Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that answer the question.
Query: When did the Armley asbestos disaster first begin?
The contamination was the result of the activities of a local asbestos factory, part of the Turner & Newall (T&N) group (often referred to by the name of its founders, J. W. Roberts Ltd.) and occurred between the end of the 19th century and 1959 when the factory eventually closed. At its peak the factory had 250 employees. At least 300 former employees are believed to have died from asbestos-related illnesses, and a number of cancer deaths in the Armley area were traced to the factory in 1988 as a result of an investigation by the "Yorkshire Evening Post". The estate was found to have the highest incidence in the country of mesothelioma. As the interval between exposure and diagnosis can be up to 50 years the number of further deaths which may occur due to the factory's emissions or residual dust since its closure cannot be predicted.
The term "asbestos ware" refers to vessels containing 90% asbestos and 10% clay. Asbestos ware can resist heat up to 900–1000 °C. The clay made shaping of the vessel possible, but the high amount of asbestos does not classify it as pottery in a formal sense. It is believed that the asbestos ware was used in iron production such as spearheads, arrowheads and artefacts. The vessel is also drilled with many holes. The fact that the reduction of iron ore (FeO) with abundant carbon generates large amounts of carbon monoxide (CO) may suggest that the drilled holes were used to increase the influx of air (oxygen) required for proper glowing process. Iron ore is abundant in lakes e.g. in Finland.
Arguably the first highly mechanised factory was John Lombe's water-powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721. Lombe learned silk thread manufacturing by taking a job in Italy and acting as an industrial spy; however, because the Italian silk industry guarded its secrets closely, the state of the industry at that time is unknown. Although Lombe's factory was technically successful, the supply of raw silk from Italy was cut off to eliminate competition. In order to promote manufacturing the Crown paid for models of Lombe's machinery which were exhibited in the Tower of London.
Asbestos ware is usually classified under comb ceramic ware. From the times of the earliest comb ware (ca. 5000 BC) in Finland, asbestos was mixed with clay as an adhesive. At some point, people started to make use of the characteristics of asbestos: its long fibres allowed large vessels with thin walls, which made them lighter, without compromising durability. Some of the vessels had 6 mm thick walls with a diameter of around 50 cm (Pöljä-style). The ware is divided into the following styles (Finland):
Since European Union directive 2007/51/EC came into force on 3 April 2009, the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA) reported that mercury thermometers could no longer be sold to the general public. Shops holding stocks of unsold thermometers had to withdraw them from sale; mercury thermometers purchased before this date could be used without legal implications. The purpose of these restrictions is to protect the environment and public health by decreasing the amount of mercury waste released. The HPA had, in 2007, released a guide to dealing with small spills of mercury.
On 15 June 1919 the first non-stop transatlantic flight by Alcock and Brown crashlanded in Derrygimlagh bog, close to Marconi's transatlantic wireless station. When Captain Alcock spotted the green bog he thought it was a meadow where he could safely land his Vickers Vimy biplane. The plane's landing gear sank into the soft bog and was destroyed. Alcock and Brown had to walk into town with minor injuries. When they returned using the Marconi Railway, the locals had helped themselves to parts of the plane as souvenirs.
The Admiralty Signal and Radar Establishment (ASRE) originally known as the Experimental Department and later known as the Admiralty Signal Establishment (ASE) and Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment (ASWE) was a research organisation of the British Royal Navy established in 1917 it existed until 1959 when it was merged with the Admiralty Gunnery Establishment to form the Admiralty Surface Weapons Establishment its headquarters were located in Haslemere, Surrey, England.
Harry Brearley (18 February 1871 – 14 July 1948) was an English metallurgist, usually credited with the invention of "rustless steel" (later to be called "stainless steel" in the anglophone world).
The North American Insulation Manufacturers Association (NAIMA) claims that glass fiber is fundamentally different from asbestos, since it is man-made instead of naturally occurring. They claim that glass fiber "dissolves in the lungs", while asbestos remains in the body for life. Although both glass fiber and asbestos are made from silica filaments, NAIMA claims that asbestos is more dangerous because of its crystalline structure, which causes it to cleave into smaller, more dangerous pieces, citing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:
Alexander Fleming had first discovered penicillin by accident in 1928, but at that time believed it had little application. When Florey and his team recognised the potential of the discovery for combating bacterial infection, they faced the problem of how to manufacture penicillin in sufficient quantities to be of use. Heatley, although the junior member of the team, possessed a natural gift for ingenuity and invention. It was he who suggested transferring the active ingredient of penicillin back into water by changing its acidity, thus purifying the penicillin.
On Sunday, July 13, 1890, Frémont (age 77) died of peritonitis at his residence at 49 West Twenty-fifth Street in New York. His death was unexpected and his brief illness was not generally known. On Tuesday, July 8, Frémont had been affected by the heat of a particularly hot summer day. On Wednesday he came down with a chill and was confined to his bedroom. His symptoms progressed to peritonitis (an abdominal infection) which caused his death. At the time he died, Frémont was popularly known as the ""Pathfinder of the Rocky Mountains"". Initially interred at Trinity Church Cemetery, he was reinterred in Rockland Cemetery in Sparkill, New York on March 17, 1891.
The gas used at Wulverghem was a mixture of chlorine and phosgene, which had been used against British troops on 19 December 1915 in the phosgene attack at Wieltje, north-east of Ypres. This and earlier gas attacks, beginning at the Second Battle of Ypres (21 April – 25 May 1915) had given the British time to replace improvised gas masks with effective mass-produced versions, obtain other anti-gas equipment and to establish anti-gas procedures. Helmets impregnated with chemicals to neutralise chlorine had been issued in several variants, each more effective than the last. By April 1916, British troops had PH helmets and some specialist troops like machine-gunners, were equipped with box respirators. The German gas attack at Wulverghem on 30 April, caused the defenders casualties and fatalities but German raiding parties, looking for mine entrances to destroy, were repulsed with small-arms and artillery fire. A second attempt by the Germans on 17 June caused about the same number of gas casualties but the British again easily repulsed German patrols.
, medical authorities concluded that 1,140 people who worked, lived, or studied in Lower Manhattan at the time of the attack have been diagnosed with cancer as a result of "exposure to toxins at Ground Zero". It has been reported that over 1,400 9/11 rescue workers who responded to the scene in the days and months after the attacks have since died. At least 11 pregnancies were lost as a result of 9/11.
On March 1, 1954, the U.S. detonated its first practical thermonuclear weapon (which used isotopes of lithium as its fusion fuel), known as the "Shrimp" device of the Castle Bravo test, at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands. The device yielded 15 megatons, more than twice its expected yield, and became the worst radiological disaster in U.S. history. The combination of the unexpectedly large blast and poor weather conditions caused a cloud of radioactive nuclear fallout to contaminate over . 239 Marshall Island natives and 28 Americans were exposed to significant amounts of radiation, resulting in elevated levels of cancer and birth defects in the years to come.
On 16 November 1996, in Kaspiysk (Dagestan), a bomb destroyed an apartment building housing Russian border guards; 68 people died. The cause of the blast was never determined, but many in Russia blamed it on Chechen separatists. Three people died on 23 April 1997, when a bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Armavir (Krasnodar Krai), and two on 28 May 1997, when another bomb exploded in the Russian railway station of Pyatigorsk (Stavropol Krai).
Similar developments were taking place contemporaneously in the United States, where Christian Dantsizen and Frederick Becket were industrializing ferritic stainless steel. In 1912, Elwood Haynes applied for a US patent on a martensitic stainless steel alloy, which was not granted until 1919.
In 1912, Harry Brearley of the Brown-Firth research laboratory in Sheffield, England, while seeking a corrosion-resistant alloy for gun barrels, discovered and subsequently industrialized a martensitic stainless steel alloy. The discovery was announced two years later in a January 1915 newspaper article in "The New York Times". The metal was later marketed under the "Staybrite" brand by Firth Vickers in England and was used for the new entrance canopy for the Savoy Hotel in London in 1929. Brearley applied for a US patent during 1915 only to find that Haynes had already registered a patent. Brearley and Haynes pooled their funding and with a group of investors formed the American Stainless Steel Corporation, with headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
A mural of Brearley, marking the 100th anniversary of his invention of stainless steel, was commissioned for the side of a building on Howard Street, Sheffield, and was painted by the artist Sarah Yates (aka "Faunagraphic").
Major Alfred Whitmore (1876–1946) was an English pathologist who, together with C.S. Krishnaswami, identified "Burkholderia pseudomallei", the causative agent of melioidosis (also known as "Whitmore's disease") in opium addicts in Rangoon in 1911. He differentiated it from "Burkholderia mallei", the causative agent of glanders, by clinical and microbiological features.
'Moulsey Hurst' is a very early site of cricket (from 1731) and that tradition is continued to this day by East Molesey Cricket Club, which is located alongside the South bank of the Thames, half a mile from Hampton Court Palace. Founded in 1871, it is a thriving local sports club with a long and glorious history. The Club's first XI play in Surrey Championship Premier Division and there are three other senior Saturday league sides and one senior Sunday league side, regularly competing against other Surrey clubs. The club continues to place special emphasis on generating a love of cricket amongst Molesey's junior residents. The first recorded Leg Before Wicket (LBW) dismissal in first class cricket is said to have been given in a game between an XI of Surrey and a XIII of England at this site in 1795. Prior to this date there had been several attempts to formulate a law that would stop batsmen simply obstructing their wicket with their leg pads to prevent being bowled, a tactic regarded as blatant cheating in many quarters. So in this respect Molesey at least can be said to have stopped a blatant dishonesty. The LBW law has been revised several times since then.
The basis for the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" has been said to have been inspired by several newspaper articles printed in the "LA Times" in the 1970s on a group of Khmer refugees, who, after fleeing to America from the Khmer Rouge Genocide in Cambodia, were suffering disturbing nightmares after which they refused to sleep. Some of the men died in their sleep soon after. Medical authorities called the phenomenon "Asian Death Syndrome". The condition itself afflicted only men between the ages of 19-57 and is believed to be sudden unexplained death syndrome and/or Brugada syndrome. The 1970s pop song "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright sealed the story for Craven, giving him not only an artistic setting to "jump off" from, but a synthesizer riff from the "Elm Street" soundtrack as well. It has also been stated that he drew some inspiration after studying eastern religions.
Chamberlain had long enjoyed excellent health, except for occasional attacks of gout, but by July 1940, he was in almost constant pain. He sought treatment, and later that month entered hospital for surgery. Surgeons discovered that he was suffering from terminal bowel cancer, but they concealed it from him, instead telling him that he would not require further surgery. Chamberlain resumed work in mid-August. He returned to his office on 9 September, but renewed pain, compounded by the night-time bombing of London which forced him to go to an air raid shelter and denied him rest, sapped his energy, and he left London for the last time on 19 September. He returned to Highfield Park in Heckfield. He offered his resignation to Churchill on 22 September. The Prime Minister was initially reluctant to accept; but as both men realised that Chamberlain would never return to work, Churchill finally allowed him to resign. The Prime Minister asked if Chamberlain would accept the highest order of British chivalry, the Order of the Garter, of which his brother had been a member. Chamberlain refused. He said he would "prefer to die plain 'Mr Chamberlain' like my father before me, unadorned by any title".
Further claims of compensation for other victims eventually commenced in 2007 when Federal-Mogul emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. By that time, just £91 million was available for T&N's worldwide non-U.S. asbestos liabilities for the next 40 years. Successful applicants receive as little as 17% of the value of their claims.
The Armley asbestos disaster is an ongoing health issue originating in Armley, a suburb of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. Described by Dr. Geoffrey Tweedale as a "social disaster", it involved the contamination with asbestos dust of an area consisting of around 1,000 houses in the Armley Lodge area of the city.
T&N's chairman Sir Colin Hope, writing on 25 October 1989, claimed that after the company vacated and sold the premises in 1959, it had ceased to keep any records relating to the operation, that it held no archived records, and what records might still exist would be "extremely scanty" ("sic") and "largely confined to basic employee record cards." John Battle MP addressed the House of Commons on 8 July 1992 regarding the difficulties faced in mounting a legal case against T&N: "Basically, it is an attempt legally to prove negligence in the face of foreseeable likelihood that harm would occur as a result of causing or permitting asbestos dust to permeate the atmosphere in or around the factory premises in Canal Road, Armley, between 1925 and 1958... The legal test is whether the company knew that the dust could cause serious or possibly fatal injury to those living in the 840 houses nearby who work in the local workplaces or who attend the Armley Clock school... I have reason to believe that the company and other sources, medical and environmental, did have that sort of data, and still do. The difficulty lies in seeking it out - discovering it - and, especially, forcing the company to disclose all that it knew and knows."
J. W. Roberts Ltd. was founded in Armley in 1874 as a textile producer, primarily working with cotton, hemp and jute. By 1906, its factory on Canal Road, known as the Midland Works, specialised in the manufacture of asbestos insulation mattresses for steam locomotive boilers and is believed to have been one of only two factories in the world at the time which processed blue asbestos. In 1920 it merged with Turner Brothers Asbestos Company Ltd., Newalls Insulation Company Ltd., and the Washington Chemical Company Ltd., to form Turner & Newall Ltd., which in 1925 became a public company. T&N's rapid growth has been attributed to a product called "Sprayed Limpet Asbestos", developed in the Armley works in 1931. This was made by mixing raw asbestos with water and cement, the resulting slurry being spray applied to the surface to be insulated, creating a cheap sound- and fireproof coating. Sprayed Limpet Asbestos generated huge profits for T&N who exported the product to 60 countries where it was applied to a wide range of buildings including schools, churches and theatres and the London Underground. The factory at Armley closed in 1959.