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England

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Etymology

See also: List of meanings of countries' names

England is named after the Angles (Old English genitive case, "Engla" — hence, Old English "Engla Land"), the largest of a number of Germanic tribes who settled in England in the fifth and sixth centuries, who are believed to have originated in the peninsula of Angeln, in modern-day northern Germany.

Their name has had a variety of different spellings. The earliest known reference to these people is under the name Anglii by Tacitus in chapter 40 of his Germania,^[8] written around 98. He gives no precise indication of their geographical position within Germania, but states that, together with six other tribes, they worshipped a goddess named Nerthus, whose sanctuary was situated on "an island in the Ocean."

The terms Angelfolc, Anglorum and Anglis were all used by Bede in Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People) when referring to England and the English people.^[9]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary entry^[10], the word Angle is derived from the same root as the word angle, originally meaning a fish hook and in this instance referring to the shape of the district where the Angles originated.

History

For more information, see: History of England

Prehistoric England

For more information, see: Prehistoric Britain

Bones and flint tools found in Norfolk and Suffolk show that homo erectus lived in what is now England around 700,000 years ago.^[11] At this time, England was linked to mainland Europe by a large land bridge. The current position of the English Channel was a large river flowing westwards and fed by tributaries that would later become the Thames and the Seine. These people as were depopulated during the period of the last major ice age as with other inhabitants of the British Isles. In the subsequent recolonisation, after the thawing of the ice, genetic research^[12] shows that 'England' was the last area of the British Isles to be repopulated (circa 13,000 years ago). The migrants arriving during this period contrast with the other of the inhabitants of the British Isles, coming across land from the south east of Europe, whereas earlier arriving inhabitants came north along a costal route from Iberia.

Roman conquest of England

By AD 43, the time of the successful Roman invasion of England, Britain had already frequently been the target of invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the Roman Republic and Roman Empire. Julius Caesar in 55 B.C. made landings and in 54 B.C. he defeated the Britons, led by Cassivellaunus. Like other regions on the edge of the empire, Britain had long enjoyed trading links with the Romans and their economic and cultural influence was a significant part of the British late pre-Roman Iron Age, especially in the south. After a century of weakness, the final Roman collapse came in 410. Apart from some roads and the location of towns, however, the long-term social, linguistic, or cultural impact of the Romans was very small after they left.^[13]

Anglo-Saxon England

For more information, see: History of Anglo-Saxon England

Further information: Anglo-Saxon conquest of England

The History of Anglo-Saxon England covers the history of early mediaeval England from the end of Roman Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the fifth century until the Conquest by the Normans in 1066.

Fragmentary knowledge of Anglo-Saxon England in the fifth and sixth centuries comes from the British writer Gildas (6th century) the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (a history of the English people begun in the ninth century), saints' lives, poetry, archaeological findings, and place-name studies.

The dominant themes of the seventh to tenth centuries were the spread of Christianity and the political unification of England. Christianity is thought to have come from three directions — Rome from the south and Scotland and Ireland to the north and west.

Heptarchy is a term used to refer to the existence (as believed) of the seven petty kingdoms which eventually merged to become the Kingdom of England during the early tenth century. These included Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex.

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms tended to coalesce by means of warfare. As early as the time of Ethelbert of Kent, one king could be recognised as Bretwalda, or "Lord of Britain". Generally speaking, the title fell in the seventh century to the kings of Northumbria, in the eighth to those of Mercia, and finally, in the ninth, to Egbert of Wessex, who in 825 defeated the Mercians at Ellendun. In the next century his family came to rule all England.

Kingdom of England

Originally, England (or Angleland) was a geographical term to describe the territory of Britain which was occupied by the Anglo-Saxons, rather than a name of an individual nation state.

The Kingdom of England was not founded until the separate petty kingdoms were unified under Alfred the Great King of Wessex, who later proclaimed himself King of the English after liberating London from the Danes in 886.

For the next few hundred years, the Kingdom of England would fall in and out of power between several West-Saxon and Danish kings. For over half a century, the unified Kingdom of England became part of a vast Danish empire under Canute the Great, before regaining independence for a short period under the restored West-Saxon lineage of Edward the Confessor.

The Kingdom of England continued to exist as an independent nation-state right through to the Acts of Union and the Union of Crowns. However the political ties and direction of England were changed forever by the Norman conquest in 1066.

Norman conquest

The Norman conquest of England was the conquest of the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy), in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings and the subsequent Norman control of England. It is an important watershed in English history for a number of reasons. The conquest linked England more closely with Continental Europe and lessened Scandinavian influence. The success of the conquest established one of the most powerful monarchies in Europe, created the most sophisticated governmental system in Europe, changed the English language and culture, and set the stage for English-French conflict that would last into the nineteenth century.

The events of the conquest also paved the way for a pivotal historical document to be produced - the Domesday Book. The Domesday Book was the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, executed for William the Conqueror. The survey was similar to a census by a government of today and is England's earliest surviving public records document.

To date, the Norman conquest remains the last successful military conquest of England.

Mediaeval

The next few hundred years saw England as an important part of expanding and dwindling empires based in France, with the "King of England" being a subsidiary title of a succession of French-speaking Dukes of territories in what is now France. Only when English kings realised that their losses in France meant that England was now their richest and most important possession did they accept the same "nationality" and language as their subjects in England. They used England as a source of troops to enlarge their personal holdings in France for many years (Hundred Years' War); in fact the English crown did not relinquish its last foothold on mainland France until Calais was lost during the reign of Mary Tudor (the Channel Islands are still crown dependencies, though not part of the UK).

The Principality of Wales, under the control of English monarchs from the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. Wales shared a legal identity with England as the joint entity originally called England and later England and Wales.

Reformation

The English Reformation was the process whereby the external authority of the Roman Catholic Church in England was abolished and replaced with Royal Supremacy and the establishment of a Church of England outside the Roman Catholic Church and under the Supreme Governance of the English monarch. The English Reformation differed from its other European counterparts in that it was more of a political than a theological dispute which was at the root of it.^[14] The break with Rome started in the reign of Henry VIII.

The English Reformation ultimately paved the way for the spread of Anglicanism in the church and other institutions.

English Civil War

For more information, see: English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations which took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651. The first (1642–1645) and second (1648–1649) civil wars pitted the supporters of King Charles I against the supporters of the Long Parliament, while the third war of (1649–1651) saw fighting between supporters of King Charles II and supporters of the Rump Parliament. The Civil War ended with the Parliamentary victory at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

The Civil War led to the trial and execution of Charles I, the exile of his son Charles II and the replacement of the English monarchy with the Commonwealth of England (1649–1653) and then with a Protectorate (1653–1659): the personal rule of Oliver Cromwell. The monopoly of the Church of England on Christian worship in England came to an end, and the victors consolidated the already-established Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Constitutionally, the wars established a precedent that British monarchs could not govern without the consent of Parliament although this would not be cemented until the Glorious Revolution later in the century.

Cromwell^[15]

Charles II was the restored House of Stuart King of England in 1660.

King William III

Great Britain and the United Kingdom

When the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland merged to form the unified United Kingdom of Great Britain under the Acts of Union in 1707, both England and Scotland lost their individual political identities, while keeping separate legal identities. This union has subsequently changed its name twice: firstly on the merger with the Kingdom of Ireland following the Act of Union in 1800 creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, and then following the secession from the union of the Irish Free State under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with the official name being changed in 1925. Throughout these changes, England retained a separate legal identity from its partners, with a separate legal system (English law) from those in Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland law) and Scotland ("Scots law"), and eventually the strong feelings of the Welsh were acknowledged when it was decided that the name would henceforth be "England and Wales".

Politics

For more information, see: Politics of England, Politics of the United Kingdom, and Government of England

There has not been a Government of England since 1707 when the Kingdom of England merged with the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, although both kingdoms had been ruled by a single monarch since 1603 under James I. Prior to the Acts of Union 1707, England was ruled by a monarch and the Parliament of England.

Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland were given their own devolved parliaments shortly before the secession of the Irish Free State, and Northern Ireland continued to be the only region of the United Kingdom with a devolved government, until 1973. The Scottish and Welsh governing institutions were created by the UK parliament along with strong support from the majority of people of Scotland and Wales, and are not independent of the rest of the United Kingdom. However, this gave each country a separate and distinct political identity, leaving England (83% of the UK population) as the only part of the UK directly ruled in nearly all matters by the British government in London. In Cornwall, a region of England claiming a distinct national identity, there has been a campaign for a Cornish assembly along Welsh lines by nationalist parties such as Mebyon Kernow.

In terms of national administration, England's affairs are managed by a combination of the UK government, the UK parliament, a number of England-specific quangos, , and the mostly unelected Regional Assemblies (a kind of nascent executive for each English Region).

There are calls for a "devolved" English Parliament, and some English people and parties go further by calling for the dissolution of the Union entirely. However, the approach favoured by the current Labour government was (on the basis that England is too large to be governed as a single sub-state entity) to propose the devolution of power to the Regions of England. Lord Falconer claimed a devolved English parliament would dwarf the rest of the United Kingdom.^[16] Referendums would decide whether people wanted to vote for directly-elected regional assemblies to watch over the work of the non-elected Regional Development Agencies.

During the campaign, a common criticism of the proposals was that England did not need "another tier of bureaucracy".^[17] On the other hand, many said that they were not decentralising enough, and amounted not to devolution, but to little more than local government reorganisation, with no real power being removed from central government, and no real power given to the regions, which would not even gain the limited powers of the Welsh Assembly, much less the tax-varying and legislative powers of the Scottish Parliament (but Welsh powers are now being expanded). They said that power was simply re-allocated within the region, with little new resource allocation and no real prospects of Assemblies being able to change the pattern of regional aid. Late in the process, responsibility for regional transport was added to the proposals. This was perhaps crucial in the North East, where resentment at the Barnett Formula, which delivers greater regional aid to adjacent Scotland, was a significant impetus for the North East devolution campaign. However, a referendum on this issue in North East England on 4 November 2004 rejected this proposal, and plans for referendums in other Regions (such as Yorkshire) were shelved.

Subdivisions

Historically, the highest level of local government in England was the county. These divisions had emerged from a range of units of old, pre-unification England (such as the Kingdoms of Sussex and Kent) and further mediaeval reorganisations (sometimes using duchies such as Lancashire and Cornwall). These historical county lines were usually drawn up before the industrial revolution and the mass urbanisation of England. The counties each had a county town and many county names were drawn from these (for example Nottinghamshire, from Nottingham).

A series of local government reorganisations have taken place since the latter part of the nineteenth century. The solution to the emergence of large urban areas was the creation of large metropolitan counties centred on cities (an example being Greater Manchester). The creation of unitary authorities, where districts gained the administrative status of a county, began with the 1990s reform of local government. Today, some confusion exists between the ceremonial counties (which do not necessarily form an administrative unit) and the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties.

Non-metropolitan counties (or "shire counties") are divided into one or more districts. At the very lowest level, England is divided into parishes, though these are not to be found everywhere (many urban areas for example are unparished). Parishes are prohibited from existing in Greater London.

England is now also divided into nine regions, which do not have an elected authority and exist to co-ordinate certain local government functions across a wider area. London is an exception, however, and is the one region which now has a representative authority as well as a directly elected mayor. The 32 London boroughs and the Corporation of London remain the local form of government in the city.

Geography

(CC) Photo: Paolo Margari
The city of York is a popular tourist destination; it was once the Roman capital of England, Eboracum.

For more information, see: Geography of the United Kingdom and Geography of England

England comprises the central and southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain, plus offshore islands of which the largest is the Isle of Wight. It is bordered to the north by Scotland and to the west by Wales. It is closer to continental Europe than any other part of the UK, divided from France only by a 52 km.) ^[18] sea gap.

Most of England consists of rolling hills, but it is more mountainous in the north with a chain of low mountains, the Pennines, dividing east and west. The dividing line between terrain types is usually indicated by the Tees-Exe line. There is also an area of flat, low-lying marshland in the east, the Fens, much of which has been drained for agricultural use.

The list of England's largest cities is much debated because in English the normal meaning of "city" is "a continuously built-up urban area"; these are hard to define and various other definitions are preferred by some people to boost the ranking of their own city. For the official definition of a UK (and therefore English) city, see City status in the United Kingdom. However, by any definition London is by far the largest urban area in England and one of the largest and busiest cities in the world. Birmingham is the second largest, both in terms of the city itself and its urban conurbation. A number of other cities, mainly in central and northern England, are of substantial size and influence. These include: Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield, Bristol, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham and Hull.

The Channel Tunnel, near Folkestone, directly links England to the European mainland. The English/French border is halfway along the tunnel.

The largest natural harbour in England is at Poole, on the south-central coast.

Climate

Scarborough, a seaside town in North Yorkshire, relies on pleasant weather as a popular tourist destination.

For more information, see: Climate of the United Kingdom

England has a temperate climate, with plentiful rainfall all year round, though the seasons are quite variable in temperature. However, temperatures rarely fall below −5 °C (23 °F) or rise above 30 °C (86 °F). The prevailing wind is from the southwest, bringing mild and wet weather to England regularly from the Atlantic Ocean. It is driest in the east and warmest in the south, which is closest to the European mainland. Snowfall can occur in Winter and early Spring, though it is not that common away from high ground.

The highest temperature ever recorded in England is 38.5 °C]] (101.3 °F]]) on August 10, 2003 at Brogdale, near Faversham, in Kent.^[19] The lowest temperature ever recorded in England is -26.1 °C (-15.0 °F]]) on January 10, 1982 at Edgmond, near Newport, in Shropshire.^[20]

Major rivers

Severn (the longest river basin in Great Britain)
Thames
Trent
Humber
Tyne
Tees
Ribble
Ouse
Mersey
Dee
Avon

Major conurbations

Largest city^[21]

The largest cities in England are much debated but according to the urban area populations (continuous built-up areas) these would be the fifteen largest conurbations (population figures taken from 2001 census):

Greater London Urban Area

8,278,251</tr>

West Midlands conurbation

2,284,093</tr>

Greater Manchester Urban Area

2,240,230</tr>

West Yorkshire Urban Area

1,499,465</tr>

Tyneside

879,996</tr>

Liverpool Urban Area

816,216</tr>

Nottingham City Area

666,358</tr>

Sheffield Urban Area

640,720</tr>

Greater Bristol

551,066</tr>

Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton

461,181</tr>

Portsmouth Urban Area

442,252</tr>

Leicester Urban Area

441,213</tr>

Bournemouth Urban Area

383,713</tr>

Reading/Wokingham Urban Area

369,804</tr>

Teesside

365,323</tr>

Economics

Financial centre^[22] England's economy is the second largest economy in Europe and the fifth largest economy in the world. It follows the Anglo-Saxon economic model. England's economy is the largest of the four economies of the United Kingdom, with 100 of Europe's 500 largest corporations based in London.^[23] As part of the United Kingdom, England is a major centre of world economics. One of the world's most highly industrialised countries, England is a leader in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and in key technical industries, particularly aerospace, the arms industry and the manufacturing side of the software industry.

London exports mainly manufactured goods and imports materials such as oil, tea, wool, sugar, timber, butter, metals, and meat,^[24] exporting over 30,000 tonnes of beef last year, worth around £75,000,000, with France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain being the biggest importers of beef from England.^[25]

The central bank of the United Kingdom, which sets interest rates and implements monetary policy, is the Bank of England in London. London is also home to the London Stock Exchange, the main stock exchange in the UK and the largest in the world. London, is an international leader in finance^[26] and the largest financial centre in Europe.

Traditional heavy and manufacturing industries have declined sharply in England in recent decades, as they have in the United Kingdom as a whole. At the same time, service industries have grown in importance. For example, tourism is the sixth largest industry in the UK, contributing 76 billion pounds to the economy. It employs 1,800,000 full-time equivalent people — 6.1% of the working population (2002 figures).^[27] The largest centre for tourism is London, which attracts millions of international tourists every year.

As part of the United Kingdom, England's official currency is the Pound Sterling (also known as the British pound or GBP).

Demographics

For more information, see: Demographics of England and Population of England

England is both the most populous and the most ethnically diverse nation in the United Kingdom with 50,431,700 inhabitants, or 84% of the UK's total.^[28] England would have the fourth largest population in the European Union and would be the 25th largest country by population if it were a sovereign state. The country's population is 'ageing', with a declining percentage of the population under age 16 and a rising one of over 65. Population continues to rise and in every year since 1901, with the exception of 1976, there have been more births than deaths.^[29] England is one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, with 383 people per square kilometre (992/sq mi),^[30] making it second only to the Netherlands.

There is a debate over the extent to which the population of England (and indeed that of United Kingdom as a whole) is composed of long-standing indigenous stock or descended from various groups of settlers and immigrants who have arrived over millennia. The Cheddar Man has been cited as demonstrating that a substantial proportion of the present day population may be descended from groups that populated the island in prehistory (The Times, 8 March 1997). The often given view of English ethnicity is that it is a mixed one with large influences from various waves of Celtic, Norse, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions.

The economic prosperity of England has also made it a destination for economic migrants from the periphery of the UK; this was particularly true during the Industrial Revolution.

Since the fall of the British Empire, many denizens of former colonies have migrated to the United Kingdom including the Indian sub-continent and the British Caribbean. A BBC published report of the 2001 census, by the Institute for Public Policy Research stated that the vast majority of immigrants settled in London and the South East of England. The largest groups of residents born in other countries were from the Ireland, India, Pakistan, Germany, and the Caribbean. Though Germany was high on the list, this was mainly the result of children being born to British forces personnel stationed in that country.^[31]

Culture

England has a vast culture that encompasses elements both old and new. The modern culture of England is sometimes difficult to identify and separate clearly from the culture of the wider United Kingdom, so intertwined are its composite nations. However, the traditional and historic culture of England is more clearly defined.

English Heritage is a governmental body with a broad remit of managing the historic sites, artifacts and environments of England. London's British Museum, British Library and National Gallery contain some of the finest collections in the world.

The English have played a significant role in the development of the arts and sciences. Many of the most important figures in the history of modern western scientific and philosophical thought were either born in, or at one time or other resided in, England. Major English thinkers of international significance include scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Charles Darwin and New Zealand-born Ernest Rutherford, philosophers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Bertrand Russell and Thomas Hobbes, and economists such as David Ricardo, and John Maynard Keynes. Karl Marx wrote most of his important works, including Das Kapital, whilst in exile in London, and the team that developed the first atomic bomb began their work in the England, under the wartime codename tube alloys.

Architecture

See also: Category:English architects and Architecture of the United Kingdom

England has played a significant part in the advancement of Western architecture. It is home to some of the finest mediaeval castles and forts in the world (see Castles in England), including Warwick Castle, the Tower of London and Windsor Castle (the largest inhabited castle in the world and the oldest in continuous occupation). It is also known for its numerous grand country houses (see List of historic houses in England), and for its many mediaeval and later churches and cathedrals.

English architects have contributed to a number of styles over the centuries, including Tudor architecture, English Baroque, the Georgian style and Victorian movements such as Gothic Revival.

Among the best-known contemporary English architects are Norman Foster and Richard Rogers.

Art

England is home to the National Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St. Ives, and the Tate Modern. Significant figures in English art include William Blake, William Hogarth, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, through to the influential William Morris in the late nineteenth, to L. S. Lowry, Henry Moore and Francis Bacon during the twentieth century, and names such as David Hockney and Damien Hirst in the present day.

Cuisine

For more information, see: English cuisine

A typical pub meal may include chips accompanying steak, washed down with beer.

Although highly-regarded in the Middle Ages, English cuisine later became a source of fun among the UK's French and European neighbours, being viewed until the late twentieth century as crude and unsophisticated by comparison with continental tastes. For example, the humble chip is a popular accompaniment to many dishes; these are simply potatoes cut into strips and deep-fried or grilled. However, with the influx of non-European immigrants (particularly those of south and east Asian origins) from the 1950s onwards, the English diet was transformed. Indian and Chinese cuisine in particular were absorbed into English culinary life, with restaurants and takeaways appearing in almost every town in England, and 'going for an Indian' becoming a regular part of English social life. A distinct hybrid food style composed of dishes of Asian origin, but adapted to British tastes, emerged and was subsequently exported to other parts of the world. Many of the well-known Indian dishes in the western world, such as Tikka Masala and Balti, are in fact Anglo-Indian dishes of this sort. Chicken Tikka Masala is often jokingly referred to as England's national dish, in a reference both to its English origins and to its enormous popularity.

Dishes forming part of the old tradition of English food include:

Engineering and innovation

See also: Category:English inventors and Category:English inventions

As birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England was home to many significant inventors during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Famous English engineers include Isambard Kingdom Brunel, best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, and numerous important bridges.

Recent English inventors include James Dyson, inventor of the Dual Cyclone bagless vacuum cleaner.

Other notable English figures in the fields of engineering and innovation include:

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, http, html, and many of the other technologies on which the Web is based.
Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine.
Charles Babbage, inventor of the first computer (in the nineteenth century).
Alan Turing and Tommy Flowers, inventors of the modern computer and its associated concepts and technologies.
Richard Trevithick, builder of the earliest steam locomotive.
Richard Arkwright, inventor of the first industrial spinning machine.
Joseph Whitworth, inventor of many of the modern techniques and technologies of precision engineering.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, inventor (in addition to the above) of the propeller, and pioneer of many modern structural engineering and construction techniques.
James Blundell, who performed the first blood transfusion.
Hubert Cecil Booth inventor of the Vacuum cleaner.
Edwin Beard Budding, inventor of the lawnmower.
George Cayley, inventor of the seat belt.
Thomas Fowler, inventor of the thermosiphon.
Stephen Perry, inventor of the rubber band.
E. Purnell Hooley, inventor of tarmac.
Joseph Swan, developer of the light bulb.
Percy Shaw, inventor of the "cat's eye" road safety device.

Folklore

For more information, see: English folklore

English folklore is rich and diverse. Many of the land's oldest legends share themes and sources with the Celtic folklore of Wales, Scotland and Ireland, a typical example being the legend of Herne the Hunter, which shares many similarities with the traditional Welsh legend of Gwyn ap Nudd.

Successive waves of pre-Norman invaders and settlers, from the Romans onwards, via Saxons, Jutes, Angles, Norse to the Norman Conquest have all influenced the myth and legend of England. Some tales, such as that of The Lambton Wyrm show a distinct Norse influence, whilst others, particularly some of the events and characters associated with the Arthurian legends show a distinct romano-gaulic slant.^[32]

The most famous body of English folktales concerns the legends of King Arthur, although it would be wrong to regard these stories as purely English in origin as they also concern Wales and, to a lesser extent, Ireland and Scotland. They should therefore be considered as part of the folklore of the British Isles as a whole.

Post-Norman stories include the tales of Robin Hood, which exists in many forms, and stories of other folk heroes such as Hereward The Wake and Dunn of Cumbria who, although being based on historical characters, have grown to become legends in their own right.

Finally, other historical figures come to have legends associated with them (such as Sir Francis Drake and 'Drake's Drum'). These figures then move out of the realm of historical fact and into the realm of mythology.

Literature

For more information, see: English literature

The English language boasts a rich and prominent literary heritage. England has produced a wealth of significant literary figures including playwrights William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, as well as writers Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Dickens, Mary Shelley, H.G. Wells, George Eliot, Rudyard Kipling, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell and Harold Pinter. Others, such as Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton and J.K. Rowling have been among the best-selling novelists of the last century. Among the poets, Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sydney, Thomas Kyd, John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, John Milton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and many others remain read and studied around the world. Among men of letters, Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt and George Orwell are some of the most famous. England continues to produce writers working in all branches of literature, and in a wide range of styles; contemporary English literary writers attracting international attention include Martin Amis, Julian Barnes and Zadie Smith.

Music

For more information, see: Music of England

Composers from England have often not achieved recognition as broad as that earned by their literary counterparts, and particularly during the nineteenth century were overshadowed in international reputation by other European composers; however, many works of earlier composers such as Thomas Tallis, William Byrd, and Henry Purcell are still frequently performed today, and a revival of England's musical status began during the twentieth century with the prominence of composers such as Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, William Walton, Eric Coates, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frederick Delius and Benjamin Britten.

In popular music, English bands and solo artists have been cited as among the most influential and best-selling musicians of all time. Acts such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, David Bowie, Queen, Oasis, Sir Elton John and Coldplay are amongst the biggest selling in the world. England is also credited with being the birthplace of many pop-culture movements such as britpop, glam rock, drum and bass, grindcore, progressive rock, punk, shoegazing, acid house and UK Garage.

Science and philosophy

Prominent English figures from the fields of science and mathematics include Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, J. J. Thomson, Charles Babbage, Stephen Hawking, Christopher Wren, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Joseph Lister, Tim Berners-Lee, Andrew Wiles and Richard Dawkins. Many scientists from other UK nations have completed their achievements whilst working at English academic institutions; for example, the Scotsmen Alexander Fleming and James Clerk Maxwell.

England played an important role in the development of Western philosophy, particularly during the Enlightenment. Major English philosophers include Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Bernard Williams and Bertrand Russell. Jeremy Bentham, leader of the Philosophical Radicals, and his school are recognised as the men who unknowingly laid down the doctrines for Socialism.^[33] Bentham's impact on English law is also considerable.

Sport

For more information, see: Sport in England

A number of modern sports were codified in England during the nineteenth century, among them cricket, rugby union and rugby league, football, tennis and badminton. Of these, association football, rugby and cricket remain the country's most popular spectator sports. England contains more UEFA 5 star and 4 star rated stadia than any other country, and is home to some of the sport's top clubs. The England national football team are considered one of the game's superpowers (currently ranked 8th by FIFA and 7th by Elo), having won the World Cup in 1966 when it was hosted in England. Since then, however, they have failed to reach a final of a major international tournament, though they reached the semi-finals of the World Cup in 1990 and the quarter-finals in 2002 and 2006 and Euro 2004.

The England national rugby union team and England cricket team are often among the best performing in the world, with the rugby union team winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup, and the cricket team winning The Ashes in 2005, and being ranked the second best Test nation in the world. Rugby union clubs such as Leicester Tigers, London Wasps and the Northampton Saints have had success in the Europe-wide Heineken Cup. At rugby league, the Eng