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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Karanacs 14:34, 3 November 2010 [1].

Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield

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Albert Stanley, 1st Baron Ashfield (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): DavidCane (talk) 00:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An exceptional administrator, Stanley was running the Detroit tramway system at the age of 20, the New Jersey tramway system at 32 and most of London's railways, buses and trams by 38. From 1916 to 1919, he was a member of the British cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. In the 1920s he was the driving force behind the creation of London Transport and led it through its "golden era". For something to do in his spare time he was a director of the Midland Bank and ICI.

This is a renomination. It was nominated in August, but ran out of time. DavidCane (talk) 00:14, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • For someone with such a varied career, the lead seems rather short;
  • "In 1907, his management skills led to his recruitment by the struggling UERL which he quickly helped recover from a financial crisis and then managed during the London Underground's greatest period of expansion between the two World Wars." seems a bit of a clumsy sentence to me; any way it could be split up?
  • "Stanley was given responsibility for time tables when he was 17" is a bit unclear; does it mean he was responsible for scheduling the services, or that he was responsible for designing/distributing the printed timetables?
    • It was the scheduling of the services, both Tiltman and the ODNB indicate that his responsibility influenced the shift times of the workers. I have adjusted the sentence slightly to make this clear. --DavidCane (talk) 23:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given that he served in the US military, does that mean he was a US citizen (and had to jump through all the renouncing-of-citizenship hoops when he took a British title), or did he retain his British citizenship and serve in the US forces as a foreign national?
    • None of the sources indicate that he had taken American citizenship, or that he had to renounce it later. I also found no record in the naturalisation lists in the London Gazette of a re-adoption of British citizenship, so I think he must have kept it when he emigrated.--DavidCane (talk) 23:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nitpick alert! The caption "The first Underground map from 1908 showing the UERL's lines and those of the other tube companies and the Metropolitan Railway" is unclear—I suspect most people will read that as either "the first-ever map of London's underground railways", or "the first map to show both the UERL and the Metropolitan Railway's networks", rather than the (correct) "the first map to use the 'Underground' branding for all services regardless of ownership";
  • Nitpick alert (2): "Only the Metropolitan Railway (and its subsidiaries the Great Northern & City Railway and the East London Railway) and the Waterloo & City Railway remained outside of the Underground Group's control" is slightly misleading, to readers who aren't familiar with the London transport network and its spectacularly complicated ownership. The MR and the W&CR were the only non-UERL companies which were later sucked into the London Underground network, but there were many other railways in London not to be sucked into LU (such as the North London Railway);
  • "After the War, changed priorities and funding shortages led to much of the Northern line expansion plan being cancelled" isn't really true. The Northern Heights scheme was cancelled because the Metropolitan Green Belt legislation meant homebuilding in the areas around the new extension couldn't go ahead so there was no point continuing with construction, rather than any changed priority on London Transport's part.
    • I've added a bit about the green belt. The green belt was part of the cause, and affected the extensions to Bushey Heath and Denham, but it didn't cause the dropping of the Northern Heights sections between Finsbury Park and Alexandra Palace and from Mill Hill East to Edgware.--DavidCane (talk) 23:48, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, sort of—the Alexandra Palace and Mill Hill sections were dropped because they were predicated on Aldenham Works becoming a train-shed to handle the increase in rolling stock, and with the abandoning of the expansion into Hertfordshire due to Green Belt legislation, Aldenham was left unconnected to the Northern Line tracks and there was no suitable site along the existing route. I can't imagine anyone except me, you and possibly Redrose actually cares, so it's certainly not something I'd oppose over. – iridescent 19:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The post-1933 section rightly mentions about Ashfield and Pick's drive to improve the electric passenger network around London (the Piccadilly Line extension, the Northern Heights scheme etc). It could probably also do with a mention of the less glamorous, but equally significant, ruthless slash-and-burn approach to those parts of the network which didn't fit their vision (the rationalisation of the stations on the Piccadilly Line, the closure of the outer sections of the Metropolitan Line, the withdrawal of first class and Pullman services, the deliberate running-down of freight services). – iridescent 11:01, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sources comments: Ealdgyth checked out the sources at the last FAC and there have been no changes that I can see, so sources still OK. Brianboulton (talk) 18:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment – In Return to the Underground, there is a very long quote that takes up an entire paragraph, which by itself seems to have no context. You have to go to the prior paragraph to find it. My thinking is that this would be the perfect place for a block quote, due to its size (five lines on my computer) and what comes before leads into it nicely. If you don't want to use a block quote, the paragraph in question should still be changed so the quote doesn't stand alone like it does now; moving some material would be the easiest remedy. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments - concerns now adequately addressed. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:35, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria (talk) 18:17, 17 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Image concerns:

  • File:Lord Ashfield by William Orpen.png
    Firstly is "circa 1925" a creation or publication date? Secondly, "based on contemporary photographs of Ashfield" implies it could be derivative of those photographs. What is the copyright status of the photograph this potrait was based on? Thirdly, Orpen died in 1931. British copyright law grants 70 years of copyright protection. That means on 1 January 1996, the work was still copyrighted in the UK. Therefore, publication before 1977 would mean that the work enjoys 95 years of copyright protection (still in force) in the US.
    I guessed at the date of creation as being around 1925 based on a comparison of photos of Ashfield from that time. His ODNB article indicates it was probably painted in 1930. The image itself was a presentation photograph in a folder signed by Ashfield, so probably from the same period. I'm not sure what the issue with the copyright period is - why 95 years? Another image by Orpen has been accepted in the past with the same copyright banner and has been on the main page.--DavidCane (talk) 00:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The 95 years of copyright is for possible US copyrights. Both Commons and Wikipedia are on US servers and hence, the media stored on them have to abide US copyright laws; those on Commons also have to be in the public domain in their country of origin. See commons:Commons:Licensing and Wikipedia:Image use policy. The US is a signatory to the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), which bestows a US equivalent copyright to foreign works published before 1977 (without compliance with US copyright laws) and were still copyrighted in their countries of origin before 1 January 1996. See http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm. Jappalang (talk) 08:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    OK. So we appear to have the distinctly perverse situation of a painting by a British/Irish artist that is in the public domain in the UK where it was created, but is still copyright in the US. Looks like it will have to go then and I'll have to find another.--DavidCane (talk) 22:08, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. Might I suggest using File:Lord Stanley by Hugh Cecil.jpg? Cecil also shot one of Stanley scribbling at his desk (facing left) here but the image quality is kind of poor. Jappalang (talk) 01:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Excellent. I considered that one, but couldn't be sure that it had been published in the US. This is the reverse of the Orpin: copyright in the UK because Cecil didn't die until the 1970s, but not in the US. From the UK, I just normally just get the snippet view of most google book, but with a proxy, I can see the whole thing. I'll have to see what else might have been lurking behind the veil. Many thanks for finding that. --DavidCane (talk) 22:54, 1 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Tube map 1908-2.jpg
    Why is authorship stated unknown when "Johnson, Riddle & Co Ltd London, S E" is printed at the bottom right? Was the company contacted to make sure that "the author cannot be ascertained by reasonable enquiry" (per the wording of the PD-UK-unknown template)? Why is the title of the source 1910Map? Is this map a 1910 or 1908 version? Any way to corroborate the date of publication? Even the rear of this map show no obvious signs of its date.
  • Butting in, but this is an area in which I do have some knowledge: from the "Underground" logo, that's the 1908 map. Official London tube maps were always uncredited, until a few years ago. The copyright would have been held by UERL; Johnson Riddle would just have been the firm who printed the map, rather than the artist. (In this period, the printing contract flipped back and forth between Johnson Riddle and Waterlow's.) London Underground didn't use a named artist until Macdonald Gill and Fred Stingemore in the 1920s; before that, it would just have been the publicity department. – iridescent 22:24, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks Iridescent. The titling of the web page is an error by the site. The smaller view here gives the year as 1908. In addition, there are a couple of indicators in the stations shown. The two Wood Lane stations (next to the grey box marked exhibition) opened in 1908 to serve the Franco-British Exhibition and "Gower Street" and "Bishopsgate" on the red line were renamed Euston Square and Liverpool Street respectively in 1909.--DavidCane (talk) 00:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Depends how you define "present owner". UERL was bought by the London County Council (although not nationalised) in 1933 and merged into the London Passenger Transport Board. The LPTB was nationalised in 1948 and became a part of the British Transport Commission. The BTC was abolished in 1963 and their London operations (including what had been UERL) became a government department in its own right, the London Transport Board. The LTB was handed over to the Greater London Council in 1970. The GLC was abolished in 1986, and rather than give the tube trains to the GLC's successors, they were re-nationalised as London Regional Transport. In 1999 LRT became the quasi-autonomous Transport for London. In 2003 TfL, while retaining formal ownership, leased the operations to Tube Lines and Metronet. Metronet then went bust, leaving three of the lines operated by Tube Lines and the remainder operated by TfL directly, and TfL then bought out Tube Lines bringing the network back under unified control. Ultimately the "present owner" would be the Commissioner of Transport for London on behalf of the Mayor of London, but with so many back-and-forth changes of ownership, the archives and histories are hopelessly complicated and spread across multiple sites. Certainly No Need to Ask!, which is the definitive history of early Underground maps, reproduces and discusses this particular map (p.50) with no information other than the printers, which strongly suggests to me that details of the original artist are lost (since a significant element of NNTA! is the comparison of the styles of different cartographers). – iridescent 09:14, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Lord Stanley and daughter.jpg
    http://www.photoarchivenews.com/newsletters.html states that the L.N.A is with the Press Association. Were they contacted about the copyright of this photograph per "[ascertaining] by reasonable enquiry"?
    As indicated above, I hadn't been able to find out who had taken over the LNA's archive. Now that we know it is the Press Association, I'll see whether they can provide any information, though the image does not show up in searches of their online archive. --DavidCane (talk) 00:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    "A similar image taken at the same time appears in the London Transport Museum photographic archive and is also credited to an unknown photographer" does not help the case since a publicity event would have various photographers at the scene (different agencies).
    Agreed, I was using that as an easy corroboration for Nikkimaria of the event and date only.--DavidCane (talk) 00:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Update: I sent an email yesterday to the Press Association asking if the image is one of theirs and for any information they may have on the photographer. A response is awaited.--DavidCane (talk) 18:58, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These should be resolved before the article should be considered for promotion. Jappalang (talk) 22:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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