So, you think you're smart?

Question

Pupils at King William's College on the Isle of Man have suffered this fiendish general knowledge quiz for 99 years. The average score is just two. Answers in 2 days


1. In 1903:


1 who founded the WSPU?




2 what speed limit was imposed on motor cars?





3 who was the Sublime Paralytic, who died of cholera?




4 whose weekly journal began to publicise atrocities in the Congo Free State?





5 whose residence at Holly Lodge was commemorated by the first blue plaque?

Answer 1

1. Emmeline Pankhurst
2 20 m p h
3 Apolinario Mabini
4 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
5 Angela Gerorgina Burdett Coutts but see below:

The blue plaques scheme has been running for over 140 years and is one of the oldest of its kind in the world. The idea of erecting ‘memorial tablets’ was first proposed by William Ewart MP in the House of Commons in 1863. It had an immediate impact on the public imagination, and in 1866 the Society of Arts (later Royal Society of Arts) founded an official plaques scheme. The Society erected its first plaque – to the poet Lord Byron – in 1867. In all, the Society of Arts erected 35 plaques; today, less than half of them survive, the earliest of which commemorates Napoleon III (1867).