Eric Arthur Blair was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the name George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism, and support of democratic socialism.
Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. Kitchener came to prominence for his imperial campaigns, his involvement in the Second Boer War, and his central role in the early part of the First World War.
William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook, generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics of the first half of the 20th century. His base of power was the largest circulation newspaper in the world, the Daily Express, which appealed to the conservative working class with intensely patriotic news and editorials. During the Second World War, he played a major role in mobilising industrial resources as Winston Churchill's Minister of Aircraft Production.
Sir David Alexander Cecil Low was a New Zealand political cartoonist and caricaturist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years. Low was a self-taught cartoonist. Born in New Zealand, he worked in his native country before migrating to Sydney in 1911, and ultimately to London (1919), where he made his career and earned fame for his Colonel Blimp depictions and his satirising of the personalities and policies of German dictator Adolf Hitler, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and other leaders of his times.
The Home Guard was an armed citizen militia supporting the British Army during the Second World War. Operational from 1940 to 1944, the Home Guard had 1.5 million local volunteers otherwise ineligible for military service, such as those who were too young or too old to join the regular armed services and those in reserved occupations. Excluding those already in the armed services, the civilian police or civil defence, approximately one in five men were volunteers. Their role was to act as a secondary defence force in case of invasion by the forces of Nazi Germany.
Boffin is a British slang term for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific research and development. A "boffin" was viewed by some in the regular military or government services as odd, quirky or peculiar, though quite bright and essential to helping in the war effort through having and developing the key ideas leading to transformative military capabilities.
Reginald Tate was an English actor, veteran of many roles on stage, in films and on television. He is remembered best as the first actor to play the television science-fiction character Professor Bernard Quatermass, in the 1953 BBC Television serial The Quatermass Experiment.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a 1943 British romantic-war film written, produced and directed by the British film-making team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It stars Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr and Anton Walbrook. The title derives from the satirical Colonel Blimp comic strip by David Low, but the story is original. One film critic has described it as "England's greatest film ever" and it is renowned for its sophistication and directorial brilliance as well as for its script, the performances of its large cast and for its pioneering Technicolor cinematography. Among its distinguished company of actors, particular praise has been reserved for Livesey, Walbrook and Kerr.
The Minister of Aircraft Production was, from 1940 to 1945, the British government minister at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, one of the specialised supply ministries set up by the British Government during World War II. It was responsible for aircraft production for the British forces, primarily the Royal Air Force, but also the Fleet Air Arm.
Thomas Henry Wintringham was a British soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, Marxist, politician and author. He was a supporter of the Home Guard during the Second World War and was one of the founders of the Common Wealth Party.
The British film-making partnership of Michael Powell (1905–1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988)—together often known as The Archers, the name of their production company—made a series of influential films in the 1940s and 1950s. Their collaborations—24 films between 1939 and 1972—were mainly derived from original stories by Pressburger with the script written by both Pressburger and Powell. Powell did most of the directing while Pressburger did most of the work of the producer and also assisted with the editing, especially the way the music was used. Unusually, the pair shared a writer-director-producer credit for most of their films. The best-known of these are The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947), The Red Shoes (1948), and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951).
Sir John William Maxwell Aitken, 2nd Baronet,, briefly 2nd Baron Beaverbrook in 1964, was a Canadian-British fighter pilot and flying ace of the Second World War, a Conservative politician, and press baron. He was the son of Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook.
Sir Osbert Lancaster was an English cartoonist, architectural historian, stage designer and author. He was known for his cartoons in the British press, and for his lifelong work to inform the general public about good buildings and architectural heritage.
General Sir Frederick Alfred Pile, 2nd Baronet, was a senior British Army officer who served in both World Wars. In the Second World War he was General Officer Commanding Anti-Aircraft Command, one of the elements that protected Britain from aerial attack.
Sir John Elliot was a British transport and railway manager. Born John Elliot Blumenfeld, he was the son of the Daily Mail news editor R. D. Blumenfeld He changed his surname to Elliot in March 1923 on the advice of Lord Beaverbrook.
The Cardwell Reforms were a series of reforms of the British Army undertaken by Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell between 1868 and 1874 with the support of Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone paid little attention to military affairs but he was keen on efficiency. In 1870, he pushed through Parliament major changes in Army organisation. The German Empire's stunning triumph over the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War proved that the Prussian system of professional soldiers with up-to-date weapons was far superior to the traditional system of gentlemen-soldiers that Britain used.
"My Country Right or Left" is an essay published in 1940 by the English author George Orwell. In it Orwell seeks to reconcile his intense feeling of patriotism and his left-wing views.
Humphrey Richard "Hugh" Slater (1906–1958) was an English author and painter.
Maud, Countess of Littlehampton, known as Maudie, is a cartoon character created by Osbert Lancaster. From the late 1940s until Lancaster’s retirement in 1981 Maudie was the leading character in his regular cast of his pocket cartoons in The Daily Express.
Gammon is a pejorative popularised in British political culture since around 2012. The term refers in particular to the colour of a white person's flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, as compared to the type of pork of the same name. It is characterised in this context by the Oxford English Dictionary as occurring "in various parasynthetic adjectives referring to particularly reddish or florid complexions".
