Whence did the Spitfires fly? Who dances like a jelly on a plate? Where does the train stop in silence? Yes, it's the big hard quiz of the year

General knowledge paper 2011-2012, sat by the pupils of King William's College, Isle of Man

"Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est"

1. In the year 1911:

1 What disaster befell the Asch Building?

2 What was removed from the Salon Carré?

3 Whose stencilled letters included A, B, C, D, O & L?

4 Where were the twin clocks started at George's crowning moment?

5 Who wrote of a multitalented peer and the Warden's grand-daughter?

6 Who explained how the squaws caused pallor in the Jesuit preachers?

7 Who shot to fame during a performance of The Tale of Tsar Saltan?

8 Who took pole position ahead of British opposition?

9 Who silently portrayed Marguerite Gauthier?

10 Who agreed to receive £400 per annum?

2.

1 Who designed forty-four maps for a 120m long corridor?

2 In which map is a cross-legged Caesar Augustus wearing the triregnum?

3 Whose original map of old Gwynedd shows Neptune embracing a naked lady?

4 Who first used continuous and broken lines to indicate fenced and unfenced roads?

5 Whose map can be seen in different paintings by the Delft master in the Rijksmuseum and the Frick Collection?

6 Whose map of the British Isles was decorated with portraits of post-conquest monarchs up to and including James I and Anne of Denmark?

7 Who placed an ostrich and an elephant on the map he presented to Selim I?

8 Which OS competitors included a vignette of Appleby among their county maps?

9 Whose name was adopted for a cartographic museum in the Land de Waas?

10 Who made a presentation of a giant atlas to the king on his restoration?

3.

1 Who found a cut above in coping with melancholy?

2 Which of Bolingbroke's nephews was the celebrated patron of early exploration?

3 Who wrote about a harpsichordist and a pioneer aviator and won gold in Stockholm?

4 Who, by virtue of his marriage, was required to expel all Jews who failed to convert to "New Christians"?

5 Who allied his army with that of the deposed Sultan, but died in his attempt to conquer the Moorish infidels?

6 Which theologian, although numerically misplaced, was an authority on both ophthalmology and gynaecology?

7 Who had the captain of the Concepción decapitated, then drawn and quartered, for mutiny at Puerto San Julian?

8 Whose support of Pedro in his tussle with his brother necessitated escape in a wine barrel?

9 Who, as queen dowager of one country, became regent in the country of her birth?

10 Who disobeyed his prime minister and surrendered on 19 December?

4. Which tale or tales:

1 is all about Hester's badge of shame?

2 investigates the murder of Robert Ablett?

3 describes Lamb's problems in the Banda Orientál?

4 relates the heroic story of the survivor from Charybdis?

5 describes the criminal activities of Alex, Dim, Georgie and Pete?

6 describes a prize fight between the gamekeeper and the coxswain at the Dripping Pan?

7 considers the murder of an expat philanderer in East Africa?

8 tells of how Dick and the outlaw dress up as friars?

9 are set in the moorlands above Tweedsmuir?

10 reveals the ghost of a don at All Saints'?

5. What:

1 brings light?

2 is named for its inactivity?

3 has a malodorous tetroxide?

4 has a particularly frustrating resistance to corrosion?

5 Skärgård settlement has shared its name with four examples?

6 was named as the daughter of 4, but only shed its alternative name in 1949?

7 was alleged by some to be a pun on its discoverer's name?

8 sounds like some sort of hobgoblin?

9 was identified in Lochaber?

10 quite simply stinks?

6. What:

1 is a deadly oxymoron?

2 has insecticide properties?

3 could be a cheap form of confectionery?

4 grotesque body has achieved a girth of 64 inches?

5 two names, applied to a firelighter suggest muscle relaxation and recall kitchen negligence?

6 better known as one of Rainier's features, is the most common source of what favourite hallucinogen?

7 sinister form of headgear probably accounted for a Holy Roman Emperor?

8 parasite is nominally associated with Iscariot?

9 precious stone is deceitful?

10 is also a lamellibranch?

7.

1 Where is Maddison's Golden Boy?

2 What was named, literally, Salt-pans by the Romans?

3 Where do a few surviving hedges keep alive our lost Elysium?

4 As what did an American president describe the Libyan dictator?

5 Where did close neighbours claim the invention of a device for observing at a distance?

6 Where can a little-changed double row of trees still be seen 322 years after its capture on canvas?

7 In which Study did Sir James, disappointingly, marry Celia instead of her sister?

8 What on first sight was thought to be a classically educated crotalid?

9 Whence did the Spitfires fly during The Battle of Britain?

10 Who dramatised a notorious cutter of purses?

8. What:

1 distinguishes armillata?

2 title was inaugurated before Agincourt?

3 else did he end apart from PM, CH and OM?

4 action did his inamorata take prior to the duet?

5 did fat-guts command that Harry should use to hang himself?

6 function was required of Bertha's garter during the trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim and back?

7 sartorial feature earned comment from Lear's Fool?

8 was dangling from Buckingham's death bed?

9 does make some obstruction of the blood?

10 might I have as a threat of punishment?

9. Where:

1 does the train stop in silence?

2 did Hilda extract a badly mauled shrimp?

3 is an execution remembered annually in October?

4 did the town nominally suffer episcopal deprivation?

5 was a village store opened which would become the world's largest?

6 did Sir John entrust his foundation to one of the Livery Companies?

7 is there a fully clothed life-sized wax effigy of Sarah?

8 did the doctor use an old bream as a weathercock?

9 did the bishopric exist for just nineteen years?

10 is there a statue to the corn deity?

10.

1 Who took on three regencies?

2 Which consort outlived the King by 61 years?

3 Who steered behind the umbrella on Lake Maggiore?

4 Who received details of the School of Pain from her invalid cousin?

5 Whose love for one was like the foliage in the woods, but for the other resembled the eternal rocks beneath?

6 Whose love letter included the words "I wode you war wythe me now that you mouthe se wat pane I take yn wryteg to you"?

7 What request received the response "what, in the midst of the street?"?

8 Whose canine collection included items about clouds and sky?

9 Whose dancing is likened to a jelly on a plate?

10 Who recently excluded obedience?

11. Where:

1 is the aluminium Majestas?

2 has the gondola been suspended since 1906?

3 can the bells be heard ringing beneath the water?

4 where could 30 candles be lit across a flat stone?

5 was there a fatal derailment on the first day of service?

6 was the iron-work protected from corrosion with linseed oil and not, as Alice was told, with wine?

7 did the polyglot Victorian traveller try out his Arabic?

8 did Babs lie buried in the dunes for 42 years?

9 did Baldwin meet Rhys for the second time?

10 did the French surrender at the Royal Oak?

12. Unmask:

1 Rosa

2 Aymer

3 Reinmar

4 Clarence Donne

5 Alexander Thomson

6 Captain Theophilus Digby

7 Andrew Watson

8 James Smith

9 Newsom

10 Tuke

13.

1 What were Uasini Maconoa

2 What mixture is favoured by the poacher?

3 Where did York and Suffolk have a bloody embrace?

4 What is the annual award for the best imaginary prose writer?

5 What heavenly body became synonymous with the abuse of Royal power?

6 Where did the little gentleman in black velvet cause a clavicular fracture?

7 Where were paired cast iron lighthouses erected on the beach?

8 Whose name was used by Lugard for a new coal outlet?

9 From where is it only a mile over the hill to Esnes?

10 What, where is juglandaceous?

14.

1 What is viscivorus?

2 Who was the victim of Bowman Passer?

3 What name was given to 9903 and 2001?

4 What imposter combines engraulids with scrambled egg?

5 What alludes to two losses and uncertainty about the way forward?

6 Whose wife was likened by his friend to a white antelope from Snowdonia?

7 Who directed the disappearance of a spinster in Mandrika?

8 What operation cleared a Limburg geometrical feature?

9 Who got 4 in 4, 5 in 6, 6 in 9 and 7 in 11?

10 What characterises Jock Scott's cheeks?

15. Which character rhymed:

1 tussle and muscle?

2 knowledge, he and apology?

3 Chamberlain and moral stain?

4 kindred soul and sausage-roll?

5 everybody earns and income-tax returns?

6 wrote of Queen Anne and Sodor and Man?

7 Parliamentary hive and or Conservative?

8 been acuter and simple pewter?

9 lot o' news and hypotenuse?

10 Horace and Morris?s

16. Which patriot of which country:

1 was eulogized by Harry

2 died at the hand of one who had started life as Ramachandra?

3 was declared innocent following a retrial 25 years after execution?

4 wrote about the execution of Gerhard and was murdered by the Gestapo?

5 anticipated Latimer and Ridley by 140 years and uttered in Latin "Holy Simplicity"?

6 founded a journal in London, which would have been translated as Thought and Action?

7 the son of a general and senator, shot the Governor General and then himself?

8 was hanged publicly 28 months after the start of the January Uprising?

9 was defrocked and later executed following betrayal by Elizondo?

10 was reburied 31 years after his secret execution?

17.

1 Who started off as Nijntje?

2 Who played patty-cake with Acme?

3 Who was the tyrannical leader of the Efrafans?

4 As what did the Australian dog perceive the gentleman dancing on an ashpit?

5 Which swamp-dweller sustained auricular damage prior to rescue from the Black Serpent?

6 Whose marital violence led indirectly to the accidental drowning of his baby daughter Rebecca June?

7 What popular design was started by an Augustinian Canoness of the Lateran?

8 Who put on spectacles and was directed to begin at the beginning?

9 Who brewed very good ale for gentlemen?

10 What is essentially cheese on toast?

18. During 2011:

1 who looked a million dollars?

2 which white mouse has left the Star and Garter?

3 where did Kid Cassidy get over a very nasty shock?

4 which obdurate crustacean has very sadly had to call "Over"?

5 which sometime successor to Isaac Barrow found his position untenable?

6 where was it admitted that with the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently, or not at all?

7 why will Col Reynolds and Lord Meldrum never be the same?

8 whose killing thrust heralded a monumental redundancy?

9 who crawled charitably through Bablock Hythe?

10 which head was axed at the Tower?

The answers will be printed in an issue of G2 towards the end of January and will also be posted on the King William's College website: kwc.im

• The answers will appear in the Guardian and on the King William's College website some time in January