Conflagration of People from Greater Manchester Quiz

Answer: Venus

William Lassell was born in Bolton in 1799. The first moon he discovered was Triton, orbiting Neptune, in 1846. In 1848 he, along with William Cranch Bond and his son George Phillips Bond, co-discovered Hyperion, a moon orbiting Saturn. In 1851 he discovered two moons, Ariel and Umbriel, orbiting Uranus. William Lassell died on 5 October 1880 at the age of 81. One of the rings of Neptune is named in his honour and it is the broadest ring embracing the planet.

Answer: Test Tube

Louise Brown was born in Oldham in 1978. She was conceived in a petri dish, not a test tube. Once the conception was confirmed the embryo was placed into her mother's womb. Dr Webster, who delivered Louise, stated that they chose to deliver by way of a caesarean as it was the only way they could film the birth and also show to the world that Mrs Brown had no fallopian tubes and, as a consequence, could not conceive naturally. Louise also had a sister conceived through IVF treatment; both of them have gone on to have naturally conceived babies.

Answer: Trapp Family Singers

Robert Whitehead was born in Bolton in 1823. In 1864 he met Giovanni Luppis and together they perfected the world's first self-propelled torpedo. Whitehead would create two innovations to the system he created with Luppis. The first was a regulating device that kept the torpedo at a set depth and a gyroscopic stabiliser that kept it going in the same direction. Robert's granddaughter, Agathe Whitehead, to whom he'd left his entire fortune, went on to marry Georg Ludwig von Trapp.

They, in turn, had seven children until Agathe succumbed to scarlet fever in 1922. Georg then hired a tutor by the name Maria Augusta Kutschera. To help support the family after some financial troubles they became the Trapp Family Singers. Maria went on to write her memoirs regarding the family before the outbreak of the Second World War.

The book was called "The Story of the Trapp Family Singers", which went on to inspire the musical and film "The Sound of Music".

Answer: Dodie Smith

Dodie Smith was born in Whitefield, Bury in 1896. "The Hundred and One Dalmatians" was not her first work to be made into a film. Her play "Service" was the basis for the 1933 film "Looking Forward" which starred Lionel Barrymore. There were three more plays written by Dodie that were made into movies.

The 1961 film "The Hundred and One Dalmatians" was the first novel of hers to be made into a film. She wrote a sequel to her original "Dalmatians" novel called "Starlight Barking". However, this was not the story used for the film "101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure".

Answer: Joule

James Prescott Joule was born in the Salford area of Greater Manchester in 1818. He spent two years studying under John Dalton before Dalton had a stroke. He kept up his studies in physics despite working in the family brewing business. He went on to become the manager of the family brewery until it was sold in 1854. One of his lectures in Oxford was attended by Michael Faraday, George Gabriel Stokes and Lord Kelvin.

He worked alongside William Thomson, known as Lord Kelvin, in working out the scale for temperature.

The Joule, Hertz and Farad are terms that feature on the named units derived from SI base units.

Answer: Jedward

Don Arden was born in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, in 1926. He earned the nickname as the "Al Capone of Pop" due to his business methods in the music industry. These included bribing DJ's and hiring young women to purchase the music releases of his acts to help push them up the charts.

When his daughter, Sharon, married Ozzy Osbourne in 1982, he gave Sharon Ozzy's contract as a wedding gift. He died in 2007 and was buried in Agecroft Jewish Cemetery in Salford. Jedward were formed in the 6th series of the television music competition "X Factor" and are managed by Louis Walsh.

Answer: Millau Viaduct

Norman Foster was born in Reddish, Stockport in 1935. Soon after his birth his family moved to Levenshulme, Manchester. As a young man growing up in Manchester he was inspired by some of her buildings such as the "Daily Express" Building in Ancoats. He set up his own firm in 1967 called Foster + Partners and some of their buildings are 30 St Mary Axe known as "The Gherkin", Wembley Stadium, HSBC Main Building, Hong Kong and the Hearst Tower in NYC.

He helped design the Millau Viaduct, which was opened in 2004, with the engineer Michel Virlogeux,

Answer: Robert Peel

Sir Robert Peel was born in Ramsbottom, Bury in 1788. He was first elected in 1834, but his tenure only lasted a year with his party struggling as a minority government. He was elected again in 1841, this time the government lasted its full term till 1846. During his second term in office he repealed the Corn Laws due to the Irish Potato Famine.

When Peel was Home Secretary in 1829 he pushed to get the Metropolitan Police Act passed and is credited with being the founder of the modern police force.

He was also a notable reformer of criminal law in England and Wales, having the death penalty removed from over 100 crimes. He died in 1850 after being thrown from his horse in London.

Answer: Arthur Whitten Brown

John Alcock was born in Stretford, Trafford in 1892. During World War I he received the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for attacking three enemy planes before being shot down. After the war he partnered Arthur Whitten Brown in the first non-stop transatlantic flight.

They took off from St John's, Newfoundland on 14th June, 1919 and landed near Clifden, Ireland on the following day. The flight, in a converted Vickers Vimy bomber, took just over 16 hours to complete. While 1919 was to be a landmark year for Alcock it also proved his undoing. On 18th December, while flying in fog on his way to Paris, he crashed the seaplane and died on the scene.

Answer: Sylvia

All the female members of the Pankhurst family listed are well known suffragettes. All were born in Manchester; however none of them died there. Sylvia Pankhurst was a supporter of the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie and, after a request from him, she and her son moved to there in 1956.

She worked as an advisor and friend to the Emperor, though her dealings with him were to upset the MI5 in Britain. Upon her death in 1960 she was given a full state funeral by the Ethiopian government. She was, at that time, the only known person to be buried in front of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Addis Ababa who was not Ethiopian.