title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham was the site of the Bellingham riots against East Indian (Sikh) immigrant workers in 1907. A mob of 400–500 white men, predominantly members of the Asiatic Exclusion League, with intentions to exclude East Indian immigrants from the work force of the local lumber mills, attacked the homes of the South Asian Indians. The Indians were mostly Sikhs but were labeled as Hindus by much of the media of the day.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham's proximity to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and to the Inside Passage to Alaska helped keep some cannery operations here. Pacific American Fisheries (P.A.F.), for example, shipped empty cans to Alaska, where they were packed with fish and shipped back.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The city is situated on Bellingham Bay which is protected by Lummi Island, Portage Island, and the Lummi Peninsula, and opens onto the Strait of Georgia. It lies west of Mount Baker and Lake Whatcom (from which it gets its drinking water) and north of the Chuckanut Mountains and the Skagit Valley. Whatcom Creek runs through the center of the city. Bellingham is south of the US-Canada border and southeast of Vancouver.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which, is land and is water. The lowest elevations are at sea level along the waterfront. Alabama Hill is one of the higher points in the city at about . Elevations of are found near Yew Street Hill north of Lake Padden and near Galbraith Mountain. South and eastward of the city limits are taller foothills of the North Cascades mountains. Mount Baker is the largest peak in the local area, with a summit elevation of that is only from Bellingham Bay. Mount Baker is visible from many parts of the city and western Whatcom County. Lake Whatcom forms part of the eastern boundary of the city, while many smaller lakes and wetland areas are found around the region.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Situated at a latitude of 48.75 North, and thus north of the 48°34' parallel, Bellingham is one of only a few cities in the continental United States that experience astronomical twilight for the entire night. The phenomenon occurs every year between June 14 and June 28.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham's neighborhoods are Alabama Hill, Barkley, Birchwood, Columbia, Cordata, Cornwall Park, Downtown Central Business District, Edgemoor, Fairhaven, Happy Valley, Irongate, King Mountain, Lettered Streets, Meridian, Puget, Roosevelt, Samish, Sehome, Silver Beach, South, South Hill, Sunnyland, Whatcom Falls, Western Washington University (WWU) (including the campus), and York.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham's climate is generally mild and typical of the Puget Sound region. The year-long average daily high and low temperatures are , respectively. Western Whatcom County has a marine oceanic climate that is strongly influenced by the Cascade Range and Olympic Mountains. The Cascades to the east retain the temperate marine influence, while the Olympics provide a rain shadow effect that buffers Bellingham from much of the rainfall approaching from the southwest.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham receives an average annual rainfall of , which is slightly less than nearby Seattle. As evident in the table below, November is typically the wettest month, with numerous frontal rainstorms arriving. Still, precipitation is distributed throughout the rainy period extending from October through April.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham was reported to have the lowest average sunshine amount of any city in the US. Despite this, Bellingham also has mild, pleasant summers and confirmed scientific climate data indicates it is actually less cloudy on average than Seattle (SeaTac), Everett (Paine Field) and Olympia. The hottest summer days rarely exceed and the warmest temperature on record is on August 12, 2021. This is markedly cooler than the record high for Seattle () and most other Washington locations. Drought is rare, although some summers are noticeably drier than others and some normally reliable wells have been known to run dry in August and September. Nevertheless, crops are more frequently ruined by too much rain rather than too little.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham's proximity to the Fraser River valley occasionally subjects it to a harsh winter weather pattern (termed a 'north-Easter') wherein an upper-level trough drives cold Arctic air from the Canadian interior southwesterly through the Fraser River Canyon. Such an event was recorded on November 28, 2006, when air temperatures of were accompanied by winds. Wind chill equivalents reached according to NOAA. Several days into this pattern, local ponds and smaller lakes freeze solidly enough to allow skating. Outflow winds can collide with a Gulf of Alaska moisture and create ice, snow, or heavy rains. This transition can also lead to freezing rain, referred to as a "silver thaw" that produces hazardous roads among other inconveniences.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Its reverse, the "Pineapple Express", refers to acutely mild autumn and winter spells – for most of such a spell, an unusually warm and steady wind comes out of the south. It will typically follow several days of Arctic northeast outflow winds, and it can melt significant snow accumulations quickly, pushing drainage systems to their limits.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: As of 2000, the median income for a household in the city was $32,530, and the median income for a family was $47,196. Males had a median income of $35,288 versus $25,971 for females. The per capita income for the city was $19,483. About 9.4% of families and 20.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.2% of those under age 18 and 9.0% of those aged 65 or over.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 80,885 people, 34,671 households, and 16,129 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 36,760 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 84.9% White, 1.3% African American, 1.3% Native American, 5.1% Asian, 0.3% Pacific Islander, 2.8% from other races, and 4.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 7.0% of the population.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: There were 34,671 households, of which 21.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 34.2% were married couples living together, 8.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 3.5% had a male householder with no wife present, and 53.5% were non-families. 35.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.18 and the average family size was 2.79.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The median age in the city was 31.3 years. 15.6% of residents were under the age of 18; 23.5% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 25.9% were from 25 to 44; 22% were from 45 to 64; and 12.8% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.8% male and 51.2% female.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The mean annual salary of a wage earner in Bellingham is $49,363, which is below the Washington State average of $66,870.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: In the first quarter of 2017, Bellingham's median home sale was $382,763, compared to the Whatcom County median of $322,779. Strong job and income growth, along with low inventory of homes for sale, have contributed to a median monthly rental payment in February 2017 of $1,526.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: According to Bellingham's 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the largest employers in Bellingham are:


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Craft beer is a major emerging industry in Bellingham. There are now 14 breweries within Bellingham city limits and three additional breweries in Whatcom County. In 2018, these breweries combined won 46 medals at seven national and international brewery competitions.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The Bellingham Farmers Market is open on Saturdays from early April to late December. Originally opened in 1993, the Farmers Market now features more than 50 vendors, music and community events. The association also operates a weekly Wednesday market in nearby Fairhaven.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Wednesday nights in the summer see Downtown Sounds, a family-friendly concert series featuring food booths and a beer garden with local breweries held on Bay Street.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: From May to September, the Downtown Bellingham Partnership runs the Commercial Street Night Market, with local food, artisan vendors, live music and performances.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The Whatcom Museum of History and Art sponsors exhibits of painting, sculpture, local history, and is an active participant in the city's monthly Gallery Walks which are pedestrian tours of the historic buildings of the city, offering history and art lessons for local schools and adult groups, and historic cruises on Bellingham Bay.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The Bellingham Railway Museum has educational displays on the history of railroading in Whatcom County, as well as model trains and a freight-train simulator.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention, formerly known as the American Museum of Radio and Electricity, has a collection of rare artifacts from 1580 into the 1950s, providing educational resources about the history of electronics and radio broadcasting. The AMRE also operates KMRE-LP 102.3 FM, a low-power FM radio station which broadcasts a number of old shows popular many decades ago, as well as programming of general interest to the community.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Whatcom Falls Park is a large () public park encompassing the Whatcom Creek gorge, running directly through the heart of the city. It has four sets of waterfalls and several miles of walking trails. Popular activities during warmer weather include swimming, fishing, and strolling along the numerous walking trails. On 10 June 1999, the Olympic pipeline explosion occurred in Whatcom Falls Park, killing three boys who were playing in the vicinity. Operated by Olympic Pipe Line Company, the gas line that crossed Whatcom and Hanna Creeks leaked highly flammable material that turned the creeks pink, and then exploded into flames.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: About east of Bellingham the Mount Baker Ski Area holds the world record for the greatest amount of snowfall in one season (winter 1998–1999). During most years the depth of accumulated snow exceeds .


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: South of the city of Bellingham Chuckanut Drive (Washington State Route 11) has cliffside views of the sea, the San Juan Islands and the Olympic Mountains, the hills and forests of the Chuckanut mountains, and several small bays along the edge of the Salish Sea.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Several miles from Bellingham in the southern part of Whatcom County there are many places for outdoor recreation, including Larrabee State Park (popular for hiking), Lake Padden (popular for swimming, fishing and golfing), and Lake Samish.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: To the east of the city lies Lake Whatcom, which provides the local public water supply and is the source of Whatcom Creek.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Between Lake Whatcom and Lake Padden is North Lookout Mountain, known locally as Galbraith Mountain, with many mountain bike trails.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: In the waters of the Georgia Strait and Puget Sound it is possible to go whale watching to see several pods of orcas (killer whales).


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham's location between two major cities, universities, record labels, and music magazines have all contributed to making Bellingham a desirable and recognized local music scene. The presence of a large university-age population has helped Bellingham become home to a number of regionally and nationally noted musical groups such as Death Cab for Cutie, Odesza, The Posies, Crayon, Idiot Pilot, Mono Men, No-Fi Soul Rebellion, Sculptured, Federation X, The Trucks, Black Eyes & Neckties, Black Breath, The High Mountain String Band, and Shook Ones. Local independent record labels include Estrus Records and Clickpop Records. The city was also home to "What's Up! Magazine" which covered the local music scene for 22 years ending in March 2020, and Lemonade Magazine, devoted to music and entertainment of all kinds.<ref name="https://whatsup-magazine.com/2020/12/good-bye/"></ref>


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham is also the home of an active classical music scene which includes the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra (formerly the Whatcom Symphony Orchestra), North Sound Youth Symphony, numerous community music groups and choirs, and the internationally recognized Bellingham Festival of Music.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham is home to an active writers community at the local universities and independent of them. Western Washington University's English Department publishes the Bellingham Review. In 2011, the city hosted the first annual Chuckanut Writers Conference, run by Whatcom Community College and Village Books, a local bookstore. Clover, A Literary Rag, a publication of the Independent Writers' Studio, has produced 9 volumes since 2010. The city is home to writers including Steve Martini and George Dyson. Bellingham Public Library provides free library services at the Central Library, Barkley Branch and Fairhaven Branch.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham's theater culture is boosted by the performing arts department at Western Washington University. There are several theaters and productions in Bellingham:


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The Whatcom Peace & Justice Center was founded in 2002 by local activists, and has been one of the most active such centers in the nation.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: In October 2006, the Bellingham City Council passed a Troops Home! resolution, making Bellingham the first city in the state of Washington to pass the resolution. Two years later, the City Council passed a resolution urging elected representatives and the federal government to avoid war with Iran, becoming the first city in the state to do so. In 2012, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the federal government to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in the case of FEC v. Citizens United by declaring that U.S. Constitutional rights apply to natural persons and not to corporations. In 2014, coinciding with Columbus Day that celebrates the arrival of European explorers, the City Council officially established Coast Salish Day to celebrate the Native American peoples who continue to call the geographic region their home.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: In 2015, the Seattle Arctic drilling protests spread to Bellingham when a protester chained herself to the anchor chain of a Royal Dutch Shell ship for 63 hours.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham is frequently named on Best Places to Retire lists; 2008-2013 population growth in the 55+ year old segment outpaced overall population growth, at 3.7% to 0.8% annually. However, the high cost of housing has also caused it to be listed among America's Worst Cities as well. (In 2016, Washington State scored the fastest growing housing prices in the country.)


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham saw apartment vacancy hit 0.6% in 2016, and plans to use multi-family housing to accommodate more than 50% of the projected growth in housing units (16,525 units by 2036). According to Aaron Terrazas, senior economist at Zillow, "Given the area's pace of growth, it would require very aggressive building to keep rent affordability in check."


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The city has resisted expanding the Urban Growth Area for many years, and hopes to fit both multi-family and single-family growth within the city limits. Builders counter that even City planners acknowledge that the city is "largely built out" and that the remaining land is difficult or expensive to build on. Attempts to increase density, ease restrictions on 'accessory dwelling units', or even to develop land already zoned residential, are regularly met with fierce neighborhood opposition: Padden Trails was opposed by the Samish Neighborhood Association; a dense development at the Sunnyland D.O.T. site was scaled-down; Fairhaven neighbors led the effort to prevent the development of Fairhaven Highlands, (now Chuckanut Ridge), which the City ended up purchasing for $8.2 million, preventing more than 700 new housing units; neighborhood groups pressured the City Council to go against staff recommendation to rezone Squalicum Lofts for residential development.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: In 2017, the Bellingham City Council began acknowledging housing affordability as a critical issue, and hosted a town hall meeting on housing affordability and homelessness.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The Bellingham waterfront has served as an industrial center for more than a century, starting with the arrival of Henry Roeder and Russell Peabody in the mid-1800s.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Georgia-Pacific (G-P) purchased the Puget Sound Pulp and Timber Company in 1963 and operated a pulp mill on the central downtown waterfront until 2001. In 1965, G-P built a chlor-alkali facility, which became a source of mercury contamination in the Whatcom Waterway and on the uplands of the site for decades. The documentary film, "Smells Like Money – The Story of Bellingham's Georgia Pacific Plant" tells the story of the site, which has since been purchased by the Port of Bellingham chiefly to create a marina in the wastewater lagoon. The Port of Bellingham purchased the G-P site for $10 with the understanding that the port would assume liability for the contamination. The City of Bellingham and the Port of Bellingham entered into several interlocal agreements in which the City agreed to pay for all infrastructure costs, and the Port would create a marina, clean up the site, and retain all zoning.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The cleanup site (approximately ) was divided into two areas: pulp and tissue mill area and the chlor-alkali area. Contaminated soils and building materials were removed in 2011 and 2013; the Department of Ecology finalized the Interim Cleanup Work Plan in January 2017, and that work was completed in April 2017 when 31 acres were capped with a protective barrier. Work continues on evaluating cleanup alternatives for the entire chlor-alkali area of the site.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The City and Port have entered into a partnership to redevelop the property, and in 2013 contracted with Harcourt Developments to develop . The Granary Building remodel will be completed in 2017; Harcourt has submitted plans for two waterfront condo buildings in 2018 and 2019; the city will be constructing two main roads through the side in 2017.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The people of Bellingham pursue a diverse range of amateur sports, with skiing and snowboarding at the Mount Baker Ski Area popular in the winter and kayaking and cycling in the summer. Mt. Baker claims a world record for seasonal snowfall, with recorded in the 1998–1999 season.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Western Washington University is home to NCAA Division II National Women's Rowing Champions. The Lady Vikings became Western's very first NCAA champion team in 2005 and won again in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2011. The 2011-2012 Western Men's Basketball team won the NCAA Division II National Championship. In 2016, the nationally ranked Western Women's Soccer Team won the NCAA Division II National Championship.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Western Washington University also operates a collegiate road cycling program that took top-5 positions nationwide at the 2006 nationals.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Future Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. began his professional career with the short-season class A Bellingham Mariners of the Northwest League in 1987.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The City of Bellingham has a non-partisan strong-mayor, weak-council form of government. The directly elected mayor serves a four-year term. Six of the seven city council members are elected by ward for staggered four-year terms. The seventh council member is elected at-large every two years.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The city maintains Bellingham Police Department and fire department and operates the countywide Medic One medical emergency response service through an agreement with Whatcom County. According to Uniform Crime Report statistics compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2010, there were 282 violent crimes and 3,653 property crimes per 100,000 residents. Of these, the violent crimes consisted of 37 forcible rapes, 73 robberies and 170 aggravated assaults, while 589 burglaries, 2,931 larceny-thefts, 133 motor vehicle thefts and six arson defined the property offenses.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham School District is the local school district. There are four public high schools in Bellingham: Bellingham High School, Options High School, Sehome High School, and Squalicum High School. Bellingham has four public middle schools: Kulshan Middle School, Shuksan Middle School, Fairhaven Middle School, and Whatcom Middle School which was recently rebuilt after extensive fire damage in 2009.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Private schools in Bellingham include Whatcom Hills Waldorf School (Prekindergarten through 8th grade), Whatcom Day Academy (Prekindergarten to 8th grade), St. Paul's Academy (Prekindergarten to 12th grade), and Assumption Catholic School (Kindergarten to 9th grade). Western Washington University is located in Bellingham. It has more than 16,000 students. The Northwest Film School is a private, non-profit educational institution specializing in digital media production. It operates in a partnership with Western Washington University to offer a one-year certificate in Video Production.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: For-profit schools include Charter College, Lean Leadership Institute, Washington Engineering Institute and Washington Technology Institute.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Lummi Nation School has a Bellingham postal address but it is away from the city limits in an unincorporated area on the Lummi reservation.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: "The Bellingham Herald" is published daily in Bellingham. Other newspapers include Cascadia Weekly (until 2021), The Front, Whatcom Watch, and The Bellingham Business Journal (until 2020). "Cascadia Daily News" debuted on January 24, 2022 as a daily online publication and weekly print publication, replacing "Cascadia Weekly".


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham and Whatcom County are part of the Seattle television market. The area has had exceptionally early and strong penetration of cable television since the 1950s, and there have never been any local translators of the major Seattle TV stations.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Stations in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, can be viewed over the air with a suitable antenna, but those in Seattle are too distant to receive in most locations in the county. Whatcom County residents can also receive CBC and CTV stations via cable service. The KVOS-TV broadcast is available in most parts of Bellingham with an antenna as well.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The City of Bellingham also operates a public access channel available to Comcast cable customers on Channel 10.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham is bisected by Interstate 5 (I-5), which connects it to Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland, Oregon. The city also has three state highways: State Route 11, a scenic byway through the Chuckanut Mountains; State Route 539, which connects to Lynden and the Canadian border; and State Route 542, which travels east to the Mount Baker Ski Area.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The Bellingham International Airport offers scheduled commuter flights to and from Seattle and Friday Harbor, Washington, and regularly scheduled jet service to various West Coast airports via Alaska Airlines, Allegiant Air, and Southwest Airlines. Alaska Airlines and Allegiant Air used to fly to Hawaii from Bellingham, serving Honolulu, Kahului, and Kona at various times, but this service ceased by 2019. The airport is home of the first Air and Marine Operations Center, to assist the US Department of Homeland Security with border surveillance.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The Whatcom Transportation Authority (WTA) is the county's public transit agency and operates fixed bus service within Bellingham and its neighboring cities. The agency has several hubs, including the downtown station, the Western Washington University campus, and Cordata Station near Bellis Fair Mall, which is served by BoltBus intercity express buses to Seattle and Vancouver. Several corridors have frequent service that is branded as "GO Lines", with service every 15 minutes. WTA also offers intercity service to Mount Vernon, connecting with Skagit Transit for onward service to Everett.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: The city's main train station, Fairhaven Station, is served by scheduled Amtrak "Cascades" service to Vancouver and Seattle twice a day. Amtrak also operates one Thruway bus trip to supplement its train service on the corridor. The Bellingham Cruise Terminal is adjacent to the Amtrak station and serves as the southern terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway, a state-run ferry for passengers and vehicles. The ferries provide service to Ketchikan, Juneau, and Haines. The terminal is also served by San Juan Cruises, which provides seasonal passenger ferry service to the San Juan Islands and Friday Harbor.


title: Bellingham, Washington

text: Bellingham Sister Cities Association promotes Bellingham's sister city relationships. The relationship with Tateyama is the most active and includes regular events such as an annual city hall staff exchange and community cultural visits. Tateyama frequently fields a team for the annual Ski to Sea race, or at minimum has representation in the Ski to Sea parade.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: Dumplin' is a 2018 American coming-of-age comedy film directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Kristin Hahn. It is based on the young adult novel of the same name by Julie Murphy. The film stars Danielle Macdonald as Willowdean "Dumplin'" Dickson, Jennifer Aniston as her mother, Rosie Dickson, and Odeya Rush as her best friend, Ellen Dryver.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: Willowdean "Will" Dickson grows up in a small Texas town, raised primarily by her Aunt Lucy. Her mother Rosie – who calls her "Dumplin’", much to Will’s chagrin – is a former beauty queen, too committed to various pageants to spend time with her daughter, and remains the planner of the town's annual Miss Teen Bluebonnet Pageant.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: Lucy introduces Will to Ellen Dryver, who becomes her best friend. Six months before they start their final year of high school, Lucy dies. Rosie finds difficulty connecting with Will, who often feels judged about her weight and is embarrassed by her mother's pageant world.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: On the first day of school, Will is suspended for defending another overweight girl, Millie Mitchellchuck, from a bully. Will accuses Rosie of resenting her for her looks, and is upset when Rosie insinuates Lucy should have taken better care of her health. After finding Lucy's application for the Miss Teen Bluebonnet Pageant when she was 16, Will enters the pageant as an act of "protest in heels". Ellen signs up as well, along with the enthusiastic Millie and their classmate Hannah Perez, an edgy feminist.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: Rosie interprets Will's application as a mockery of the pageant, and warns her that pageants are harder than she thinks. Will becomes jealous when Ellen warms to the pageant and the other contestants, and they quarrel after she tells her to quit.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: Bo, who works with Will at the local diner, asks her out to watch a meteor shower. They kiss, but Will panics when Bo innocently touches her back, and leaves abruptly. She feels further alienated when Rosie mentors Bekah Colter, the pageant frontrunner, who plans to ask Bo to the Sadie Hawkins dance.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: After finding a flyer for a bar Lucy frequented, Will takes Millie and Hannah to the bar’s Dolly Parton-themed drag show, where she meets Lee Wayne, a drag queen, who was a close friend of Lucy’s.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: During the pageant talent tryouts, Will's choice to perform a magic trick goes poorly. Bo confesses his feelings for Will, having declined to go with Bekah to the dance, but she is quick to question his attraction; hurt, he accuses her of caring too much about what others think.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: Grappling with her insecurities, Will is finally able to revisit the childhood playroom she shared with Ellen and Lucy. Rediscovering a special brooch among Lucy’s belongings, Will is inspired to take the pageant seriously, and she, Millie, and Hannah are coached by Lee and his friends. At the preliminary pageant event, Rosie is impressed by Will's speech about loyalty, which leads Will and Ellen to repair their friendship. At home, Rosie and Will reconcile over memories of Lucy, and Rosie regrets asking Will to donate Lucy’s things, having given “too much of her away”.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: At the pageant, Millie is confronted by her mother for lying about entering the competition, but Millie stands firm. Will incorporates a Dolly Parton tribute into her magic act, to the joy of the audience and her mother; Millie’s performance is also a success. While Rosie is overwhelmed with pride, she is compelled to disqualify Will for unapproved changes to her costume and song, unable to make an exception for her daughter. When Ellen's boyfriend is unable to escort her for the formalwear presentation, Rosie suggests Will does so, allowing them to complete the pageant together. Bekah wins the pageant as expected, but Millie is awarded first runner-up, while Will leaves to reconcile with Bo, and they share another kiss. The movie ends as Will and her friends take Rosie and Millie's mother to the bar where Aunt Lucy brought so much joy.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: On March 15, 2017, Jennifer Aniston was announced in the cast of "Dumplin", playing Rosie Dickson, the mother of Dumplin'. On June 13, 2017 Danielle Macdonald joined Aniston, in the lead role. On August 15, 2017, Odeya Rush was also cast in the film to play Ellen "El" Dryver, Willowdean's best friend, who creates difficulties when she tries to enter the beauty pageant along with Will. On August 21, 2017, Dove Cameron, Luke Benward, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Maddie Baillio, Georgie Flores, and Ginger Minj joined the cast of "Dumplin"'.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: Principal photography on the film began on August 21, 2017, in Covington, Georgia and ended in October.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: In September 2018, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film. "Dumplin"' was released on December 7, 2018 on the platform.


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "Dumplin" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Elevated by a solid soundtrack and a terrific cast, "Dumplin" offers sweetly uplifting drama that adds just enough new ingredients to a reliably comforting formula." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 53 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Dumplin' (film)

text: The soundtrack, released on November 30, 2018, features songs either written or recorded by country star Dolly Parton. Parton performs on every song on the album and wrote six of the 12 tracks exclusively for the film, with the remaining six being re-recordings of some of Parton's earlier hits, including a string version of "Jolene". Joining Parton on the soundtrack are Elle King, Miranda Lambert, Mavis Staples, Alison Krauss, Rhonda Vincent, Sia, Macy Gray, Willa Amai and the film's stars Aniston and Macdonald.


title: English longbow

text: The English longbow was a powerful medieval type of bow, about long. While it is debated whether it originated in England or in Wales from the Welsh bow, by the 14th century the longbow was being used by both the English and the Welsh as a weapon of war and for hunting. English longbows were effective against the French during the Hundred Years' War, particularly in the battles of Sluys (1340), Crécy (1346), Poitiers (1356), and the Battle of Agincourt (1415). They were less successful later on, as longbowmen had their lines broken at the Battle of Verneuil (1424); although the English won a decisive victory there, they were completely routed at the Battle of Patay (1429) when they were charged by the French mounted men-at-arms before they had prepared the terrain and finished defensive arrangements. The Battle of Pontvallain (1370) had also previously shown longbowmen were not particularly effective when not given the time to set up defensive positions.


title: English longbow

text: No English longbows survive from the period when the longbow was dominant (c. 1250–1450), probably because bows became weaker, broke, and were replaced rather than being handed down through generations. More than 130 bows survive from the Renaissance period, however. More than 3,500 arrows and 137 whole longbows were recovered from the "Mary Rose", a ship of Henry VIII's navy that sank at Portsmouth in 1545.


title: English longbow

text: A longbow must be long enough to allow its user to draw the string to a point on the face or body, and the length therefore varies with the user. In continental Europe it was generally seen as any bow longer than . The Society of Antiquaries of London says it is of in length. Richard Bartelot, of the Royal Artillery Institution, said that the bow was of yew, long, with a arrow. Gaston III, Count of Foix, wrote in 1388 that a longbow should be "of yew or boxwood, seventy inches () between the points of attachment for the cord". Historian Jim Bradbury said they were an average of about 5 feet and 8 inches. All but the last estimate were made before the excavation of the "Mary Rose", where bows were found ranging in length from with an average length of .


title: English longbow

text: Estimates for the draw of these bows varies considerably. Before the recovery of the "Mary Rose", Count M. Mildmay Stayner, Recorder of the British Long Bow Society, estimated the bows of the Medieval period drew , maximum, and W. F. Paterson, Chairman of the Society of Archer-Antiquaries, believed the weapon had a supreme draw weight of only . Other sources suggest significantly higher draw weights. The original draw forces of examples from the "Mary Rose" are estimated by Robert Hardy at at a draw length; the full range of draw weights was between . The draw length was used because that is the length allowed by the arrows commonly found on the "Mary Rose".


title: English longbow

text: A modern longbow's draw is typically or less, and by modern convention measured at . Historically, hunting bows usually had draw weights of , which is enough for all but the very largest game and which most reasonably fit adults can manage with practice. Today, there are few modern longbow archers capable of using bows accurately.


title: English longbow

text: A record of how boys and men trained to use the bows with high draw weights survives from the reign of Henry VII.


title: English longbow

text: The preferred material to make the longbow was yew, although ash, elm and other woods were also used. Gerald of Wales speaking of the bows used by the Welsh men of Gwent, says: "They are made neither of horn, ash nor yew, but of elm; ugly unfinished-looking weapons, but astonishingly stiff, large and strong, and equally capable of use for long or short shooting". The traditional construction of a longbow consists of drying the yew wood for 1 to 2 years, then slowly working the wood into shape, with the entire process taking up to four years. The bow stave is shaped to have a "D" cross-section. The outer "back" of sapwood, approximately flat, follows the natural growth rings; modern bowyers often thin the sapwood, while in the "Mary Rose" bows the back of the bow was the natural surface of the wood, only the bark is removed. The inner side ("belly") of the bow stave consists of rounded heartwood. The heartwood resists compression and the outer sapwood performs better in tension. This combination in a single piece of wood (a self bow) forms a natural "laminate", somewhat similar in effect to the construction of a composite bow. Longbows will last a long time if protected with a water-resistant coating, traditionally of "wax, resin and fine tallow".


title: English longbow

text: The trade of yew wood to England for longbows was such that it depleted the stocks of yew over a huge area. The first documented import of yew bowstaves to England was in 1294. In 1470 compulsory practice was renewed, and hazel, ash, and laburnum were specifically allowed for practice bows. Supplies still proved insufficient, until by the Statute of Westminster 1472, every ship coming to an English port had to bring four bowstaves for every tun. Richard III of England increased this to ten for every tun. This stimulated a vast network of extraction and supply, which formed part of royal monopolies in southern Germany and Austria. In 1483, the price of bowstaves rose from two to eight pounds per hundred, and in 1510 the Venetians obtained sixteen pounds per hundred.


title: English longbow

text: In 1507 the Holy Roman Emperor asked the Duke of Bavaria to stop cutting yew, but the trade was profitable, and in 1532 the royal monopoly was granted for the usual quantity "if there are that many". In 1562, the Bavarian government sent a long plea to the Holy Roman Emperor asking him to stop the cutting of yew and outlining the damage done to the forests by its selective extraction, which broke the canopy and allowed wind to destroy neighbouring trees. In 1568, despite a request from Saxony, no royal monopoly was granted because there was no yew to cut, and the next year Bavaria and Austria similarly failed to produce enough yew to justify a royal monopoly.


title: English longbow

text: Forestry records in this area in the 17th century do not mention yew, and it seems that no mature trees were to be had. The English tried to obtain supplies from the Baltic, but at this period bows were being replaced by guns in any case.


title: English longbow

text: Bowstrings are made of hemp, flax or silk, and attached to the wood via horn "nocks" that fit onto the end of the bow. Modern synthetic materials (often Dacron) are now commonly also used for strings.


title: English longbow

text: A wide variety of arrows were shot from the English longbow. Variations in length, fletchings and heads are all recorded. Perhaps the greatest diversity lies in hunting arrows, with varieties like broad-arrow, wolf-arrow, dog-arrow, Welsh arrow and Scottish arrow being recorded. War arrows were ordered in the thousands for medieval armies and navies, supplied in sheaves normally of 24 arrows. For example, between 1341 and 1359 the English crown is known to have obtained 51,350 sheaves (1,232,400 arrows).


title: English longbow

text: Only one significant group of arrows, found at the wreck of the "Mary Rose", has survived. Over 3,500 arrows were found, mainly made of poplar but also of ash, beech and hazel. Analysis of the intact specimens shows their length to vary from , with an average length of . Because of the preservation conditions of the "Mary Rose", no arrowheads survived. However, many heads have survived in other places, which has allowed typologies of arrowheads to be produced, the most modern being the Jessop typology. The most common arrowheads in military use were the short bodkin point (Jessop M10) and a small barbed arrow (Jessop M4).


title: English longbow

text: Longbows were very difficult to master because the force required to deliver an arrow through the improving armour of medieval Europe was very high by modern standards. Although the draw weight of a typical English longbow is disputed, it was at least and possibly more than . Considerable practice was required to produce the swift and effective combat shooting required. Skeletons of longbow archers are recognisably affected, with enlarged left arms and often osteophytes on left wrists, left shoulders and right fingers.


title: English longbow

text: It was the difficulty in using the longbow that led various monarchs of England to issue instructions encouraging their ownership and practice, including the Assize of Arms of 1252 and Edward III of England's declaration of 1363:


title: English longbow

text: If the people practised archery, it would be that much easier for the king to recruit the proficient longbowmen he needed for his wars. Along with the improving ability of gunfire to penetrate plate armour, it was the long training needed by longbowmen that eventually led to their being replaced by musketeers.


title: English longbow

text: The range of the medieval weapon is not accurately known, with much depending on both the power of the bow and the type of arrow. It has been suggested that a flight arrow of a professional archer of Edward III's time would reach but the longest mark shot at on the London practice ground of Finsbury Fields in the 16th century was . In 1542, Henry VIII set a minimum practice range for adults using flight arrows of ; ranges below this had to be shot with heavy arrows. Modern experiments broadly concur with these historical ranges. A "Mary Rose" replica longbow was able to shoot a arrow and a a distance of . In 2012, Joe Gibbs shot a livery arrow with a yew bow. The effective combat range of longbowmen was generally lower than what could be achieved on the practice range as sustained shooting was tiring and the rigors of campaigning would sap soldiers' strength. Writing thirty years after the ‘’Mary Rose’’ sank, Barnabe Rich estimated that if a thousand English archers were mustered then after one week only one hundred of them would be able to shoot farther than two hundred paces (), while two hundred of the others would not be able to shoot farther than 180 paces. In 2017, Hungarian master archer József Mónus set the new flight world record with a traditional English Longbow at .


title: English longbow

text: In an early modern test by Saxton Pope, a direct hit from a steel bodkin point penetrated Damascus mail armour.


title: English longbow

text: A 2006 test was made by Matheus Bane using a draw (at ) bow, shooting at ; according to Bane's calculations, this would be approximately equivalent to a bow at . Measured against a replica of the thinnest contemporary gambeson (padded jacket) armour, a 905 grain needle bodkin and a 935 grain curved broadhead penetrated over . (gambeson armour could be up to twice as thick as the coat tested; in Bane's opinion such a thick coat would have stopped bodkin arrows but not the cutting force of broadhead arrows.) Against "high quality riveted maille", the needle bodkin and curved broadhead penetrated . Against a coat of plates, the needle bodkin achieved penetration. The curved broadhead did not penetrate but caused 0.3 in of deformation of the metal. Results against plate armour of "minimum thickness" () were similar to the coat of plates, in that the needle bodkin penetrated to a shallow depth, the other arrows not at all. In Bane's view, the plate armour would have kept out all the arrows if thicker or worn with more padding.


title: English longbow

text: Other modern tests described by Bane include those by Williams (which concluded that longbows could "not" penetrate mail, but in Bane's view did not use a realistic arrow tip), Robert Hardy's tests (which achieved broadly similar results to Bane), and a "Primitive Archer" test which demonstrated that a longbow could penetrate a plate armour breastplate. However, the "Primitive Archer" test used a longbow at very short range, generating 160 joules (vs. 73 for Bane and 80 for Williams), so probably not representative of battles of the time.


title: English longbow

text: Tests conducted by Mark Stretton examined the effects of heavier war shafts (as opposed to lighter hunting or distance-shooting 'flight arrows'). The quarrel-like arrow from a yew 'self bow' (with a draw weight of at ) while travelling at yielded 113.76 joules, more kinetic energy than the lighter broad-heads while achieving 90% of the range. The short, heavy quarrel-form bodkin could penetrate a replica brigandine at up to 40° from perpendicular.


title: English longbow

text: In 2011, Mike Loades conducted an experiment in which short bodkin arrows were shot at a range of by bows of – powerful bows at less than normal battlefield range. The target was covered in a riveted mail over a fabric armour of deerskin over 24 linen layers. While most arrows went through the mail layer, none fully penetrated the textile armour.


title: English longbow

text: Other research has also concluded that later medieval armour, such as that of the Italian city-state mercenary companies, was effective at stopping contemporary arrows.


title: English longbow

text: Computer analysis by Warsaw University of Technology in 2017 has estimated that heavy bodkin point arrows could penetrate typical plate armour of the time at up to . However, the depth of penetration would be slight at that range, a mere on average; penetration increased as the range closed or against armour lesser than the best quality available at the time, but stopped at , the highest penetration depth estimated at range, it was unlikely to be deadly.


title: English longbow

text: In August 2019, the Blacksmith YouTube channel 'Tod's Workshop', together with historian Dr Tobias Capwell (curator at the Wallace collection), Joe Gibbs (archer), Will Sherman (fletcher) and Kevin Legg (armourer) ran a practical test using as close a recreation of 15th century plate armour (made with materials and techniques fitting to the time period) over a chainmail and gambeson against a longbow. They shot a variety of arrows at the target and the results showed that the arrows shot by a 160 lb longbow were unable to penetrate the front of the armour at any range, but the arrow that struck below the harness went right through the underlying protection.


title: English longbow

text: Strickland and Hardy suggest that "even at a range of , heavy war arrows shot from bows of poundages in the mid- to upper range possessed by the Mary Rose bows would have been capable of killing or severely wounding men equipped with armour of wrought iron. Higher-quality armour of steel would have given considerably greater protection, which accords well with the experience of Oxford's men against the elite French vanguard at Poitiers in 1356, and des Ursin's statement that the French knights of the first ranks at Agincourt, which included some of the most important (and thus best-equipped) nobles, remained comparatively unhurt by the English arrows".


title: English longbow

text: Archery was described by contemporaries as ineffective against steel plate armour in the Battle of Neville's Cross (1346), the siege of Bergerac (1345), and the Battle of Poitiers (1356); such armour became available to European knights and men at arms of fairly modest means by the middle of the 14th century, although never to all soldiers in any army. Longbowmen were, however, effective at Poitiers, and this success stimulated changes in armour manufacture partly intended to make armoured men less vulnerable to archery. Nevertheless, at the battle of Agincourt in 1415 and for some decades thereafter, English longbowmen continued to be an effective battlefield force.


title: English longbow

text: Following the Battle of Crécy, the longbow did not always prove as effective. For example, at the Battle of Poitiers (1356), the French men-at-arms formed a shield wall with which Geoffrey le Baker recounts "protecting their bodies with joined shields, [and] turned their faces away from the missiles. So the archers emptied their quivers in vain".


title: English longbow

text: Modern tests and contemporary accounts agree therefore that well-made plate armour could protect against longbows. However, this did not necessarily make the longbow ineffective; thousands of longbowmen were deployed in the English victory at Agincourt against plate armoured French knights in 1415. Clifford Rogers has argued that while longbows might not have been able to penetrate steel breastplates at Agincourt they could still penetrate the thinner armour on the limbs. Most of the French knights advanced on foot but, exhausted by walking across wet muddy terrain in heavy armour enduring a "terrifying hail of arrow shot", they were overwhelmed in the melee.


title: English longbow

text: Less heavily armoured soldiers were more vulnerable than knights. For example, enemy crossbowmen were forced to retreat at Crécy when deployed without their protecting pavises. Horses were generally less well protected than the knights themselves; shooting the French knights' horses from the side (where they were less well armoured) is described by contemporary accounts of the Battle of Poitiers (1356), and at Agincourt John Keegan has argued that the main effect of the longbow would have been in injuring the horses of the mounted French knights.


title: English longbow

text: A typical military longbow archer would be provided with between 60 and 72 arrows at the time of battle. Most archers would not shoot arrows at the maximum rate, as it would exhaust even the most experienced man. "With the heaviest bows [a modern war bow archer] does not like to try for more than six a minute." Not only do the arms and shoulder muscles tire from the exertion, but the fingers holding the bowstring become strained; therefore, actual rates of shooting in combat would vary considerably. Ranged volleys at the beginning of the battle would differ markedly from the closer, aimed shots as the battle progressed and the enemy neared. On the battlefield English archers stored their arrows stabbed upright into the ground at their feet, reducing the time it took to nock, draw and loose.


title: English longbow

text: Arrows were not unlimited, so archers and their commanders took every effort to ration their use to the situation at hand. Nonetheless, resupply during battle was available. Young boys were often employed to run additional arrows to longbow archers while in their positions on the battlefield. "The longbow was the machine gun of the Middle Ages: accurate, deadly, possessed of a long range and rapid rate of fire, the flight of its missiles was likened to a storm".


title: English longbow

text: In tests against a moving target simulating a galloping knight it took some approximately seven seconds to draw, aim and loose an armour-piercing heavy arrow using a replica war bow. It was found that in the seven seconds between the first and second shots the target advanced and that the second shot occurred at such close range that, if it was a realistic contest, running away was the only option.


title: English longbow

text: A Tudor English author expects eight shots from a longbow in the same time as five from a musket. He points out that the musket also shoots at a flatter trajectory, so is more likely to hit its target and its shot is likely to be more damaging in the event of a hit. The advantage of early firearms lay in the lower training requirements, the opportunity to take cover while shooting, flatter trajectory, and greater penetration.


title: English longbow

text: Specialised medical tools designed for arrow wounds have existed since ancient times: Diocles (successor of Hippocrates) devised the graphiscos, a form of cannula with hooks, and the duck-billed forceps (allegedly invented by Heras of Cappadocia) was employed during the medieval period to extract arrows. While armour-piercing "bodkin" points were relatively easy (if painful) to remove, barbed points required the flesh to be cut or pulled aside. An arrow would be pushed through and taken out the other side of the body only in the worst cases, as this would cause even more tissue damage and risk cutting through major blood vessels.


title: English longbow

text: Henry, Prince of Wales, later Henry V, was wounded in the face by an arrow at the Battle of Shrewsbury (1403). The royal physician John Bradmore had a tool made that consisted of a pair of smooth tongs. Once carefully inserted into the socket of the arrowhead, the tongs screwed apart until they gripped its walls and allowed the head to be extracted from the wound. Prior to the extraction, the hole made by the arrow shaft was widened by inserting larger and larger dowels of elder pith wrapped in linen down into the entry wound. The dowels were soaked in honey, now known to have antiseptic properties. The wound was then dressed with a poultice of barley and honey mixed in turpentine (pre-dating Ambroise Paré but whose therapeutic use of turpentine was inspired by Roman medical texts that may have been familiar to Bradmore). After 20 days, the wound was free of infection.


title: English longbow

text: The word may have been coined to distinguish the longbow from the crossbow. The first recorded use of the term "longbow", as distinct from simply 'bow', is possibly in a 1386 administrative document which refers in Latin to "arcus vocati longbowes", "bows called 'longbows'", though the reading of the last word in the original document is not certain. A 1444 will proved in York bequeaths "a sadil, alle my longe bowis, a bedde".


title: English longbow

text: The origins of the English longbow are disputed. While it is hard to assess the significance of military archery in pre-Norman Conquest Anglo-Saxon warfare, it is clear that archery played a prominent role under the Normans, as the story of the Battle of Hastings shows. Their Anglo-Norman descendants also made use of military archery, as exemplified by their victory at the Battle of the Standard in 1138.


title: English longbow

text: During the Anglo-Norman invasions of Wales, Welsh bowmen took a heavy toll of the invaders and Welsh archers would feature in English armies from this point on. Giraldus Cambrensis toured Wales in 1188, recording that the bows of Gwent were "stiff and strong, not only for missiles to be shot from a distance, but also for sustaining heavy blows in close quarters." He gave examples of the performance of the Welsh bow :


title: English longbow

text: However, historians dispute whether this archery used a different kind of bow from the later English Longbow.


title: English longbow

text: Traditionally it has been argued that prior to the beginning of the 14th century, the weapon was a self bow between four and five feet in length, known since the 19th century as the shortbow. This weapon, drawn to the chest rather than the ear, was much weaker. However, in 1985, Jim Bradbury reclassified this weapon as the "ordinary wooden bow", reserving the term shortbow for short composite bows and arguing that longbows were a developed form of this ordinary bow. Strickland and Hardy in 2005 took this argument further, suggesting that the shortbow was a myth and all early English bows were a form of longbow. In 2011, Clifford Rogers forcefully restated the traditional case based upon a variety of evidence, including a large scale iconographic survey. In 2012, Richard Wadge added to the debate with an extensive survey of record, iconographic and archaeological evidence, concluding that longbows co-existed with shorter self-wood bows in England in the period between the Norman conquest and the reign of Edward III, but that powerful longbows shooting heavy arrows were a rarity until the later 13th century. Whether or not there was a technological revolution at the end of the 13th century therefore remains in dispute. What is agreed, however, is that an effective tactical system that included powerful longbows used in mass was developed in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.


title: English longbow

text: In 1295, Edward I began to better organize his armed forces, creating uniformly-sized units and a clear chain of command. He introduced the combined use of an initial assault by archers followed by a cavalry attack and infantry. The technique was later used effectively at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298.


title: English longbow

text: The longbow decided many medieval battles fought by the English and Welsh, the most significant of which were the Battle of Crécy (1346) and the Battle of Agincourt (1415), during the Hundred Years' War; these followed earlier successes, notably at the Battle of Falkirk (1298) and the Battle of Halidon Hill (1333) during the Wars of Scottish Independence. They were less successful after this, with longbowmen having their lines broken at the Battle of Verneuil (1424), and being routed at the Battle of Patay (1429) when they were charged before they had set up their defences, and with the war-ending Battle of Castillon (1453) being decided by the French artillery.


title: English longbow

text: Although longbows were much faster and more accurate than the black-powder weapons which replaced them, longbowmen always took a long time to train because of the years of practice necessary before a war longbow could be used effectively (examples of longbows from the "Mary Rose" typically had draws greater than ). In an era in which warfare was usually seasonal, and non-noble soldiers spent part of the year working at farms, the year-round training required for the effective use of the longbow was a challenge. A standing army was an expensive proposition to a medieval ruler. Mainland European armies seldom trained a significant longbow corps. Due to their specialized training, English longbowmen were sought as mercenaries in other European countries, most notably in the Italian city-states and in Spain.


title: English longbow

text: The White Company, comprising men-at-arms and longbowmen and commanded by Sir John Hawkwood, is the best known English Free Company of the 14th century. The powerful Hungarian king, Louis the Great, is an example of someone who used longbowmen in his Italian campaigns.


title: English longbow

text: Longbows remained in use until around the 16th century, when advances in firearms made gunpowder weapons a significant factor in warfare and such units as arquebusiers and grenadiers began appearing. Despite this, the English Crown made numerous efforts to continue to promote archery practice by banning other sports and fining people for not possessing bows. Indeed, just before the English Civil War, a pamphlet by William Neade entitled "The Double-Armed Man" advocated that soldiers be trained in both the longbow and pike; although this advice was disregarded by other writers of the day, who accepted that firearms had supplanted the role of archery.


title: English longbow

text: At the Battle of Flodden in 1513, wind and rain may have contributed to the ineffectiveness of the English archers against the Scottish nobles in full armour who formed the front rank of their advance, but when the opportunity arose to shoot at less well protected foot soldiers, the result was devastating. Despite his armour, King James IV of Scotland received several arrow wounds in the fighting, one of which may have caused his death. Flodden was the last major British battle in which the longbow played a significant part, even if not a decisive one. Longbows remained the main weapon of the trained bands, the home-defence militia of the Tudor period, until they were disbanded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1598. The last recorded use of bows in an English battle may have been a skirmish at Bridgnorth, in October 1642, during the Civil War, when an impromptu town militia, armed with bows, proved effective against un-armoured musketeers. Longbowmen remained a feature of the Royalist Army, but were not used by the Roundheads.


title: English longbow

text: Longbows have been in continuous production and use for sport and for hunting to the present day, but since 1642 they have been a minority interest, and very few have had the high draw weights of the medieval weapons. Other differences include the use of a stiffened non-bending centre section, rather than a continuous bend.


title: English longbow

text: Serious military interest in the longbow faded after the seventeenth century but occasionally schemes to resurrect its military use were proposed. Benjamin Franklin was a proponent in the 1770s; the Honourable Artillery Company had an archer company between 1784 and 1794, and a man named Richard Mason wrote a book proposing the arming of militia with pike and longbow in 1798. Donald Featherstone also records a Lt. Col. Richard Lee of 44th Foot advocated the military use of the longbow in 1792. Winston Churchill, in "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples", wrote:


title: English longbow

text: The War Office has among its records a treatise written during the peace after Waterloo by a general officer of long experience in the Napoleonic wars recommending that muskets should be discarded in favor of the long-bow on account of its superior accuracy, rapid discharge, and effective range.


title: English longbow

text: There is a record of the use of the longbow in action as late as WWII, when Jack Churchill is credited with a longbow kill in France in 1940. The weapon was certainly considered for use by Commandos during the war but it is not known whether it was used in action.


title: English longbow

text: The idea that there was a standard formation for English longbow armies was argued by Alfred Byrne in his influential work on the battles of the Hundred Years' War, "The Crecy War". This view was challenged by Jim Bradbury in his book "The Medieval Archer" and more modern works are more ready to accept a variety of formations.


title: English longbow

text: In the 16th century, these formations evolved in line with new technologies and techniques from the continent. Formations with a central core of pikes and bills were flanked by companies of "shot" made up of a mixture of archers and arquebusiers, sometimes with a skirmish screen of archers and arquebusiers in front.


title: English longbow

text: More than 3,500 arrows and 137 whole longbows were recovered from the "Mary Rose", a ship of Henry VIII's navy that capsized and sank at Portsmouth in 1545. It is an important source for the history of the longbow, as the bows, archery implements and the skeletons of archers have been preserved. The bows range in length from with an average length of . The majority of the arrows were made of poplar, others were made of beech, ash and hazel. Draw lengths of the arrows varied between with the majority having a draw length of . The head would add depending on type, though some must be allowed for the insertion of the shaft into the socket.


title: English longbow

text: The longbows on the "Mary Rose" were in excellent finished condition. There were enough bows to test some to destruction which resulted in draw forces of on average. However, analysis of the wood indicated that they had degraded significantly in the seawater and mud, which had weakened their draw forces. Replicas were made and when tested had draw forces of from .


title: English longbow

text: In 1980, before the finds from the "Mary Rose", Robert E. Kaiser published a paper stating that there were five known surviving longbows:


title: English longbow

text: The importance of the longbow in English culture can be seen in the legends of Robin Hood, which increasingly depicted him as a master archer, and also in the "Song of the Bow", a poem from "The White Company" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.


title: English longbow

text: During the reign of Henry III, the Assize of Arms of 1252 required that all "citizens, burgesses, free tenants, villeins and others from 15 to 60 years of age" should be armed. The poorest of them were expected to have a halberd and a knife, and a bow if they owned land worth more than £2. This made it easier for the King to raise an army, but also meant that the bow was a weapon commonly used by rebels during the Peasants' Revolt. From the time that the yeoman class of England became proficient with the longbow, the nobility in England had to be careful not to push them into open rebellion.


title: English longbow

text: It has been conjectured that yew trees were commonly planted in English churchyards to have readily available longbow wood.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The Plymouth Fury is a model of automobile that was produced by Plymouth from 1955 until 1989. It was introduced for the 1956 model year as a sub-series of the Plymouth Belvedere, becoming a separate series one level above the contemporary Belvedere for 1959. The Fury was a full-size car from 1959 until 1961, then a mid-size car from 1962 until 1964, again, a full-size car from 1965 through 1974, and again, a mid-size car from 1975 through 1978. From 1975 until 1977, the Fury was sold alongside the full-size Plymouth Gran Fury. In 1978, the B-body Fury was the largest Plymouth, and by 1979, there was no large Plymouth. This product gap was filled in 1980 with the R-body Gran Fury, followed by the M-body Fury in 1982. Production of the last V8, RWD Plymouth Fury ended at the Lake Front Main Assembley in Kenosha, WI, on December 23, 1988. Unlike its sibling brand, Dodge, Plymouth would not live to see the resurgence of the large, V8/RWD sedan.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The Fury was a sub-series of the Plymouth Belvedere from 1956 through 1958. It was sold only as a sandstone white two-door hardtop with gold anodized aluminum trim, in 1956 and 1957. In 1958, it was only available in buckskin beige with gold anodized aluminum trim. These Furys had special interiors, bumper wing-guards and V8 engines with twin four-barrel carburetors. The 1957 and 1958 -engine produced , shared with the Dodge Coronet.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1957 models were restyled; longer, wider, with very large vertical tailfins and a new torsion bar front suspension replacing the previous coil springs. While the new styling boosted sales, quality control suffered for all Chrysler products as they were brought quickly to market before their design and construction weaknesses could be fully addressed by engineering. The front suspension introduced Chrysler's Torsion-Aire Torsion bar suspension shared with all Chrysler products starting in 1957.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: In 1958, the optional engine was a "big block" called the "Golden Commando" with two four-barrel carburetors producing . A option with fuel injection was available, but the Bendix electronic fuel-injection system was recalled by the factory and owners were given a conventional dual four-barrel setup. The Golden Commando engine was optional on any Plymouth Plaza, Savoy, Belvedere, Suburban, and Fury, as was the dual four-barrel (dubbed the "V-800 Dual Fury"; four- and two-barrel 318s also arrived for 1958 and were simply called "V-800s").


title: Plymouth Fury

text: In 1959, Plymouth introduced the Sport Fury as its top model, and the Fury as its second from the top model to replace the Plymouth Belvedere at the top of the Plymouth line-up. The Fury was now available in 4-door Sedan, 2-door Hardtop and 4-door Hardtop models and the Sport Fury as a 2-door Hardtop and a Convertible. The station wagon version of the Fury was the Sport Suburban, which was not marketed as a Fury. The Sport Fury was dropped at the end of 1959, but was reintroduced in mid-1962 and discontinued in 1971.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: In 1959, the 350 was replaced with a version of the Golden Commando with a two- or four-barrel carburetor. The dual four-barrel version of the "small block" was also introduced that year, with the four-barrel available on this engine through the 1962 model year.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The Dodge Viscount was an automobile built by Chrysler Canada for the 1959 model year only. It was based on the contemporary Plymouth Fury, but featured a 1959 Dodge front clip assembled to the Plymouth Fury body. However, there was no sport model counterpart to the Sport Fury sold in the U.S.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1960 models were the first year for unibody construction, the first year for Chrysler's ram induction system, and the first year for Chrysler's new slant-six engine. The original 318 and 383 were available, along with a 361. The slant-six produced at 4,000 rpm. The 383 was rated at .


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The styling for the 1960 model year had been formulated in 1957 during the height of tailfin era, but the design fell from fashion. While Chevrolet and Ford sales increased during 1960, Plymouth barely continued its 1959 volume.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1962 Fury emerged as a downsized model riding on the new Chrysler B-body unibody platform, the product of a Chrysler Corporation embroiled in multiple corporate controversies at the time. Sales of the new model were slow, prompting the reintroduction of the Sport Fury trim package, offered as a hardtop coupe or a convertible. The 1962 range included a Fury 4-door Station Wagon, the wagon equivalent of the Fury having previously been marketed as the Plymouth Sport Suburban.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: Chrysler Corporation began to restyle and enlarge the Plymouths and Dodges, which improved sales in 1963 and 1964. The 1964 models saw an improvement in sales, especially the two-door hardtop, which featured a new slanted roofline. Engine choices remained the same throughout this three-year cycle.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: In 1965, Chrysler returned the Fury to the new, full-size Chrysler C-body platform. The new 1965 Plymouth line included three special Furys: the Fury I, Fury II, and Fury III. The Fury I was the basic model, while the Fury II and Fury III offered more trim and features. Full size Furys had options such as automatic transmissions, power steering, white sidewall tires (along with full wheel covers), stereo radios, vinyl tops, and air conditioning. The Sport Fury was the highest trim and feature model, positioned to compete with the Chevrolet Impala Super Sport and Ford Galaxie 500/XL. It offered a sportier interior and exterior trim package. The Fury II was available as a two-door hardtop in Canada only; in the U.S. it was only available as a two- or four-door sedan, and as a station wagon.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The overall design changed, with the grille losing chrome but gaining two vertical stacked headlights on each side. All rode on new wheelbases ( for the wagons)— longer than before. The 426 "street wedge" V8 was introduced, rated at and finally street-legal.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1966 Furys kept the same profile as the 1965s, with a split front and rear grille motif. To complete with the new luxury-focused models such as the Ford Galaxie 500 LTD, Chevrolet Impala Caprice, and AMC Ambassador DPL, Plymouth introduced a plush, luxurious edition of the Fury, called the VIP. Available initially as a four-door hardtop in the fall of 1965, it was joined in early 1966 by a two-door hardtop. Interiors featured plush upholstery, door panels were contoured with ample woodgrain trim throughout the cabin, while the exterior got "VIP" emblems and fender skirts as standard. Although the car was essentially an upgraded Fury III, it was marketed as a separate model. The VIP included Chrysler's V8 mated to a three-speed manual transmission, although the vast majority were ordered with the TorqueFlite automatic.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: For 1967, the body was restyled with a sharp, angular profile. The stacked quad headlight bezels were curvier and set more deeply into the body, giving the car a more muscular look. The roofline had sharper angles and gave the car a longer, more luxurious appearance. A new, formal two-door hardtop body style appeared which featured smaller rear quarter windows and a wider, back-slanted "C" pillar. Called the "fast top", it was offered alongside the restyled thin "C" pillar hardtop in both VIP and Sport Fury series (as well as on corresponding big Dodge models). The 1967 model year introduced new safety regulations, which meant that for the first time, all Plymouths included dual-circuit brake master cylinders, energy-absorbing steering columns and wheels, recessed instrument panel controls, and shoulder belt mounting points for outboard front seat occupants.1967 also marked the end of the V8, replaced by the thin-wall-casting LA (lightweight A) engine, now the base V8, with wedge-shaped combustion chambers, producing more power, even though the advertised number did not change, and significant weight reduction. The 318 LA engine did not appear on export or cars sold in Canada until 1968.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1968 model year Furys received only minor grille updates along with side marker lights and shoulder belts for front outboard occupants (except the convertibles). At the rear, however, all models except the station wagons received new sheet metal, including reshaped rear doors on four-door models. Meanwhile, the Suburban badge returned to station wagons after having been retired in 1961. The Suburban, Custom Suburban, and Sport Suburban corresponded to the Fury I, II, and III models.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: From 1966 until 1969, a luxury version of the Fury called the "Plymouth VIP" (marketed as the "very important Plymouth" in 1966) was fielded, in response to the Ford LTD, Chevrolet Caprice, and the AMC Ambassador DPL. These models came with standards such as full wheel covers, vinyl tops, luxuriously upholstered interiors with walnut dashboards and door-panel trim, a thicker grade of carpeting, more sound insulation, and full courtesy lighting.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: In Australia, the full-size Dodge Phoenix was based on the Dodge Dart and the 440 until 1965, when it became a right-hand drive version of the contemporary Fury. The Phoenix continued in production in Australia until 1972, each based on that year's North American Plymouth Fury.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1969 model year featured Chrysler's new round-sided "Fuselage Look" styling. The Fury was again available as a 2-door hardtop, 2-door convertible, 4-door hardtop, 4-door sedan, and 4-door station wagon. For 1970, the VIP was discontinued and a 4-door hardtop was added to the Sport Fury range, which also gained a new hardtop coupe. This was available in "GT" trim; the 1970 and 1971 Sport Fury GTs were powered by the engine, which in 1970 could be ordered with three 2-barrel (twin-choke) carburetors (the "6-Barrel on Plymouth and 6-PAK for Dodge") producing 390 hp and 490 ft-lbs of torque. The base model engine produced .


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1969 models included the Fury I, Fury II, and Fury III, the sport-model Sport Fury, and the top-line VIP. The 225 cubic-inch six-cylinder engine continued as standard on the Fury I, II, and select III models, with the V8 standard on the Sport Fury, some Fury III models, and all VIP models plus the station wagon. A three-speed manual transmission was standard, with the TorqueFlite automatic transmission optional. The six-cylinder engine/three-speed manual transmission power team – along with the three-speed manual transmission on the V8 – continued to be available until midway through the 1971 model year, after which all full-sized Plymouths were built with a V8 engine, including the new 360 cubic inch engine and automatic transmission. Parking lights now illuminated with the headlights, which meant that if one headlight was inoperative in low beam, so oncoming drivers would not mistake the car for a motorcycle in the dark.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: For 1970, the VIP was dropped, with the Sport Fury line expanded to include a four-door hardtop sedan. An optional Brougham package, which included individually-adjustable split bench seats with passenger recliner and luxurious trim comparable to the former VIP series, was available on Sport Furys; a Sport Fury GT and S/23 models. The S/23 was dropped for 1971, with new options including an electric sunroof (for top-line models) and a stereo tape player with a microphone, making it possible to record off the radio or take dictation.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1971 model year offered a new Sport Fury 4-door sedan and a 2-door sedan (similar to the Sport Fury hardtop but with fixed rear quarter windows) in the Fury I series. A hardtop coupe was now available in the Fury II series, and a Formal Hardtop was available for both Sport Fury and Fury III. New options included headlight washers and a stereo cassette recorder. The LA 360 cubic engine was introduced, the largest production "smallblock" V8 built by Chrysler Corporation.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: For 1972, the Fury was facelifted with a large chrome twin-loop bumper design with a small insignia space between the loops and hidden headlamps as standard equipment on the Sport Suburban, and the newly introduced Fury Gran Coupe and Gran Sedan, which eventually would become the Plymouth Gran Fury; the Sport Fury and GT models were dropped, while the new Fury Gran series offered an optional Brougham package. The six-cylinder engine, strangled by emissions requirements, was no longer offered in full-size Plymouths. On the other hand, a 400 cubic inch V8 was now an option. For 1973, the front end was redesigned with a new grille and headlamp setup, along with bumpers capable of withstanding impacts. The 360 became the standard engine for Fury Suburbans.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: For 1974 model year the Fury shared Chrysler's all-new full-size C-body platform in common with the concurrent flagship Imperial (1974-75); Chrysler New Yorker (1974-78), Newport (1974-78) and Town & Country (1974-77); and with the Dodge Monaco (1974-76) and Royal Monaco (1977) as well. Styling was more squared off with lower beltlines and greater use of glass than with Chrysler's previous fuselage generation (1969-73), also with cues more similar to the model year 1971 and later GM "B" bodies and model year 1973–74 Mercurys. The unibody structure with subframe for engine/transmission was retained along with other typical Chrysler Corporation engineering features including torsion bar front suspension and asymmetrical multi-leaf springs in the rear.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: Model lineup again included the Fury I, Fury II, Fury III and Gran Fury series, plus the Suburban and Sport Suburban station wagons. Engine offerings included a standard V8 with two-barrel carburetor on sedans and coupes, a two-barrel V8 standard on wagons and optional on other models, and four-barrel carbureted 400 and V8s optional on all models.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: All 1974 Furys came standard with TorqueFlite automatic transmissions, power steering, and power front disc brakes.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: As part of the company's efforts to make ordering a well-equipped car easier, two special model packages were available: a basic group (which had items already ordered on a majority of full-sized Plymouths, such as an AM radio, air conditioning, light group and tinted glass) and a luxury group (which added items such as cruise control, power windows and an AM/FM stereo radio). The Brougham package, whose centerpiece was the individually-adjustable 50/50 divided front seat with individual center armrests and recliners, was still available for Gran Furys. New options included Chrysler's chronometer (an electronic digital clock), a gauge alert system that used light-emitting diodes to monitor engine functions and automatic temperature control.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: For information on Chrysler's full-size C-body Plymouth (from model years 1975-77), see Plymouth Gran Fury.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: For the 1975 model year, Chrysler moved the Fury name, which had been part of the full-size C-body Plymouth model line up during the previous ten model years, over to the restyled mid-size B-body line, which had been marketed as the Satellite previously. The "Road Runner" was offered as the top-of-the-line model of the redesigned Plymouth Fury 2-door line up, then it was moved over to the Plymouth Volare line up during the following model year (1976). The full-size Plymouth, now known as the Plymouth Gran Fury, lasted through 1977. The entire mid-size Plymouth Fury line up was discontinued at the end of the 1978 model year, replaced in Canada by the rebadged Dodge Diplomat model called the Plymouth Caravelle (not to be confused with the E-body Plymouth Caravelle from 1983 until 1988 and also the 1985 through 1988 Plymouth Caravelle for the American car market). During the entire 1979 model year, there were no Fury models marketed by Plymouth.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: Only minor styling changes occurred from the 1975 through the 1978 model years, most notably, during the 1977 model year when quad stacked square headlights (see photo) replaced the previous round dual beam headlights, the front turn signals, previously on the outboard edges of the grille, were moved over to the cutouts in the front bumper. Tail lights received amber turn signal lenses in place of the previous red turn signal lenses. Various 2-door models had no centerposts and some of them were true hardtops with roll-down rear windows. Other two-door models had fixed rear windows even though they had no centerposts. For the most part, the Plymouth Fury two-door models, during the 1975 and 1978 model years, were labeled as "hardtops".


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The Plymouth Fury, 1975-1978, shared its B-body and unibody structure with the Dodge Coronet (1975-1976), Dodge Monaco (1977-1978) and the corporation's new personal-luxury coupe models, Chrysler Cordoba (1975-1979) and Dodge Charger SE (1975-1978). All the four-door models, wagons and sedans, continued with the basic body shells that were introduced for the 1971 model year, rode on a wheelbase, while the various two-door models—which were restyled with new and more formal sheetmetal and rooflines—rode on the wheelbase.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: Before 1975, the Plymouth Satellite had a wheelbase, while the Dodge Coronet had a wheelbase. For 1975, the mid-size Plymouth Fury had a wheelbase and the 1975 Dodge Coronet had the same wheelbase.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: Before 1974, the Plymouth Fury had a wheelbase, while the Dodge Monaco/Polara had a wheelbase. For 1974, the Plymouth Gran Fury and Dodge Monaco had the same wheelbase.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: Fury was offered in three basic subseries for 1975 in sedans and coupes and two for the station wagon. The sedan was offered in base, custom and salon models, with interior and exterior trim ranging from austere to luxurious. The salon featured plush velour bench seats with recliners and folding armrests and carpeted trunks, along with a spring-loaded hood ornament with the Plymouth logo. In addition to the Road Runner, the Fury coupes were offered in base, Custom and Sport models. The "sport" was the top-line coupe featuring body pinstriping on the upper door and front and rear fenders, interiors with all-vinyl bucket seats and center cushion and armrest, or optional center console; or split bench seats with armrest, along with plusher shag carpeting on floor and door panels plus lower door carpeting. The wagons were available as either the Fury Suburban or Fury Custom Suburban.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: Engine offerings included the slant-six that was standard on all models except Fury Sport, Road Runner, and station wagons, which came with the V8 as the base engine which was optional on other models. Optional engines on all models included and V8s with two- or four-barrel carburetor, and the four-barrel was only as a "police" option on four-door sedans. A three-speed manual transmission was standard with the automatic TorqueFlite optional.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1976 model year mid-size B-body 1976 Plymouth Fury saw very few appearance changes from the previous year other than the availability of a dual opera window roof on Sport Fury two-door models. Engine and transmission offerings were also unchanged except that the 360 two-barrel V8 was now the standard engine on station wagons along with the TorqueFlite automatic transmission, both items of which were optional on other models.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1977 model year mid-size B-body 1977 Plymouth Fury received a new front end with a chrome vertical bar grille and outline along with stacked rectangular headlights. Model and drivetrain offerings were unchanged from 1976 except that the Slant Six now had two-barrel carburetion replacing the one-barrel pot of previous years and was now standard on the Sport Fury two-door models. Optional V8 engines included the 318 two-barrel, 360 two- or four-barrel and 400 two- or four-barrel. The 440 four-barrel V8 was only offered in four-door models as part of the police package.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1978 model year was technically a mid-size B-body car, but the 1978 Plymouth Fury was Plymouth's largest car with the discontinuation of the full-size C-body Plymouth Gran Fury after 1977. TorqueFlite automatic transmission and power steering were now standard on all Fury models and the same selection of V8 engines was still available. Few appearance changes were made from the previous model year. The 1978 was the last model year for the Plymouth Fury and its Dodge Monaco counterpart, which was renamed as such during the start of the previous model year (1977), which, in turn, was called the "Dodge Coronet" (1965, 1966, and 1967, from 1968 until 1974, and from 1975 through 1976), while the former full-size C-body Dodge was renamed the "Dodge Royal Monaco" during the start of the previous model year (1977) up until it was discontinued after just one model year. The personal-luxury coupes, which were based on the mid-size B-body platform, including the Chrysler Cordoba and Dodge Magnum (renamed from Charger in 1978) would soldier on for one more year until they were downsized (and renamed Mirada for the Dodge version) in 1980 to the M-body platform used for the Dodge Diplomat and Chrysler LeBaron.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: For 1979, Chrysler's venerable B-body chassis/unibody structure was reengineered and restyled into the new R-body full-sized car, which was a considerably downsized replacement of the 1974–78 C-body cars. The R-body included the 1979-1981 Chrysler Newport, Chrysler New Yorker, and Dodge St. Regis


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The 1980-1981 R-body Gran Fury, although not common in retail sales, did quite well in fleet and government/public safety sales.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: After Chrysler discontinued the R-body halfway through the 1981 model year, they decided to anoint the M-body platform with "full-size" status for 1982. The New Yorker and Gran Fury nameplates were thus assigned to the former LeBaron and Canadian Caravelle models, respectively, for the US market. The Chrysler New Yorker (1982) and New Yorker Fifth Avenue (1983) (renamed Chrysler Fifth Avenue for 1984) shared the Gran Fury and Dodge Diplomat body.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: The M-body cars were available through the 1989 model year, and the Gran Fury and Diplomat were very popular choices for police cruisers. Chrysler discontinued the M-body (and L-body) cars in late 1988, midway through the 1989 model year. That brought over 30 years of Plymouth Fury history to an end.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: A 1958 Plymouth Fury was the title subject of the 1983 best-selling novel "Christine" by Stephen King. Later in the same year the book was adapted into a movie of the same name.


title: Plymouth Fury

text: In the television series "Leave it to Beaver" (S3:E33, "Beaver and Violet"), character Fred Rutherford's 1960 convertible Fury is prominently seen.


title: Senedd

text: The Senedd (; ), officially known as the Welsh Parliament in English and () in Welsh, is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Wales. A democratically elected body, it makes laws for Wales, agrees certain taxes and scrutinises the Welsh Government. It is a bilingual institution, with both Welsh and English being the official languages of its business. From its creation in May 1999 until May 2020, the Senedd was known as the National Assembly for Wales ().


title: Senedd

text: The Senedd comprises 60 members who are known as Members of the Senedd (), abbreviated as "MS" (). Since 2011, members are elected for a five-year term of office under an additional member system, in which 40 MSs represent smaller geographical divisions known as "constituencies" and are elected by first-past-the-post voting, and 20 MSs represent five "electoral regions" using the D'Hondt method of proportional representation. Typically, the largest party in the Senedd forms the Welsh Government.


title: Senedd

text: A National Assembly for Wales was created by the Government of Wales Act 1998, following the result of the 1997 referendum. The Assembly initially had no powers to make primary legislation. Limited law-making powers were gained through the Government of Wales Act 2006. Its primary law-making powers were enhanced following a Yes vote in the referendum on 3 March 2011, meaning that the UK Parliament or the Secretary of State for Wales were no longer consulted when passing acts of the National Assembly for Wales related to the 20 devolved areas. These powers were further extended by the Wales Act 2014 and Wales Act 2017, with the latter moving the Assembly to a reserved powers model of devolution like that of the Scottish Parliament. In May 2020, the Assembly was renamed to "Senedd Cymru" or "the Welsh Parliament" when section 2 of the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 came into force. Matters devolved to the Senedd include health, education, economic development, transport, the environment, agriculture, local government and some taxes.


title: Senedd

text: An appointed Council for Wales and Monmouthshire was established in 1949 to "ensure the government is adequately informed of the impact of government activities on the general life of the people of Wales". The council had 27 members nominated by local authorities in Wales, the University of Wales, National Eisteddfod Council and the Welsh Tourist Board. A post of Minister of Welsh Affairs was created in 1951 and the post of Secretary of State for Wales and the Welsh Office were established in 1964 leading to the abolition of the Council for Wales. The establishment of the Welsh Office effectively created the basis for the territorial governance of Wales. The Royal Commission on the Constitution (the Kilbrandon Commission) was set up in 1969 by Harold Wilson's Labour Government to investigate the possibility of devolution for Scotland and Wales. Its recommendations formed the basis of the 1974 White Paper "Democracy and Devolution: proposals for Scotland and Wales", which proposed the creation of a Welsh Assembly. However, Welsh voters overwhelmingly rejected the proposals in a referendum held in 1979.


title: Senedd

text: After the 1997 general election, the new Labour Government argued that an Assembly would be more democratically accountable than the Welsh Office. For eleven years prior to 1997 Wales had been represented in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom by a Secretary of State who did not represent a Welsh constituency at Westminster. A referendum was held in Wales on 18 September 1997 in which voters approved the creation of the National Assembly for Wales with a total of 559,419 votes, or 50.3% of the vote.


title: Senedd

text: The following year the Government of Wales Act was passed by the United Kingdom parliament, establishing the Assembly. On 1 July 1999 the powers of the Secretary of State for Wales were transferred to the Assembly and the Welsh Office ceased to exist.


title: Senedd

text: In July 2002, the Welsh Government established an independent commission, with Lord Richard (former leader of the House of Lords) as chair, to review the powers and electoral arrangements of the National Assembly to ensure that it is able to operate in the best interests of the people of Wales. The Richard Commission reported in March 2004. It recommended that the National Assembly should have powers to legislate in certain areas, whilst others would remain the preserve of Westminster. It also recommended changing the electoral system to the single transferable vote (STV) which would produce greater proportionality.


title: Senedd

text: In response, the British government, in its "Better Governance for Wales" White Paper, published on 15 June 2005, proposed a more permissive law-making system for the Welsh Assembly based on the use of Parliamentary Orders in Council. In so doing, the Government rejected many of the cross party Richard Commission's recommendations. This has attracted criticism from opposition parties and others.


title: Senedd

text: The Government of Wales Act 2006 received Royal Assent on 25 July 2006. It conferred on the Assembly legislative powers similar to other devolved legislatures through the ability to pass Assembly Measures concerning matters that are devolved. Requests for further legislative powers made through legislative competence requests were subject to the veto of the Secretary of State for Wales, House of Commons or House of Lords.


title: Senedd

text: The Act reformed the assembly to a parliamentary-type structure, establishing the Welsh Government as an entity separate from, but accountable to the National Assembly. It enables the Assembly to legislate within its devolved fields.


title: Senedd

text: The Act also reforms the Assembly's electoral system. It prevents individuals from standing as candidates in both constituency and regional seats. This aspect of the act was subject to a great deal of criticism, most notably from the Electoral Commission., though it was supported in the Richard Commission


title: Senedd

text: The Act was heavily criticised. Plaid Cymru, the Official Opposition in the National Assembly from 1999 to 2007, attacked it for not delivering a fully-fledged parliament. Many commentators have also criticised the Labour Party's allegedly partisan attempt to alter the electoral system. By preventing regional Members from standing in constituency seats the party has been accused of changing the rules to protect constituency representatives. Labour had 29 members in the Assembly at the time, all of whom held constituency seats.


title: Senedd

text: Following a referendum on 3 March 2011, the Welsh Assembly gained direct law making powers, without the need to consult Westminster.


title: Senedd

text: The Conservative-Liberal coalition government created the Commission on Devolution in Wales (also known as Silk Commission), composed of members nominated by the 4 parties represented in the Welsh Assembly and several leading legal and political experts, to "create a lasting devolution settlement for Wales". Following the first set of recommendations by the Commission, the UK government announced in November 2013 that some borrowing powers are to be devolved to the Assembly along with control of landfill tax and stamp duty. Additionally the Wales Act 2014 provides for a referendum to be held on the Assembly's ability to set a degree of income tax, though there is a proposal for the requirement for a referendum to be removed.


title: Senedd

text: Both the UK and Welsh governments supported the Silk Commission (Part 2) proposal to move to a "reserved powers" model of devolution (similar to that of the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly) where the UK government would have specific "reserved" powers and the Welsh Assembly would have control of all other matters. This replaced the previous model where certain powers were "conferred" and all others were assumed to be powers of the UK national government. Since the passing of the Wales Act 2017, the power model in Wales has been in line with that of Scotland, being a reserved matter model.


title: Senedd

text: The Wales Act 2017, based on the second set of recommendations of the Silk Commission, proposed devolving further areas of government, including some relating to water, marine affairs (ports, harbours, conservation), energy (subsidies, petroleum extraction, construction of smaller energy-generating facilities, etc.), rail franchising and road travel.


title: Senedd

text: In July 2016, Assembly members unanimously agreed that the name of the Assembly should reflect its constitutional status as a national parliament. The Assembly Commission ran a public consultation on the proposal, which showed that 61% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the Assembly should change its name. In 2018, the commission announced its intention to introduce legislation to change the name of the Assembly. Later that year, the Llywydd – the Assembly's presiding officer – wrote to all Assembly Members explaining that the name change proposed in the Bill would be the monolingual name "Senedd". In 2019, the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill, favouring the name "Senedd", was introduced on behalf of the Assembly Commission. Following support of a subsequent amendment to the Bill which favoured a bilingual name for the institution, the Bill was passed by the Assembly on 27 November 2019 and was given Royal Assent on 15 January 2020. The Act changed the name of the Assembly to "Senedd Cymru" or the "Welsh Parliament". Its guidance states that the institution will be commonly known as the "Senedd" in both languages. The name change came into effect on 6 May 2020. Members of the renamed body are known as Members of the Senedd (MS), or Aelodau o'r Senedd (AS) in Welsh.


title: Senedd

text: On 22 November 2021, Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru agreed a co-operation deal that will see the implementation of 46 policies that the two parties share. One of these is the expansion of the Senedd from 60 Members to between 80 and 100 Members.