Talk:Sir John Brunner, 1st Baronet

Some review comments
This is an interesting and well-referenced article which is significantly improved from the last version I read. In terms of further improvement it would be interesting to include more illustration, in particular of his chemical works, and perhaps of one of the buildings &c that he donated. Under 'Politics', there seems an imbalance between the election records and what Brunner actually did in parliament; the successful elections after the first could probably be summarised and more details on his parliamentary record would be useful. The section 'Personal life' seems to include material on honours which might be better in a separate section. A separate section on his legacy might be useful. The separation of the references into notes and bibliography has had the unfortunate appearance that only two sources were used; the bibliography should probably be extended to contain all major sources.

One minor point: the copyright information on the etching (in the infobox) seems to be lacking the artist; just the raw date isn't helpful as the copyright expiry is based on the date of death of the artist.

Hope this is helpful in continuing to develop this article. Espresso Addict 08:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments. The source did not give the name of the artist of the image in the infobox (which on second looking seems to be a drawing rather than an etching).  It seems to have been done from life and as it is dated 1885 I assumed the artist would be dead for over 70 years by now (is that safe?). Peter I. Vardy 09:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * On the hyper-cautious assumptions that the artist was only c.20 when the drawing was made and lived to be c.80, it could conceivably still be in copyright. Also if it was a photograph rather than a scan of the artwork, that could also be problematic depending on the country in which the photograph was taken. However, if the source was published by a reputable publisher and didn't give copyright information, it's very likely that it was already out of copyright in the country of publication on that date of publication, and that no separate copyright was claimed on the photograph, so it's probably fine. In the worst case, fair use would reasonably apply to an image of someone who has been dead for such a long period, though that would need a detailed fair-use rationale to be added to the image upload page. Espresso Addict 10:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I have seen somewhere on the British Library web site that copyright expires 100 years after publication or 70 years after the death of the creator of the work, but I can't find it right now. Certainly you pay no copyright fee for documents over 100 years old -  Salinae 11:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * See also as it's a photo. Salinae 11:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I hadn't heard the 100 years rule (and fear it might just apply to material published in the US); however, for it to apply, we'd need to know the original publication date of the original artwork -- it might have been commissioned by Brunner and kept privately by the family for any number of years. The date of the photograph is presumably c.1970 when the source was published, and thus would still presumably be in copyright. Espresso Addict 12:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the picture in the book it was certainly a drawing; if you can get good enough definition look at the lines at the bottom of the picture and the shading behind the shoulders. The book was published by a reputable publisher without any further attribution (other pictures do have details; one is an unsuitable cartoon, the other a painting from 1906 by Augustus John who died in 1961); the author of the book was an academic at Columbia University. Don't know if any of that helps. Peter I. Vardy 12:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I've done a bit more digging, and found this little flowchart which might be helpful. Salinae 22:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's amazing, Salinae. The one caveat for wikipedia usage in general is that "is the author known" involves rather more research than "did the uploader include the author in the image information". Just being impossible to find by Google search is unlikely to be adequate proof that the author is truly unknown. But this isn't directly relevant to this article. Espresso Addict 07:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

GA passed
This is a nice article, well-referenced with good coverage of the material, and I think it's very close to the standard expected of a GA. Before I list it though, there are just a few small things I'd like to see cleared up:
 * In the Politics section, second paragraph, it says "The Liberal Parties had won most seats in the election ..." It says later that the Liberal Party had split, but I'm just wondering if "Parties" is correct.
 * Also in the Politics section: "They returned to Northwich on 2 July 1887 and were greeted with great celebrations in the town." Why were there great celebrations in the town? Because Brunner had returned from his world tour, or for some other reason?
 * ""His factories were making chemicals for use as explosives and he built a new factory to purify trinitrotoluene." Presumably this should say something like "His factories were turned over to the production of ...". As it is, it seems that his factories were already making chemicals for explosives before war broke out. Perhaps they were, and the new factory to produce TNT was built as a result of the outbreak of war? Anyway, it may just be me, but I'm not certain what's being said.
 * "... with whom he had six children ... the following year he married Jane Wyman ... From this marriage, three more daughters ..." Three more daughters than what? How many daughters did he have by his first wife? How many children did he have in total? Three daughters by his second wife plus the six children from his first wife?
 * "After a slow start they were to become the wealthiest British chemical company ...". The "they" surely refers to the singular company, not the plural Brunner and Mond?
 * "The Solvay process produced soda ash more cheaply than the established Leblanc process from raw materials which were more easily obtainable and which resulted in less waste products. Its problem was in building a plant to successfully run the process." Surely that wasn't a problem with the Solvay Process, but Brunner and Mond's problem?
 * ".. as a politician [he] supported ... a less provocative stance towards Germany". Is provocative really the right word here?

I think that there are a few places where the text wouild benefit from a sympathetic copyedit, but overall I think it well deserves to be listed as a GA once we can come to some agreement on the above issues. So I'm putting the article on hold in the meantime. --Malleus Fatuarum 21:20, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments and suggestions, and for the copyediting. When contributing to an article sometimes you get too close to it to spot the bits that need clarifying.  I have made amendments and my explanations for these follow in the order of the points as they are made above.
 * The politics of the Liberals were rather complicated around that time and on looking again at the events, I find the Liberal Party was not then split so I have changed it to the singular. On looking into this I discovered that I had given the wrong title to the Irish party holding the balance of power, so I have corrected this.
 * This clearly needs an explanation to explain his popularity, which I have added.
 * Clarified, I hope.
 * Clarified, I hope.
 * Corrected.
 * The sentence is redundant so I have deleted it; the problems caused by the process are dealt with in the following paragraph.
 * "Provocative" is the word used in the source but I agree it does not sit comfortably in the context of the article. Rewritten. Peter I. Vardy 10:07, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to list this article as a GA now. I think you've done a fine job with it, and with dealing with my queries. From a personal curiosity point of view, I'd like to know whether Brunner took off on his world tour because he lost the 1886 election or for some other, perhaps personal, reason. But it would be churlish to refuse GA status just for that. :)

I made a few small copyedits that I hope haven't altered the sense of what you were trying to say. If you feel that they have, then please feel to revert them; it won't alter my decision to promote this article. Congratulations. --Malleus Fatuarum 00:10, 7 October 2007 (UTC)