RADSTOCK 



Radstock. Urban (list and 

 market town of Somerset, England. 

 It is 16 m. from Bristol, with 

 stations on the G.W. and Somerset 

 & Dorset Rlys. The chief industry 

 is coal-mining, the town being the 

 centre of the Somerset coalfield. 

 Market day, Sat. Pop. 3,700. 



Rae, JOHN (1813-93). British 

 explorer. Born in the Orkneys, 

 Sept. 30, 1813, he studied medicine 

 in Edinburgh, 

 and in 1833 

 was appointed 

 a surgeon in 

 the Hudson 

 Bay C o m- 

 p a n y's ser- 

 vice. In 1846- 

 47 he under- 

 took the ex- 

 John Rae, ploration o f 

 British explorer Committee 

 After S. Pearee Bay> Carting 



the next year to search for Sir John 

 Franklin. In 1850 he made another 

 attempt, and, combining survey 

 with his search for the lost ex- 

 plorer, charted 700 miles of new 

 territory. In 1853 he completed 

 the survey of the W. coast of 

 Boothia, and, incidentally obtain- 

 ing definite news of Franklin's 

 death, earned the 10,000 reward 

 offered for the first information 

 obtained to that effect. Between 

 1858 and 1864 he made other 

 Arctic voyages, disco vering and 

 surveying new lands. He died 

 July 24, 1893. 



Rae Bareli. Dist. and town of 

 the United Provinces, India, in the 

 Lucknow division. The dist. has 

 the Ganges in the S.W. and Luck- 

 now dist. on the N. The annual rain- 

 fall is 38 ins. Rice, wheat, and millet 

 are the chief crops. The town is 

 in the middle of the dist. and is a 

 rly. junction. Area, 1,745 sq. m. 

 Pop., dist., 1,017,000 ; town, 17,300. 



Raeburn, SIR HENRY (1756- 

 1823). Scottish portrait painter 

 Born at Stockbridge, near Edin- 

 burgh, March 4, 1756, he was ap- 

 prenticed to a goldsmith in Edin- 

 burgh. He soon began to paint 

 water-colour miniatures of his 

 friends, and, after studying with 

 David Martin, passed to portrait- 

 ure in oils. In 1778 he married 

 Ann Leslie, a widow with means. 

 On the advice of Reynolds, he set 

 out for Italy in 1785, and, having 

 worked for two years in Rome, re- 

 turned to his profession at Edin- 

 burgh. He painted most of the 

 notable Scotsmen and Scotswomen 

 of the day. His portrait of Dr. 

 Nathaniel Spens, perhaps his mas- 

 terpiece, is in the Archers' Hall, 

 Edinburgh, and both the Edin-' 

 burgh National Gallery and Por- 

 trait Gallery are rich in his works. 

 The portraits of Mrs. James Camp- 



6464 



bell, Sir Walter Scott, and Sir 

 John Sinclair may be noted. He 

 was elected A.R.A. in 1814 and 

 R.A. in 1815 ; knighted in 1822 ; 



Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish painter 



Self-portrait 



and in 1823 became the King's 

 limner for Scotland. He died in 

 Edinburgh on July 8 of the same 

 year. See Braxfield, Lord; Con 

 stable, A. ; Gow, Neil ; Hamilton, 

 Elizabeth; Home, John; Button, 

 James ; Melville, 1st Vis. ; consult 

 also Lives, W. E. Henley, 1890; 

 W. R. Andrew, 2nd ed. 1894 ; Sir W. 

 Armstrong, 1901 ; Virginibus Puer- 

 isque, R. L. Stevenson, new ed. 1899. 

 Raemaekers, Louis (b. 1869). 

 Dutch cartoonist. Born at Roer- 

 mond, Holland, April 6, 1869, he 

 studied at Amsterdam and Brus- 

 sels. He began by painting por- 

 traits, landscapes, genre, and pos- 

 ters, and was 

 master of a 

 drawing school 

 at Wageningen 

 in G elder- 

 land. In 1908 

 he started 

 drawing 

 political car- 

 toons, and 

 during the 

 Great War be- 

 came famous for bis scathing satires 

 on Kultur and its practical applica- 

 tion in Belgium and elsewhere. 



R.A.F. Abbrev. for Royal Air 

 Force. See Air Force, Royal. 



Rafa. Town on the Egyptian 

 side of the Palestine-Egypt fron- 

 tier. It lies 20 m. S. of Gaza, on 

 the Mediterranean coast, and 30 m. 

 from El Arish (q.v.). It was pro- 

 minent in the British conquest of 

 Palestine, and gave its name to the 

 battle fought here in 1917. 



Rafa, BATTLE OF. Fought be- 

 tween the British and the Turks, 

 Jan. 9, 1917. After defeating and 

 capturing a large number of Turks 



Louis Raemaekers, 

 Dutch cartoonist 



at Magdhaba (q.v.) on Dec. 24, 

 1916, the British eastern force, 

 after a fortnight's halt at El Arish, 

 moved on to Rafa, on the Egyptian 

 side of the Palestine border. Near 

 there, at Magruntein, aeroplanes 

 had located a strongly entrenched 

 Turkish position.^ At sunset on 

 Jan. 8, 1917, Anzacs, Yeomanry, 

 the Camel Corps, with artillery, all 

 under the command of Sir Philip 

 Chetwode, and known as the Desert 

 Column, made a swift march from 

 El Arish, and early next morning 

 New Zealanders occupied Rafa. 

 The real struggle took place at 

 Magruntein, but the battle is 

 usually known as that of Rafa. 



Sending a New Zealand regi- 

 ment to watch the Turks on the E., 

 Chetwode attacked the position at 

 dawn, but for some time made 

 small progress, as his men had 

 little or no cover. In the afternoon 

 the tide turned. Two of the Anzac 

 brigades carried the S.E. works, 

 New Zealanders attacked success- 

 fully in the rear, and the yeomen 

 and the camelry took the lines on 

 the S. and W. While Magruntein 

 was thus stormed, the New Zealand 

 regiment held up a Turkish relief 

 force coming from the E. towards 

 Rafa, and forced it to retreat. 

 The surviving Turks in Magruntein 

 surrendered, the number of un- 

 wounded prisoners being upwards 

 of 1,600, including 35 officers and 

 some German gunners. The casu- 

 alties of the British were com- 

 paratively light in view of the 

 nature of the attack. A striking 

 result of the British victory was to 

 clear the Turks out of northern 

 Sinai for the first time for more 

 than two years. See Palestine, 

 Conquest of ; Sinai, Occupation of. 



Louis Raemaekers. One of the Dutch 

 artist's most telling cartoons, The 

 Triumph of the Zeppelin. The 

 motherless child is saying : " But 

 mother had done nothing wrong, had 

 she, daddy?" 



