Talk:Robert Lawson (architect)

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Contents

[edit] Early life: do we not know anything about his formative years?

The article says: "... and later in Edinburgh under James Gillespie Graham." Was this at the University of Edinburgh, or perhaps privately, eg. an apprenticeship? His first 21 years are dealt with in three very brief, indeed rather bare, sentences. Do we not know anything about his formative years? --Mais oui! 09:22, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to make some points about this article. I agree with the person who said it is generally a good one but there are some errors of fact and some doubtful factual claims. There are also some problems with some of the assessments but I'll start with the most straightforward things.

The pulpit of First Church is Oamaru stone, not marble. The foundations are Port Chalmers breccia, not basalt. In the list of buildings at the end Park's School and the South District School William Street are the same building.

The article says that the pinnacles, which it calls "turrets" on the main tower of Otago Boys High School are really disguised chimneys. I don't believe they are. It needs to be checked.

Otago Boys High School is castellated. Although the front tower has balustrades not battlements, there are battlements, "crenellations", on the tops of the frontal bay windows and on the side wall. You can see them in the accompanying illustration.

It is suggested that the Otago Boys High School tower's design is like that for Tower Bridge London and the article seems to be suggesting the London one may have influenced Lawson. That seems unlikely. The London towers have hipped roofs while Boys High's tower doesn't. It has pinnacles while the London towers have corner turrets. Also OBHS started building in 1883 whereas the Tower Bridge's design wasn't selected until 1884.

There's some tension between claiming that First Church "replicates" "the late Norman cathedrals of England" and that it is in the "decorated Gothic style". The latter is the name used for the second of the English Gothic styles whereas the Norman cathedrals are Romanesque and belong to the time before any Gothic. First Church is usually described as reviving the Early English or Pointed Gothic style, that of the main part of Salisbury Cathedral. It is essentially a similar exercise to Knox Church, which this article describes as reviving the 13th century English Gothic. That is the period of the main part of Salisbury and from memory "13th century English" was the description of Knox's style given at the time of its completion. Knox's tracery strays a little into the next manner - the Decorated or Flamboyant - unlike First Church where the comparable work is more strictly 13th century. I can see that the turetting at the back of First is a bit reminiscent of things Norman and Victorian Revivalist buildings tend to be a bit eclectic. But it's a bit of a stretch to have First Church as both Norman and Decorated Gothic.

The strong claim that Lawson only supervised the building of the Municipal Chambers to T.B. Cameron's design needs some backstopping. The conventional view is that Cameron won the competition; Lawson was appointed to supervise its building but in fact substituted his own design. Certainly the Municipal Chambers has features at the core of the design which Lawson commonly used. For example the triangular principal elevation (for the Octagon front) with a tower at the centre and the entrance below which is present in First Church, East Taieri Church, Larnach Castle and Otago Boys High School - also the modest private house at 15 Scotland Street Dunedin which Lawson designed for Peter Engel in 1869. To set aside the conventional view of the Municipal Chambers' authorship one would need some strong evidence: a signed drawing of the present design by Cameron, for example.

A small matter, in the list of buildings at the end, "The Gothic monument in the Northern Cemetery Dunedin" might be better described as the "Larnach family mausoleum". There are a lot of Gothic monuments in the cemetery but I take it this is the one the article is referring to.

One could raise questions about the analysis of Larnach Castle. The author regards the combination of Scottish Tudor house and colonial verandahs as Lawson's invention. There is a view that the Scottish Tudor house was his idea and the verandahs were Larnach's. This is where the story about Castle Forbes NSW comes in. It is suggeasted that as an Australian Larnach simply wanted verandahs but Lawson was unhappy with their addition and that that is why his name is not overtly associated with the design. He certainly signed the drawings but it wasn't reported as one of his buildings - I understand. The verandahs turned out to be impractical in the climate and later had to be glazed in, rather spoiling the elegance of the design. This construction of events may be wrong but probably needs to be considered.

I hope this is helpful.

I'm having difficulty getting this thing to put my name in here so I will just type it in - Peter Entwisle —Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter Entwisle (talk • contribs) 08:17, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

You have to put four of the "squiggly" things in - you have made some interesting points, the page need some more footonotes and cites, so I will add them over the next couple of days and we can discuss the rest. The pinnacles'turrets are definitly chimneys, one can see the chimney breasts all the way up the building and the smoke vents just under the spires, this was a common neo-Gothic feature, to the left of the tower you van just see a crenelated turret performing the same function. I only mention the similarity to Tower Bridge to demonstrate the modernity of the fashion of the building at the time - we can change that though if you don't like it. I will look at your other points. Giano 09:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Peter Entwisle 09:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC) I don't think we mean the same thing by "chimney breasts". No matter. I see what you're pointing to as smoke vents. There are true chimney stacks behind the tower but I don't think they have much bearing on the issue. I'll have to go and look at the pinnacles again - and consult another source. I haven't been inside the tower for a long time.

On another matter, I went away to try to find a copy of Olive Trotter's book on the Municipal Chambers. It reproduces a cross sectioned elevation - from one side - which I seem to recall is an autograph Lawson drawing. The design is of the building as we know it now. When the city wanted to restore it in the 1980s they couldn't find many of Lawson's original designs. There was a copy of the principal elevation made about 1901 by someone else - not Cameron - a then city employee. I'll be interested to hear your comments.

Also in the interim I remembered that Fleur Snedden has rather demolished the idea Larnach committed suicide because he was going bankrupt. (Her book "King of the Castle" came out in 1998.) She has evidence his financial situation was stable and/or improving. She attributed his suicide to the rumours that his eldest son was having an affair with his third wife. I'll put some more tildes in here in case they make a difference. Peter Entwisle 09:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC) Peter Entwisle 09:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I note that you are not trying to suggest Lawson was influenced by Tower Bridge when he designed Otago Boys. I think the text will need modification to make that clear. The towers really don't seem very similar to me. Those of Tower Bridge are indeed like French Chateaux whereas Boys High is like a slightly fictionalised Scottish tower house.I know those things are connected anyway but as you have pointed out Lawson is heading off into something we like to call "Jacobethan". Was it really so modern at the time? Larnach Castle is pretty similar and that was designed in the 1860s. By this reckoning it must be incredibly modern. If we're talking about the same thing I think you can find revivals of Tudor domestic buildings at least in the early decades of the 19thC. Gillespie Graham did some. Perhaps we aren't talking about the same thing.

Another matter, about twenty years ago Jonathan Mane gave a lecture in Dunedin, and projected a slide of a church, I think in Fife, anyway, somewhere Lawson had been when he was young, which Jonathan thought might have been an inspiration for First Church. I've been trying to remember what it was. My recollection is it had more in common than Gillespie Graham's and Pugin's Tolbooth St John's - the other likely starting point. I don't suppose you happen to know what that building is? Peter Entwisle 10:10, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Could be Dunfermline Abbey and [1] although the principal tower is not at all the same. I think there is a huge similarity of styles between Tower Bridge and Otago especially in the use of ornament and the small turrets and windows etc, but I'm not bothered if you want to remove it. Regarding Larnach's suicide I know nothing of the man and just used the references available to me, if there is now doubt then a footnote needs to be added to express that. Personally I don't think Larnach Castle appears Scottish at all, but those who write the reference books claim that it does. Sadly, I have never been within 5000 miles of any of Lawson's work - so I am quite prepared to be corrected, all I have attempted to do is regurgitate some facts from reference books combine them and make a page. As I said I will cite the facts that you disagree with and then if you still disagree with the primary author you can change them of we can discuss it. Giano 10:31, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Regarding my lack of mention of the battlements I have made this edit [2] Giano 10:41, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I suppose it is dangerous to typecast any Gothic revival building to one particular form of Gothic, although in my opinion the First church is more evidently decorated Gothic than any other form, there was certainly a period of late Norman Gothic which preceded the Early English Gothic period. Durham Cathedral, Wells Cathedral are examples of Norman Gothic. Salisbury Cathedral certainly has decorated Gothic elements, although I suppose York Minster is a better example. You say: "First Church is usually described as reviving the Early English or Pointed Gothic style" I'm unsure what you mean by "pointed Gothic" are you saying that is a phase in the evolution of the various forms of Gothic? I had always understod it to be general all ecompassing adjective to describe all forms of Gothic. Giano 11:30, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
I certainly do not credit Lawson with invention the combination of Tudor and verandahs, I don't see where you draw that conclusion from - if you point it out I will happily change it. The reference books listed all were returned to the library over two years ago, sadly at the time this page was written it was not the custom to cite each fact to a particular book, so I can't tell you which one claimed the foundation were Port Chalmers basalt, but if you say it is Port Chalmers breccia then fine - I have a feeling the correct name for the bressia of P Clamers is basalt breccia, the two certainly seem to go hand in hand [3]. The same goes for the stone of the pulpit please amend. Please change and cite the debate over the council chambers design - modern thought is always best. Giano 17:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Dear Giano,

A few points:

The pinnacles "turrets" on the front tower of Otago Boys High School are not disguised chimney stacks. They are completely solid. I phoned Ted McCoy the architect responsible for the major renovation in the 1980s and he doubted it but like me thought it was best to go and check. The building is just up the hill. As you walk towards it you can see that the things which look like vents in your photograph are blind battlement slits. The pinnacles take the form of little battlemented turrets with tall cones set down into them. In fact they are all made of blocks of Oamaru limestone built up from the corners of the tower walls and carved. I went in and Sue the Secretary took me up onto the tower roof where I checked their construction. Nevertheless, at the front corners in the lower portions of the balustrade and just above the tower roof there are holes which may be chimney vents. I don't think they're for drainage and in the walls below there is room for a flue - one on either side of the tower at the front. So there probably are concealed chimney flues in the tower, just not in the pinnacles or "turrets".

I see from your note above that you have never seen any of Lawson's work. That's tricky especially when talking about the details of construction which are often not well described in the sources. It also makes it a bit clearer to me why you might say some of the things you do.

On the matter of basalt versus breccia: many Dunedin buildings combine basalt with Port Chalmers breccia. The latter is usually called that round here while the basalt is called "bluestone". There are different types of the latter distinguished by their quarry names e.g. "Water of Leith". Geologically the basalts are different from the breccia. The basalts come from the core of the Dunedin volcano and are very hard and very dense - much more so than granite - and have unusual forms of fracturing. The breccia is a form of volcanic lava - not the really light and airy stuff but much denser. It is softer and lighter than basalt though still much harder and denser than say, sandstone. It has in it fragments of basalt which you can quite clearly see. This is why the latter is sometim es mentioned in connection with it. Nevertheless both geologically and as building stones they are quite distinct. They also look different.

I'm afraid I do think the Tower Bridge towers are very different from Lawson's Boys High tower. In Dunedin Maxwell Bury's tower for the University of Otago (1879) is more like those of Tower Bridge, one of the reasons why it seems strange here to draw the much more distant parallel between the Boys High Tower and Tower Bridge's towers.

I think if you had been here you might see too that it is odd to suggest Lawson's First Church for the Presbyterians is more ornate that F.W. Petre's work for the Catholics. Mr Petre's Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament is in Christchurch, more than two hundred miles away. In Dunedin, and in sight of First Church there is Mr Petre's St Joseph's cathedral which is in a revived French Gothic style - like Chartres - and very elaborate. By contrast First Church looks suitably austere and Presbyterian.

Among your sources you don't mention Arthur Salmond's excellent small book on First Church. (It was published by Otago Heritage Books in the 1980s and is very helpful.) Salmond was a relation of James Louis Salmond - Lawson's student - who, by the way, has no "e" on the end of his name.

I note you acknowledge that those who write the reference books think Larnach Castle looks Scottish - as they also acknowledge that of Otago Boys High School. I don't want to hammer the point but I believe I can see what they're getting at and that it rests on something objective. My recollection is that the contemporary records - I mean at the time of their construction and completion - also so describe them.

About First Church and style terminology: there are certainly many Romanesque churches in Britain with later Gothic additions and modifications. However in my experience architectural historians usually stick to calling them separate styles and don't countenance an evolution of one into the other. Again, in my experience it is not uncommon for architectural historians to call the Early English Gothic "Pointed Gothic" as an alternative name. (Some of them distinguish an "early pointed" and a "later pointed".) I agree all Gothic architecture is pointed but that doesn't distinguish one type from another. Admittedly Salisbury's tower and spire are Decorated but people tend to harp on about the fact that most of the rest of it is Early - an unusual case in England of most of a large building being in only one Gothic style. I think Decorated features are less conspicuous on First Church than 13th century ones - whatever style name you want to give to that.

Larnach Castle and Lawson being responsible for putting together Scots Baronial and verandahs. I will look at your text and quote the passage which seems to credit him with putting them together.

Generally I thought you might like to make the modifications yourself. The idea that Lawson substituted his own design for Cameron's for the Municipal Chambers isn't exactly new. I think it's been known since the building was completed.

There's more I'd like to say about your comments on the interiors of First and Knox Churches, also perhaps on your general construal of Lawson's achievement. I see him as a very great architect indeed but perhaps not for the same reasons as you. But time is going by and this is already enough for now. I daresay I'm trying your patience and will forbear.


Peter Entwisle Peter Entwisle 22:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I note all of your points. I completely disagree with your view that "pointed gothic" refers to Early English. Regarding the "chimneys" that would be easy enough to prove by just locating the fireplaces. The reason I do not mention Arthur Salmond's work is because I did not use it. I have reliably referenced the claim that he did not design the Municipal Chambers. It would be a good idea if you cited and reffed the alternative view that he did. Far from "trying my patience" I am delighted a true New Zealand expert has finally shown up to fill the gaping whole which has been apparent for so long in Wikipedia concerning NZ's architecture. If you can find a sentence insinuating that I think Lawson invented Tudor (or whatever) and verandahs then please do change it, because I do not. In fact please change anything you are not happy with. If you think Larnach Castle is not as I say "not strictly Scottish" then please amend it. However, I have never seen a castle or house in Scotland looking quite like that. Unfortunately I can only write a page using the resources available to me here, as you rightly say I am very far away. You are obviously far better equipped with references. The page by today's standards is woefully short of cites. No wikipedia page is a bible that cannot be changed. I look forward to seeing your improvements. Regarding the list and its content, I am not responsible for most of that so I cannot comment. The Larnach Mausoleum is mentioned by me in the Larnach Castle section. Believe me I have no whish to tread on any Kiwi toes by writing about NZ architecture, and I am delighted to see you here. Giano 23:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Robert Lawson (architect)

This section copied from my talk page after I condensed the Seacliff section, and User:Giano II objected to it:

Copy-paste Start

Please do not remove information and pictures from the above article. They are an important facet of the architect's work and very relevant to the page. By all means link to your new page but not at the expense of the arcjitect's bio. Thanks. Giano 09:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not remove them. This page is very long, and can stand some moving of material to other articles. Don't get defensive - nothing is going to be lost. MadMaxDog 09:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
The page is a FA because it is complete and comprehensive. Please leave it so and do not remove information. Giano 09:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Copy-Paste End

This page is also rather long, and can certainly be imrpoved by moving some section DETAILS into sub-articles. I will discuss this more on here once I have finished my work on the Seacliff article. Please do not get reflexive in 'defending' an article (I do that myself sometimes on 'my' articles, but that doesn't mean we should simply revert).
I'd also ask others to look at the diff to see that I kept the substance of the section intact. MadMaxDog 10:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
The page is not over long, it is well researched and as complete as it is possible to be. In short it is what is required of a featured article. If you wish to write a page please feel free to do so, but do not at the expense of this page. Giano 10:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article size encourages subarticles to be built out of long articles (i.e. over 30 KB, this one is 36KB). MadMaxDog 10:08, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
MadMaxDog, you do realize this is a Featured article which you're reckoning to improve by removing text? The way it is, it was approved by the Wikipedia community as one of our best. Comprehensiveness is one of the criteria for a FA, and 36 kb is rather short for a FA. For the stringent process of getting articles Featured, please see WP:FAC. Bishonen | talk 10:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC).
Bishonen, since when is moving material into a subarticle, plainly linked in the relevant subsection a removal of information? Only in the strictest sense would that be true. Ah, have it your way - I don't care THAT much about the actual point here. I DO care about the very defensive reaction - FA articles should not be holy grails, and exempt from WP:BOLD. MadMaxDog 10:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I see your take on it. It's not so much the actual point, as getting in a cheap crack about WP:OWN. Experientally, that's the favorite policy of people who're all out of real arguments. Bishonen | talk 10:24, 27 June 2007 (UTC).
Nice. Reverse attack. Instead of telling me why this reaction was not WP:OWN, you accuse me of bad faith.MadMaxDog 10:39, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
As for my arguments - I believe that content duplication should be kept to a reasonable minimum. Therefore, when an certain information set has a natural place (detailed information about a building in the article about a building), then other instances of that information can, generally, be more brief and concise. I therefore edited the subsection after taking the information over into the new article. I still feel that some of that information is very detailed for an article about Lawson himself (4 million bricks? locally fired? Interesting - but crucially relevant here?).
What really fussed me is that, after a single edit (and some talk page back-and-forth), I get comments like "In short do your own research". This, to me was a form of accusation. I have a great many articles on Wikipedia, done substantial research, provided over a hundred photos,(struck this myself, irrelevant here) provided literally thousands of references [to Wikipedia]]... Yes, that comment did affect me. To be then, a little later, be told that I was 'bulldozing FAs' (which ones, I mean except my single edit here?) instead of doing something constructive... well. I'll leave it at that. MadMaxDog 11:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
As for me being willing, or not, to do good research - please feel free to have a look at Seacliff Lunatic Asylum now. I had a lot of fund writing it, in the end.MadMaxDog 14:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

MadMaxDog has contributed an excellent article on Seacliff: I've strengthened the link to it with a standard Main article... hatnote. As a general rule, no article at c. 36kb is really "too long": Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. I personally feel that it's just fine to begin a sub-article with copy and paste, as long as one has so much new material to add that the copy-and-paste origins virtually disappear. Cannibalising articles actually loses information, and that was Giano's anxiety, I think. One of the problems with the FA process is that once having struggled through it a major contributor has in fairness accumulated some personal investment: Giano has been miserably treated at Wikipedia and is currently somewhat tender. Yet he places too much value on the FA status. A little generosity and kindness goes a long way: citing Wikipedia policy to justify one's actions is seldom conducive to an authentically collegial atmosphere. --Wetman 15:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I can certainly understand emotional investment. I still disagree on the factual point (i.e. I think this article would not suffer, but be (slightly) improved if some minor details would be cut and moved over in the section that started this all off). However, as noted, I do not feel strongly enough about it (its not that important) to go against the opinions of the people who are more heavily involved in this article. And please excuse my own snappishness in re of this matter. MadMaxDog 06:31, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ownership issues

This is what I just got placed on my user page:

"The page is a FA because it is complete and comprehensive. Please leave it so and do not remove information. In short do your own research. Giano 09:56, 27 June 2007 (UTC)"

I feel that user Giano is clearly suffering from a WP:OWN. He is all but telling me to stay away from this article. He also seems to feel that material in a Wikipedia article is now unusable in connected Wikipedia articles? MadMaxDog 10:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
No wrong! I am saying this is a complete and comprehensive FA. I would like it to remain so. Pleae write a comprehensive article on the asylum yourself and I will even vote for ot on FAC but please do not do so at the expense of this page. Nothing more, nothing else. Giano 10:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Even if this were a good idea (which it is not) the way to have gone about is would have been to put a message first on the talk page to discuss. To simply change an important part of a FA without any consultation with the principle authors, or at least giving them an opportunity to rspond is at the best bad manners it is not being "bold". I will not go into the ettiquette of copypasting someone elses work straight into another page and passing it off as one's own because I am not into gaining credit but I do think it is a little shoddy. Giano 11:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Giano, please read what you submit your work on Wikipedia under. If you think I was passing 'your' work off as 'mine', you are well and truly missing the point. MadMaxDog 11:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I see no exceptions in WP:BOLD for FAs. I *would* have broken Wikipedia conduct rules if I had simply kept doing my changes after you had expressed your displeasure. No, I will NOT ask for permission to edit Wikipedia.MadMaxDog 11:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Suggestion

As I do not INTEND to provoke anyone, I suggest the following part be rewritten.

"This reputation was further scared when at age 22, Robert had an "accident" in his pants which bled through his white dress pants in a ball dedicated to him.The great plaudits denied him in his lifetime were not to come until nearly a century after his death, when the glories of Victorian architecture began again to be recognised and appreciated."

The above is to me a bit strange in some ways - 'bled' indicates, to the casual reader, 'blood'. As I don't think this means 'wounded' but rather, a certain other malfunction, this should be rephrased. Also, its not referenced. While this is not WP:BLP, something like that *should* be referenced. Or is this done somewhere else in the article?

Finally, shouldn't that be 'scarred' or some better word, rather than 'scared'? MadMaxDog 13:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The part about the fourth child of a carpenter having a ball "dedicated" to him didn't worry you..? I have removed this obvious piece of vandalism, which was added by an IP on May 20. Bishonen | talk 14:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC).
I almost did add something about it making no chronologic sense (he being famous and all, and then a return to something that happened at 22). But it can't have been so horribly obvious, if all you watchlisters did not spot it for a month! ;-) MadMaxDog 06:26, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Otago Boys' High School

There are no sources for the claims that this building "has long been regarded as one of the finest pieces of architecture in Dunedin" (the link is to an empty page), nor that "the nearest style into which it can be categorised is probably Jacobethan" when it is "often referred to as Gothic". This reliable source mentions the building, but doesn't make any great claims for it, other than passing the opinion that he uses "early Renaissance treatment" in the brickwork.

There are other questionable areas within this article which I feel need to be addressed. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 09:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

As Jacobethan is close to early Renaissance, the source above could be used to support the claim - though I would be happier with the wording in the source. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 09:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the bad link, but fail to see what is controversial enough to require an inline reference. Please note that the article was primarily written from text sources, not online ones, so there simply are not a lot of external links related to this article. There is no requirement for complete inline referencing, even for feature articles. Risker (talk) 09:59, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I have rewritten that section. I think you are right that FA articles don't have strict requirements for citation, however one of the founding principles of Wiki is for articles to beverifiable. It is a matter of policy that a statement which can be challenged, such as "long been regarded as one of the finest pieces of architecture in Dunedin" should be either sourced or removed. The usual thing for such statements (though not on living bios) is to tag them to allow time for them to be improved. If they can't be improved they should be removed. Such statements on living people are to be removed immediately. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 10:13, 1 January 2008 (UTC)\
Silk Tork, what are you talking about with respect to the BLP issues? Lawson died over 100 years ago. Before doing a complete rewrite of this feature article, let's give the FAR more than a couple of hours, especially over the holidays when many editors are not available. I note that one of the key contributors has responded and pointed out that the article received review by one of the region's top history writers. The statement is not demonstrated to be untrue at this point, although feel free to put a citation tag there. Perhaps you should start off by putting citation tags in the article where you feel necessary rather than disrupting the existing prose. Risker (talk) 10:21, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
I was giving you some background information on using references as it appeared from your comment that you were not aware of policy. I didn't think my statement could have been read as my thinking that Lawson was alive, and I am sorry for confusing you. I do edit Wiki where I feel I can make a contribution. I don't like to pass on by. The happy thing about Wiki is that people are encouraged to make edits because it is very difficult to permanently harm Wiki articles. I have never been comfortable with the notion that people should be advised not to edit articles. I have noticed that such advise appears to have happen previously with this article - and that may be one of the reasons why it still contains some long standing problems that would not be acceptable on other more recent FA articles. I like the article - I think the prose is of a very high standard. However it does have issues of verifiability which makes the article unreliable. If an article makes an extravagant claim then I like to know that the claim is verifiable by a reliable source, otherwise I cannot trust the claim. And if I cannot trust the obviously dodgy claims, then I cannot trust the more basic stuff. I have raised the issue that there are verifiability questions about this article - and now I am setting about an attempt to improve the article. I feel I am working within the principles of Wikipedia. If you still have doubts about my good faith and my ability to edit this article, then please let me know.
I'm pleased to see that you have changed your mind about using fact tags. The tag on the questionable unattributed statement that you removed need not be replaced however as I have - for now - removed the statement. It can, of course, be replaced when a source is found. The statement will remain safe in the history until it can be used again. Happy New Year! SilkTork *SilkyTalk 11:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)