The Academy is split into six Houses, and each year these houses compete in the House competition. Here is a little background on people they were named after:
Peter Kingsley Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell, QC, PC (20 November 1926 – 14 June 2012)
Peter Archer joined the Labour Party in 1947. He was selected in 1957 as the candidate for the Hendon South parliamentary seat, which he unsuccessfully contested in 1959 after declining to contest the 1958 by-election for his home area of Wednesbury. After contesting Brierley Hill in 1964, he was returned for Rowley Regis and Tipton in 1966. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Attorney General Sir Elwyn Jones (1967–1970) and in 1969 was the British representative on the United Nations' "third committee" on human rights.
While in opposition, Archer was a member of the All-Party Group for World Government (1970–1974), was appointed Queen's Counsel in 1971 and between 1971 and 1974 was Chair of Amnesty International's UK Section; he was a founder member of the Amnesty International Committee in 1961.
After boundary changes for the February 1974 election, Archer was returned for Warley West. In the new Labour government, led by Harold Wilson and then James Callaghan, he was appointed Solicitor General, a post he held until 1979. Archer and his colleague Attorney General Sam Silkin declined knighthoods, which was customary for individuals appointed to these positions. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1977. In opposition, he was spokesman for legal affairs (1979–1982), Shadow Trade Secretary (1982–1983), and Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1983–1987) under Neil Kinnock. He was also appointed a Recorder of the Crown Court in 1982. He resigned his seat in 1992 and subsequently received a life peerage as Baron Archer of Sandwell, of Sandwell in the County of West Midlands in 1992.
Information from Wikipedia article.
Jeffrey "Jeff" Astle (13 May 1942 – 19 January 2002) was an English footballer.
He played 361 games for West Bromwich Albion, scoring 174 goals, and was one of the most iconic players in the history of the club. He also won five caps for England, but did not score any goals. He was an iconic figure among Albion fans, who nicknamed him "The King".
Born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire (in the same street, or so he claimed, as D. H. Lawrence), Astle turned professional with Notts County F.C. when he was 17. His style was that of a classic centre forward; he was a protégé of the great Tommy Lawton. In 1964 he signed for West Brom for a fee of £25,000. Of his 174 goals for the Baggies, the most notable was probably the only goal in the 1968 FA Cup final, with which he completed the feat of scoring in every round of the competition. Two years later, Astle scored in Albion's 2–1 defeat by Manchester City in the League Cup final, becoming the first player to score in the finals of both of the major English cup competitions at Wembley.
At the height of Astle's Albion career – some say on the evening of the 1968 FA Cup Final triumph – the words "ASTLE IS THE KING" appeared in large white letters on the brickwork of Primrose Bridge, which carries Cradley Road over a canal in Netherton, in the heart of the Black Country. The bridge quickly became known locally as "the Astle Bridge". When the council removed the letters, they re-appeared a few days later.
In 1974 he left Albion to join the South African club Hellenic. His final bow came with a brief spell at the English non-league side Dunstable Town F.C., where he teamed up with the legendary former Manchester United star George Best.
Cadbury is a British multinational confectionery company now owned by Mondelez International.
It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Wrigley's.Cadbury headquarters is in Uxbridge in Greater London and it operates in more than fifty countries worldwide.
Cadbury is best known for its confectionery products including the Dairy Milk chocolate, the Creme Egg, and the Roses selection box.
Cadbury was established in Birmingham in 1824, by John Cadbury who sold tea, coffee and drinking chocolate. Cadbury developed the business with his brother Benjamin, followed by his sons Richard and George. George developed the Bournville estate, a model village designed to give the company's workers improved living conditions. Dairy Milk chocolate, introduced in 1905, used a higher proportion of milk within the recipe compared with rival products. By 1914, the chocolate was the company's best-selling product.
Cyrille Regis, MBE (born 9 February 1958) is a French Guianese-born English former footballer.
His professional playing career spanned 19 years, where he made 614 league appearances and scored 158 league goals, most prolifically at West Bromwich Albion and Coventry City. He also won 5 caps for England.
Regis scored on his debut for West Bromwich Albion's reserve team in a Central League match against Sheffield Wednesday reserves. He made his first team debut in a League Cup match against Rotherham United on 31 August 1977, scoring twice in a 4–0 win. Three days later Regis made his league debut in a 2–1 victory over Middleborough.[ Again he found the net. Regis also scored in his first FA Cup match in January 1978, helping Albion to beat Blackpool 4–1. A few
Regis teamed up with two other black players, Laurie Cunningham and Brendon Batson. It was very unusual for an English club to simultaneously field three black players. Although not by any means the first black footballers to play professionally in England, the Three Degrees (a reference to The Three Degrees contemporary vocal trio of the same name) were an integral part of their acceptance in the English leagues. A strong and fast traditional centre-forward, Regis was voted PFA Young Player of the Year in 1978 and earned the Goal of the Season award in 1981–82, for his powerful long-range shot against Norwich City in the FA Cup.
Regis finished his stint at West Brom with 112 goals (League & Cup) in 301 total appearances.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE ( 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor.
Best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.
He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959. He was at one time a close friend of C. S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
When he was three, he came to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with Worcestershire towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm of Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction. Tolkien later grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later St. Philip's School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's. In Edgbaston, Tolkien lived there in the shadow of Perrott's Folly and the Victorian tower of Edgbaston Waterworks, which may have influenced the images of the dark towers within his works.
Julia Mary "Julie" Walters, CBE (born 22 February 1950 in Edgbaston and lived in Smethwick) she is an English actress and writer.
She has won two BAFTA Film Awards, four BAFTA TV Awards and received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2014.
She first came to international prominence in 1983, for playing the title role in Educating Rita. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. It also won her a BAFTA and a Golden Globe. She received a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actress, for her role in the 2000 film Billy Elliot, which also won her a BAFTA. Her other film roles include Personal Services (1987), Prick Up Your Ears (1987), Buster (1988), Stepping Out (1991), Calendar Girls (2003) and Mamma Mia! (2008). She has also played Molly Weasley in seven of the eight Harry Potter films (2001–2011). On stage, she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress for the 2001 production of All My Sons.
On television, she is well known for her collaborations with Victoria Wood and has appeared with her in several television shows including Wood and Walters (1981), Victoria Wood As Seen on TV (1985–1987), Pat and Margaret (1994) and Dinnerladies (1998–2000). She has won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress four times, for My Beautiful Son (2001), Murder (2002), The Canterbury Tales (2003) and as Mo Mowlam in Mo (2010). She also starred in A Short Stay in Switzerland in 2009, which won her an International Emmy for Best Actress. In 2006, she came fourth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest TV stars in Britain.