R. Tolkien,
Virginia
Woolf,
Ian Fleming,
Walter Scott,
Agatha
Christie,
Robert Louis
Stevenson,
Joseph Conrad,
Graham Greene,
A.A.
Milne,
Roald
Dahl,
Arthur C Clarke,
J.M. Barrie,
Terry Pratchett and
J.K. Rowling.
Important poets include
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
T. S.
Eliot, Ted Hughes,
Philip
Larkin
, John Milton, Alfred Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, Alexander Pope, and Dylan Thomas.
Theatre
From its formation in 1707, the United Kingdom has had a vibrant
tradition of
theatre, much of it inherited
from England and Scotland.
Theatre was introduced from
Europe to England
by the
Romans and
auditoriums were constructed across the country
for this purpose. By the
medieval period
theatre had developed with the
mummers'
plays, a form of early street theatre associated with the
Morris dance, concentrating on themes
such as
Saint George and the
Dragon and
Robin
Hood. These were
folk tales re-telling
old stories, and the
actors travelled from
town to town performing these for their audiences in return for
money and hospitality. The medieval
mystery
plays and
morality plays, which
dealt with Christian themes, were performed at religious
festivals.
The reign of
Elizabeth I in
the late 16th and early 17th century saw a flowering of the drama
and all the arts. Perhaps the most famous
playwright in the world,
William Shakespeare, wrote around 40
plays that are still performed in theatres across the world to this
day. They include tragedies, such as
Hamlet (1603),
Othello (1604), and
King Lear (1605); comedies, such as
A Midsummer Night's
Dream (1594—96) and
Twelfth
Night (1602); and history plays, such as
Henry IV, part 1—2. The Elizabethan
age is sometimes nicknamed "the age of Shakespeare" for the amount
of influence he held over the era. Other important Elizabethan and
17th-century playwrights include
Ben
Jonson,
Christopher Marlowe,
and
John Webster.
During the
Interregnum 1642—1660,
English theatres were kept closed by the
Puritans for religious and ideological reasons. When
the London theatres opened again with the Restoration of the
monarchy in 1660, they flourished under the personal interest and
support of
Charles II. Wide
and socially mixed audiences were attracted by topical writing and
by the introduction of the first professional actresses (in
Shakespeare's time, all female roles had been played by boys). New
genres of the Restoration were
heroic drama,
pathetic
drama, and
Restoration
comedy. The Restoration plays that have best retained the
interest of producers and audiences today are the comedies, such as
William Wycherley's
The Country Wife (1676),
The Rover (1677) by the first
professional woman playwright,
Aphra
Behn,
John Vanbrugh's
The Relapse (1696), and
William Congreve's
The Way of the World
(1700). Restoration comedy is famous or notorious for its
sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by
Charles II (1660–1685)
personally and by the
rakish aristocratic ethos of his
court.
In the 18th century, the highbrow and provocative Restoration
comedy lost favour, to be replaced by
sentimental comedy,
domestic
tragedy such as George Lillo's
The London Merchant (1731), and
by an overwhelming interest in Italian
opera.
Popular entertainment became more important in this period than
ever before, with fair-booth burlesque and mixed forms that are the
ancestors of the English
music hall.
These forms flourished at the expense of legitimate English drama,
which went into a long period of decline. By the early 19th century
it was no longer represented by stage plays at all, but by the
closet drama, plays written to be
privately read in a "closet" (a small domestic room).
A change came in the late 19th century with the plays on the London
stage by the Irishmen
George Bernard
Shaw and
Oscar Wilde and the
Norwegian
Henrik Ibsen, all of whom
influenced domestic English drama and vitalised it again.
Today the
West End of
London
has a large number of theatres, particularly
centred around Shaftesbury
Avenue
. A prolific composer of the 20th century
Andrew Lloyd Webber has
dominated the West End for a number of years and his musicals have travelled to Broadway
in New
York
and around the world, as well as being turned into
films.
The
Royal Shakespeare Company
operates out of Shakespeare's birthplace Stratford-upon-Avon
in England
, producing mainly but not exclusively Shakespeare's
plays.
Important modern
playwrights include
Alan Ayckbourn,
John Osborne,
Harold
Pinter,
Tom Stoppard, and
Arnold Wesker.
Music
Composers
William Byrd,
Thomas Tallis,
John
Taverner,
John Blow,
Henry Purcell,
Edward
Elgar,
Arthur Sullivan,
William Walton,
Ralph Vaughan Williams,
Benjamin Britten and
Michael Tippett have made major
contributions to British music, and are known internationally.
Living composers include
John Tavener,
Harrison Birtwistle,
Andrew Lloyd Webber,
Oliver Knussen,
John
Rutter,
Joby Talbot,
David Arnold and
James MacMillan.
The United Kingdom also supports a number of major orchestras
including the
BBC Symphony
Orchestra, the
Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra, the
Philharmonia, the
London Symphony Orchestra and the
London Philharmonic
Orchestra.
London is one of
the world's major centres for classical
music: it holds several important concert halls and is also
home to the Royal Opera
House
, one of the world's leading opera houses. British traditional music has
also been very influential abroad.
The UK was one of the two main countries in the development of
rock music, and has provided global acts
including
The Beatles,
The Rolling Stones,
Led Zeppelin,
The Who,
Pink Floyd,
Queen,
Elton John,
David Bowie,
Black Sabbath,
Deep
Purple,
The Kinks,
Iron Maiden,
Def
Leppard,
Foreigner,
Whitesnake,
Motorhead,
Status Quo,
Dire
Straits,
Bee Gees,
Rod Stewart,
The
Smiths,
Yardbirds,
Sex Pistols,
The Clash,
Van Morrison,
Eric Clapton,
Duran
Duran,
Billy Idol,
Electric Light Orchestra,
Sting,
Phil
Collins,
George Michael,
Genesis,
The Cure,
Siouxsie and the Banshees,
The Police,
The
Animals,
Elvis Costello,
Dusty Springfield,
Ozzy Osbourne,
UB40,
Annie Lennox,
Cat Stevens,
Pet Shop
Boys,
Bonnie Tyler,
Joe Cocker,
T.Rex,
Depeche Mode,
Roxy Music,
The Jam,
The Stone Roses,
Oasis,
Blur and
Radiohead. It has provided inspiration for
many modern bands today, including
Coldplay,
Kaiser
Chiefs,
Bloc Party,
Placebo,
Snow
Patrol,
The Verve,
Bullet for My Valentine,
The Libertines,
Muse,
Editors and
Arctic Monkeys. Since then it has
also pioneered various forms of
electronic dance music including
acid house,
drum
and bass and
trip hop, all of which
were in whole or part developed in the United Kingdom. Acclaimed
British dance acts include
Underworld,
Orbital,
Massive
Attack,
The KLF,
The Prodigy,
Jamiroquai,
Basement
Jaxx,
The Chemical
Brothers,
Fatboy Slim,
Groove Armada,
Aphex
Twin and
Portishead.
Broadcasting
The UK has been at the forefront of developments in
film,
radio, and
television.
Many important films have been produced in the UK over the last
century, and a large number of significant actors and film-makers
have emerged.
Currently the main film production centres
are at Shepperton
and Pinewood Studios
.
Broadcasting in the UK has historically been dominated by the
BBC, although independent radio and television
(
ITV,
Channel 4,
Five) and satellite broadcasters
(especially
BSkyB) have
become more important in recent years. BBC television, and the
other three main television channels are
public service broadcasters who,
as part of their license allowing them to operate, broadcast a
variety of minority interest programming. The BBC and Channel 4 are
state-owned, though they operate independently.
The United Kingdom has a large number of national and local
radio stations which cover a great
variety of programming. The most listened to stations are the five
main national
BBC radio stations.
BBC Radio 1, a new music station aimed at the
16-24 age group.
BBC Radio 2, a varied
popular music and chat station aimed
at adults is consistently highest in the ratings.
BBC Radio 4, a varied talk station, is noted for
its
news,
current affairs,
drama and
comedy
output as well as
The Archers,
its long running
soap opera, and other
unique programmes. The BBC, as a
public service broadcaster, also
runs minority stations such as
BBC
Asian Network,
BBC 1xtra and
BBC 6 Music, and local stations throughout the
country.
Visual art
The oldest art in the United Kingdom can be dated to the
Neolithic period, and is found in a funerary
context. But it is in the
Bronze age that
the first innovative artworks are found. The
Beaker people, who arrived in region around
2500 BC, were skilled in metal refining. At first, they worked
mainly in
copper, but around 2150
BC they learned how to make
bronze.
As there was a ready supply of tin in Cornwall and Devon
, they were
able to make take advantage of this new process. They were
also skilled in the use of
gold, and especially
the
Wessex culture excelled in the
making of gold ornaments. Works of art placed in graves or
sacrificial pits have survived, showing both innovation and high
skill.
In the
Iron Age, the
Celtic
culture spread in the British isles, and with them a new art
style. Metalwork, especially gold ornaments, was still important,
but stone and most likely wood was also used. This style continued
into the
Roman period, and would find
a renaissance in the
Medieval
period.
It also survived in the Celtic areas not
occupied by the Romans, largely corresponding to the present-day
Wales, Northern
Ireland and Scotland.
The Romans, arriving in the 1st century BC, brought with them the
Classical style. Many monuments have survived, especially funerary
monuments, statues and busts. They also brought glass work and
mosaics. In the 4th century, a new element
was introduced as the first
Christian
art was made in Britain. Several mosaics with Christian symbols
and pictures have been preserved. The style of Romano-British art
follows that of the continent, but there are some local
specialities, to some extent influenced by Celtic art.
Roman rule was replaced by a number of kingdoms with different
cultural backgrounds. The Celtic fringe gained back some of the
power lost in the Roman period, and the Celtic style again became a
factor influencing art all over the UK. Other peoples, such as the
Saxons,
Jutes and
Danes, brought with them
Germanic and
Scandinavian art styles.
Celtic and Scandinavian art have several common elements, such as
the use of intricate, intertwined patterns of decoration. Leaving
the debate over which style influenced the other most aside, it
seems reasonable to say that in the UK the different style to some
extent fused into a British Celtic-Scandinavian hybrid.
Anglo-Saxon sculpting was outstanding
for its time in the 11th century, as proved by pre-Norman
ivory carvings. Christianity, before the religion of
parts of the Roman ruling class, started spreading among the
peoples of the UK from the beginning of the 5th century. There was
little change in the art style at first, but new elements were
added. The Celtic
high crosses are
well-known examples of the use of Celtic patterns in Christian art.
Scenes from the
Bible were depicted, framed
with the ancient patterns. Some ancient symbols were redefined,
such as the many Celtic symbols that can easily be interpreted as
referring to the Holy Trinity. One new form of art that was
introduced was mural paintings. Christianity provided two elements
needed for this art form to take root: Monks who were familiar with
the techniques, and stone churches with white-chalked walls
suitable for murals. As the artists were often foreign monks, or
lay artists trained on the continent, the style is very close to
that of continental art. Another art form introduced through the
church was stained glass, which was also adopted for secular
uses.
The
English Renaissance,
starting in the early 16th century, was a parallel to the
Italian Renaissance, but did not develop
in exactly the same way. It was mainly concerned with music and
literature; in art and architecture the change was not as clearly
defined as in the continent. Painters from the continent continued
to find work in Britain, and brought the new styles with them,
especially the Flemish and Italian Renaissance styles.
New York-born
Sir Jacob Epstein
was a pioneer of modern
sculpture. As a
reaction to
abstract
expressionism,
pop art emerged
originally in England at the end of the 1950s.
Visual artists from the United Kingdom include
John Constable,
Sir Joshua Reynolds,
Thomas Gainsborough,
William Blake and
J.M.W. Turner,
and in the 20th century,
Francis
Bacon,
David Hockney,
Bridget Riley, and the
pop
artists Richard
Hamilton and
Peter Blake.
The 1990s saw the
Young British
Artists,
Damien Hirst and
Tracey Emin.
Aubrey Beardsley,
Roger Hargreaves, and
Beatrix Potter were illustrators.
Arts
institutions include the Royal College of Art
, Royal Society of Arts
, New English Art
Club, Slade School
of Art
, Royal
Academy
, and the Tate Gallery
.
Architecture
The
architecture of the
United Kingdom has a long and diverse history from beyond
Stonehenge
to the designs of Norman Foster and
the present day. In the United Kingdom, a
listed building is a building or other
structure officially designated as being of special architectural,
historical or cultural significance. About half a million buildings
in the UK have "listed" status.
The
earliest remnants of architecture in
what is now the United Kingdom are mainly neolithic monuments such as Stonehenge, the Giant's
Ring
, and Avebury
, and Roman ruins such as the spa
in Bath
. Many
castles remain from the
medieval period and in most
towns and
villages the
parish church is an
indication of the age of the settlement, built as they were from
stone rather than the traditional
wattle
and daub.
Over the
two centuries following the Norman
conquest of 1066, and the building of the Tower of
London
, many great castles such as Caernarfon
Castle
in Wales and Carrickfergus Castle
in Ireland were built to suppress the
natives. Large houses continued to be fortified until
the Tudor period, when the first of the large gracious unfortified
mansions such as the Elizabethan
Montacute
House
and Hatfield House
were built.
The
Civil War 1642—49 proved to be
the last time in British history that houses had to survive a
siege.
Corfe Castle
was destroyed following an attack by Oliver Cromwell's army, but Compton
Wynyates
survived a similar ordeal. After this date
houses were built purely for living, with design and appearance
more important than defence.
Just prior to the Civil War,
Inigo
Jones, who is regarded as the first significant British
architect, came to prominence.
He was
responsible for importing the Palladian manner of architecture to
the UK from Italy
; the
Queen's
House
at Greenwich
is perhaps his best surviving work.
Following
the restoration of the monarchy
in 1660 and the Great Fire of London
in 1666 an opportunity was missed in London to create a
new metropolitan city, featuring modern architectural styles.
Although one of the best known British architects, Sir
Christopher Wren, was employed to design
and rebuild many of the ruined ancient churches of London, his
master plan for rebuilding London as a whole was rejected.
It was in
this period that he designed St Paul's Cathedral
, the building that he is perhaps best known
for. The dome of St Paul's inspired the United
States Capitol
.
In the
early 18th century baroque
architecture—popular in Europe—was introduced, and Blenheim
Palace
was built in this era. However, baroque was
quickly replaced by a return of the Palladian form. The
Georgian architecture of the 18th
century was an evolved form of Palladianism.
Many existing
buildings such as Woburn Abbey and
Kedleston
Hall
are in this style. Among the many architects
of this form of architecture and its successors,
neoclassical and
romantic, were
Robert
Adam, Sir
William
Chambers, and
James Wyatt.
In the
early 19th century the romantic medieval
gothic style appeared as a backlash
to the symmetry of Palladianism, and such
buildings as Fonthill
Abbey
were built. By the middle of the 19th century, as a
result of new technology, construction was able to develop
incorporating steel as a building component;
one of the greatest exponents of this was Joseph Paxton, architect of the Crystal
Palace
. Paxton also continued to build such houses
as Mentmore
Towers
, in the still popular retrospective Renaissance styles. In this era
of prosperity and development British architecture embraced many
new methods of construction, but ironically in style, such
architects as
August Pugin ensured it
remained firmly in the past.
At the beginning of the 20th century a new form of design
arts and crafts became popular, the
architectural form of this style, which had evolved from the 19th
century designs of such architects as
George Devey, was championed by
Edwin Lutyens. Arts and crafts in architecture
is symbolized by an informal, non symmetrical form, often with
mullioned or
lattice windows, multiple
gables and tall chimneys. This style continued to
evolve until
World War II.
Following the
Second World War
reconstruction went through a variety of phases, but was heavily
influenced by
Modernism, especially from
the late 1950s to the early 1970s.
Many bleak town centre
redevelopments—criticised for featuring hostile, concrete-lined "windswept plazas"—were the fruit of
this interest, as were many equally bleak public buildings, such as
the Hayward
Gallery
. Many Modernist inspired town centres are
today in the process of being redeveloped, Bracknell
town centre being a case in point.
However, it should not be forgotten that in the immediate post-War
years many thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of
council houses in vernacular style were built,
giving
working class people their
first experience of private
gardens and
indoor
sanitation.
Modernism remains a significant force in UK architecture, although
its influence is felt predominantly in commercial buildings. The
two most prominent proponents are
Lord Rogers of Riverside and
Lord Foster
of Thames Bank.
Rogers' iconic London buildings are probably
Lloyd's
Building
and the Millennium Dome
, while Foster created the Swiss Re Buildings
(aka The Gherkin) and the Greater
London Authority H.Q
.
Science and technology
From the time of the
Scientific
Revolution, England and Scotland, and thereafter the United
Kingdom, have been prominent in world
scientific and
technological development. The English
philosopher,
Francis Bacon put forward his
Baconian method in his 1620 book,
Novum Organum. This method promoted
empiricism and
induction in scientific enquiry and was
one of the driving forces behind the scientific revolution.
Possibly the most famous of all English scientists,
Isaac Newton, is considered by
historians of science to have crowned and
ended the scientific revolution with the 1687 publication of his
Principia
Mathematica, which ushers in what is recognisable as
modern
physics. He is most famous for
realising that the same force is responsible for movements of
celestial and terrestrial bodies, that is
gravity. It is commonly reported that he made this
realisation when he was sitting underneath an apple tree and was
hit on the head by a falling apple; this story is, however,
apocryphal. He is also famous as the father of
classical mechanics, formulated as his
three laws and as the
co-inventor (with
Gottfried
Leibniz) of
differential
calculus. Less famously, he also created the
binomial theorem, worked extensively on
optics, and created a
law of cooling.
Since Newton's time, figures from the UK have contributed to the
development of most major branches of science. Examples include
Michael Faraday, who, with
James Clerk Maxwell, unified the
electric and
magnetic forces in what are
now known as
Maxwell's
equations;
James Joule, who worked
extensively in
thermodynamics and is
often credited with the discovery of the
principle of conservation of
energy;
Paul Dirac, one of the
pioneers of
quantum mechanics;
Charles Darwin, author of
On the Origin of
Species and discoverer of the principle of
evolution by
natural
selection;
Harold Kroto, the
discoverer of
buckminsterfullerene;
William Thomson who drew
important conclusions in the field of thermodynamics and invented
the
Kelvin scale of
absolute zero; and the creator of
Bell's Theorem,
John Stewart Bell.
Historically, many of the UK's greatest
scientists have been based at either Oxford
or Cambridge University
, with laboratories such as the Cavendish
Laboratory
in Cambridge and the Clarendon
Laboratory
in Oxford becoming famous in their own
right. In modern times, other institutions such as the
Red Brick and
New Universities are catching up with
Oxbridge.
For instance, Lancaster
University
has a global reputation for work in low temperature physics. The
Royal Society serves as the
national academy for sciences, with members
drawn from many different institutions and disciplines. Formed in
1660, it is the oldest
learned
society still in existence.
Technologically, the UK is also amongst the world's leaders.
Historically, it was at the forefront of the
Industrial Revolution, with
innovations especially in
textiles, the
steam engine,
railroads and
civil engineering. Famous British
engineers and
inventors
from this period include
James
Watt,
Robert Stephenson,
Isambard Kingdom Brunel and
Richard Arkwright.
Since then, the United Kingdom has continued this tradition of
technical creativity.
Alan Turing
(leading role in the modern
computer),
Scottish inventor Alexander
Graham Bell (the first practical
telephone),
John Logie
Baird (worlds first working
television system, first electronic
colour television),
Frank Whittle (inventor of the
jet engine),
Charles
Babbage (who devised the idea of the
computer) and
Alexander Fleming (discoverer of
penicillin) were all British. The UK remains one
of the leading providers of technological innovations today,
providing inventions as diverse as the
World Wide Web and
Viagra (created by
Tim
Berners-Lee and
Pfizer
respectively).
Other famous scientists, engineers and inventors from the UK
include:
William Caxton,
Richard Trevithick,
Francis Crick,
Robert
Hooke,
Humphry Davy,
Robert Watson-Watt,
Henry Bessemer,
Charles Parsons,
Alan Blumlein,
George
Cayley,
Joseph Priestly,
Frank Pantridge and
others.
Religion
The United Kingdom was created as a
Protestant Christian
country and Protestant churches remain the largest faith group in
each country of the UK.
Following this is
Roman
Catholicism and religions including
Islam,
Hinduism,
Sikhism,
Judaism, and
Buddhism. While 2001
census
information suggests that over 75 percent of UK citizens consider
themselves to belong to a religion,
Gallup International reports that only 10
percent of UK citizens regularly attend
religious services, compared to 15 percent
of
French citizens and 57 percent of
American citizens. A
2004 YouGov poll found that 44 percent of UK citizens believe in
God, while 35 percent do not.
Cuisine
British cuisine is the specific set
of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United
Kingdom. Historically, British cuisine means "unfussy dishes made
with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to
accentuate flavour, rather than disguise it." However, British
cuisine has absorbed the cultural influence of those that settled
in Britain, producing hybrid dishes, such as the
Anglo-Indian Chicken tikka masala, hailed as
"Britain's true national dish".
Vilified as "unimaginative and heavy", British cuisine has
traditionally been limited in its international recognition to the
full breakfast and the
Christmas dinner. However,
Celtic agriculture and animal breeding
produced a wide variety of foodstuffs for indigenous
Celts and
Britons.
Anglo-Saxon England developed
meat and savoury herb stewing techniques before the practice became
common in
Europe. The
Norman conquest introduced exotic spices
into
Great Britain in
the Middle Ages. The
British
Empire facilitated a knowledge of
India's elaborate food tradition of "strong,
penetrating spices and herbs".
Food rationing policies, put
in place by the British government during wartime periods of the
20th century, are said to have been the stimulus for British
cuisine's poor international reputation.
British dishes include
fish and
chips, the
Sunday roast, and
bangers and mash.
British cuisine has
several national and regional varieties, including English, Scottish, Irish
cuisine (for Northern
Ireland) and Welsh cuisine,
which each have developed their own regional or local dishes, many
of which are geographically indicated foods
such as Cheshire cheese, the
Yorkshire pudding, Arbroath Smokie, Haggis, the Ulster fry,
Irish Stew and Welsh rarebit.
Education
Each country of the United Kingdom has a separate education system,
with power over education matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland being devolved. Education matters for England are dealt
with by the UK government since there is no devolved administration
for England.
England
Most schools came under state control in the
Victorian era, a formal state school system
was instituted after the
Second World
War. Initially schools were separated into
infant schools (normally up to age 4 or 5),
primary schools and
secondary schools (split into more academic
grammar schools and more vocational
secondary modern schools).
Under the Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s most secondary
modern and grammar schools were combined to become
comprehensive schools. England has many
prominent private schools, often founded hundreds of years ago,
which are known as
public
schools or independent schools.
Eton
, Harrow
and Rugby
are three
of the better known. Most primary and secondary schools in
both the private and state sectors have compulsory school uniforms.
Allowances are almost invariably made, however, to accommodate
religious dress including the
Islamic
hijab and
Sikh
bangle (kara).
Although the Minister of Education is responsible to Parliament for
education, the day to day administration and funding of state
schools is the responsibility of
Local Education Authorities.
England's
universities include the so-called Oxbridge
universities of (Oxford University and Cambridge University) which are amongst the world's
oldest universities and are generally ranked top of all British
universities. Some institutions are world-renowned in
specialised and often narrow areas of study, such as Imperial
College London
(science and engineering) and London
School of Economics
(economics and social sciences). Academic degrees are usually split into
classes: first class (I), upper second class (II:1), lower second
class (II:2) and third (III), and unclassified (below third
class).
Northern Ireland
The
Northern Ireland Assembly
is responsible for education in Northern Ireland
though responsibility at a local level is
administered by 5 Education and Library Boards covering different
geographical areas.
Scotland
Scotland
has a long history of universal provision of public education, and the Scottish
education system is distinctly different from other parts of the
United
Kingdom.Traditionally, the Scottish system has
emphasised breadth across a range of subjects compared to the
English, Welsh and Northern
Irish system has emphasised greater depth of education
over a smaller range of subjects at secondary school level.
The majority of schools are
non-denominational, but by
legislation separate
Roman Catholic schools, with an element of
control by the
Roman Catholic
Church, are provided by the
state
system.
Qualifications at the secondary school and
post-secondary (
further education) level are provided by
the
Scottish
Qualifications Authority and delivered through various schools,
colleges and other centres.
Political responsibility for education at
all levels is vested in the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish
Executive Education and Enterprise, Transport & Lifelong
Learning Departments
State schools are owned and operated by the
local authorities which act as
Education Authorities, and the compulsory phase is divided
into
primary school and
secondary school (often called
High school). Schools are supported in
delivering the National Guidelines and National Priorities by
Learning and Teaching
Scotland.
Scottish
universities generally have courses a year longer than their
counterparts elsewhere in the UK, though it is often possible for
students to take a more advanced specialised exams and join the
courses at the second year. One unique aspect is that the
ancient universities of
Scotland issue a
Master of
Arts as the first
degree in
humanities.
Wales
The
National Assembly for
Wales has responsibility for
education in Wales. A significant number
of students in Wales are educated either wholly or largely through
the medium of
Welsh and lessons in
the language are compulsory for all until the age of 16. There are
plans to increase the provision of Welsh Medium schools as part of
the policy of having a fully bi-lingual Wales.
Sociological issues
Housing
Terraced houses are typical in inner cities and places of high
population density
England has one of the highest population densities in
Europe.
Housing, therefore, tends to be smaller and
more closely packed than in other countries, resulting in a
particular affinity with the terraced house, dating back to the
aftermath of the Great Fire of London. The majority of surviving housing built
before 1914 is of this type, and consequently it dominates inner
residential areas. In the twentieth century the process of
suburbanisation led to a spread of
semi-detached and detached housing. In the
aftermath of the second world war,
public
housing was dramatically expanded to create a large number of
council estates, although the
majority of these have since been purchased by their tenants.
Although many people live in
flat, it is
commonly argued that they are less comfortable with this form of
living than their European counterparts. This may be mainly due to
English love of gardening, dislike of common entrances and a desire
for privacy and space.
There is a wealth of historic
country
houses and
stately homes in
rural areas, though the majority of these are
now put to other uses than private living accommodation.
In recent times, more detached housing has started to be built.
Also,
city living has boomed with city
centre population's rising rapidly.
Most of this population growth has been
accommodated through new apartment blocks in residential schemes,
such as those in Leeds
, Birmingham
and Manchester
.Demographic changes (see below) are putting
great pressure on the housing market, especially in London and the
South East.
Living arrangements
Historically most people in the United Kingdom lived either in
conjugal extended families or
nuclear families. This reflected an
economic landscape where the general
populace tended to have less spending power, meaning that it was
more practical to stick together rather than go their individual
ways. This pattern also reflected
gender
roles. Men were expected to go out to work and women were
expected to stay at home and look after the families.
In the 20th century the
emancipation of
women, the greater freedoms enjoyed by both men and women in
the years following the
Second World
War, greater
affluence and easier
divorce have changed gender roles and living
arrangements significantly. The general trend is a rise in single
people living alone, the virtual extinction of the
extended family (outside certain ethnic
minority communities), and the
nuclear
family arguably reducing in prominence.
From the 1990s, the break up of the traditional family unit, when
combined with a low
interest rate
environment and other demographic changes, has created great
pressure on the housing market, in particular regarding the
accommodation of
key workers
such as
nurses, other
emergency service workers and
teachers, who are priced out of most housing,
especially in the
South
East.
Some research indicates that in the 21st century young people are
tending to continue to live in the parental home for much longer
than their predecessors
[36046][36047]. The high cost of living, combined with
rising cost of accommodation, further education and higher
education means that many young people cannot afford to live
independent lives from their families.
Sport
The national sport of the UK is
football, having originated in England,
and the UK has the oldest football clubs in the world. The home
nations all have separate national teams and domestic competitions,
most notably the
Barclays
Premier League, the
FA Cup, and the
Scottish Premier League. The
first ever international football match was between
Scotland and
England in 1872. The match
ended goalless.
Other
famous British sporting events include the Wimbledon
tennis championships
, the Grand National,
the London Marathon, the Six Nations rugby championships (of
which 4 "home nations" participate), the British
Grand Prix
, The Open
Championship, The Ashes cricket series and The Boat
Race between Oxford
and Cambridge
universities.
A great number of major sports originated in the United Kingdom,
including
football,
squash,
golf,
tennis,
boxing,
rugby league,
rugby
union,
cricket,
field hockey,
snooker,
billiards,
badminton and
curling.
National costume and dress
There is no national costume of the United Kingdom. Scotland has
the
kilt and
Tam
o'shanter. In England certain
military
uniforms such as the
Beefeater or the
Queen's Guard are considered national symbols.
Morris dancers or the costumes for the
traditional English
May dance are cited by
some as examples of traditional English costume.
This is in large part due to the critical role that British
sensibilities have played in
Western dress since the eighteenth
century. Particularly during the Victorian era, British fashions
defined acceptable dress for men of business. Key figures such as
Beau Brummell, the future
Edward VII and
Edward
VIII created the modern
suit and
cemented its dominance.
Naming convention
The naming convention in most of the United Kingdom is for everyone
to have a
given name (forename, or still
often
Christian name in British English, though this usage
is declining) usually (but not always) indicating the child's sex,
followed by a parent's
family name
(
surname in British English). This naming convention has
remained much the same since the 15th century in England although
patronymic naming remained in some of the
further reaches of the other home nations until much later. Since
the 19th century
middle names have
become very common and are often taken from the name of a family
ancestor.
Traditionally, Christian names were those of
Biblical characters or recognised
saints; however, in the
Gothic Revival of the
Victorian era, other
Anglo Saxon and mythical names enjoyed
something of a fashion among the literati. Since the middle of the
20th century, however, first names have been influenced by a much
wider cultural base.
See also:
See also
References
External links
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