framework a heavy covering of felt is thrown, which is either weighted down with stones or, when necessary, stitched together.
In Western countries tents are used chiefly in military encampments, by travellers and explorers, and for temporary ceremonial occasions and public gatherings. The material of which they are composed is commonly a light linen canvas or navy duck; but for tents of small size stout cotton canvas is employed, being light, strong, elastic, and sufficiently waterproof. These tents vary in size from a low-pitched covering, under which a couple of men can with difficulty creep, up to spacious marquees, in which horticultural and agricultural shows are held, and which can accommodate thousands of persons.
The marquee is distinguished from the tent b being a ridged structure, devoted to show and social uses; but the humblest tent made-the tente d'abri or shelter tent of the French army-is also ridged in form. The tente d'abri affords sleeping accommodation for six men, and consists of a rope stretched over three low poles and fixed into the ground. Four separate squares of canvas buttoned together are thrown over the rope and pegged to the ground on each side so as to form a low ridge. Two other squares are used for covering the ends, being thrown over the slanting rope ends by which the poles are pegged to the ground. Each of the six men using the tent carries one of the squares of canvas besides his quota of the oles, rope and pegs. In the British service tentes d'abri are often improvised by fastening together blankets or waterproof sheets over a stick. The gipsies and travelling tinkers of England have an equally unpretentious tent, which consists of a framework, of hazel rods bent so as to, form a series of low ridges, the ends being stuck into the ground, and over this frame blankets or other coverings are thrown and peg ed down. The simplest, but at the same time the least convenient, oi ordinary tents is the conical, consisting of a central pole with ropes and canvas radiating from it in an unbroken slope to the ground. The common army bell tent is of this type, but the conical roof terminates at about 1 ft. 9 in. from the ground, and from it there hangs vertically a curtain which is loosely pegged to the ground or looped up to allow of the free circulation of air when the tent is unoccupied or the weather is favourable. This form, however, covers much ground in proportion to the accommodation it affords, as the space round the circumference is of little value. A tent, therefore, which has sides or a fall is a much more convenient structure. The counterpart of the conical is the pyramidal tent, the four equal sides sloping to the ground; and this form with a fall or sides makes the square tent, which is both convenient in shape and firm in structure. Small tents are also made, modified from the Arab form, with a central pole and two lower lateral poles. In the umbrella tent the roof is supported by a set of ribs which radiate from the pole, precisely as the ribs of an umbrella spread out from the stick.
The tents and marquees in use in the British army are the following: The bell tents (single or double thickness) 16 ft. in circumference, accommodating in active service 3 officers, 7 sergeants or 15 men each; the Indian general service tents, of various sizes, square with pyramidal roofs, the Indian “ E.P." and “Staff-sergeants" tents, which are much roomier than the tents used in India on active service, “ hospital marquees ” and “ operating tents."
In former wars, when small professional armies were employed and it was customary to pay extraordinary attention to the soldier's comforts, the train of an army included a full tent equipment, which helped to diminish the already small degree of mobiiity of which it was capable. Under the Revolution and Napoleon, and generally in the 19th century, the system of housing armies in the field under canvas was practically abolished (except as regards more or less rough tentes d'abri) and replaced by that of billets and bivouacs. The strain entailed upon the transport by complete ten-tage may be judged from the fact that a single battalion on the minimum scale would require four waggons, each with one ton load of poles and canvas, that is, the regimental transport would be doubled. A tent equipment (of the tente d'abri type) was introduced into the German army about 1888, and the troops of Austria and Switzerland also possess tents. In the Russian army cavalry and engineer taopps are excepted from the otherwise universal issue of canvas shelter.
TENTERDEN, CHARLES ABBOTT, 1st Baron (1762–1832),
lord chief justice of England, was born at Canterbury on the 7th of October 1762, his father having been a hairdresser and wigmaker of the town. He was educated at Canterbury King's School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, of which he afterwards became. fellow and tutor. On the advice of Mr Justice Buller (1746–1800), to whose son he had been tutor, he determined on the legal profession, and entered at the Middle Temple in 1787. For several years he practised as a special pleader under the bar, and was finally called at the Inner Temple in
1796. He joined the Oxford circuit and soon made rapid headway. In 1801 he was appointed recorder of Oxford. In 1802 appeared his Law relative to Merchant Ships and Seamen, a concise and excellent treatise, which has maintained its position as an authoritative work. Its publication brought to him so much commercial and other work that in 1808 he was in a position to refuse a seat on the bench; this, however, he accepted in 1816, being made a judge of the court of common pleas. On the resignation of Lord Ellenborough in 1818 he was promoted to the chief justiceship of the king's bench. In his capacity as chief justice he presided over several important state trials, notably that of Arthur Thistlewood and the Cato Street conspirators (1820). He was raised to the peerage in 1827 as Baron Tenterden of Hendon. Never a great lawyer and with no pretence to eloquence, Tenterden made his way by sound common sense and steady hard work. He was an uncompromising Tory, and had no sympathy with the reform of the criminal law carried out by Romilly; while he strongly opposed the Catholic Relief Bill and the Reform Bill. He died on the 4th of November 1832, and was buried, by his own desire, in the Foundling Hospital, London, of which he was a governor.
Tenterden was succeeded in his title by his son, John Henry Abbott (1796–1870), then by his grandson, Charles Stuart Aubrey Abbott (1834–1882), permanent under-secretary for foreign affairs, who was made a K.C.B. in 1878. In 1882 the latter's son, Charles Stuart Henry Abbott (b. 1865) became the 4th Baron.
TENTERDEN, a market town and municipal borough in the
Ashford parliamentary division of Kent, England, 62 m. S.E.
by E. of London by the South-Eastern and Chatham railway.
Pop. (1901) 3243. It lies on an elevation above the Newnill
Channel, a tributary of the Rother, whose flat valley, called
the Rother Levels, was an estuary within historic times; and
even as late as the 18th century the sea was within 2 m. of
Tenterden, which is a member of the affiliated Cinque Port of
Rye. The church of St Mildred is Early English and later,
and its tall, massive Perpendicular tower is well known for the
legend connecting it with Goodwin Sands. The story is that
the Abbot of St Augustine, Canterbury, diverted the funds by
which the sea-wall protecting Earl Godwin's island was kept
up, for the purpose of building Tenterden steeple, the consequence
being that in 1099 an inundation took place and “ Tenterden
steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands.” Attached
to the church is a penitentiary used in the reign of Queen Mary
for the confinement of persons awaiting trial on a charge of
heresy. The church of High Halden, in the neighbourhood,
is remarkable for its octagonal wooden tower constructed of
huge timbers, with a belfry of wooden tiles (shingles), of the
time of Henry VI. Tenterden has a considerable trade in
agricultural produce and stock. It is governed by a mayor,
four aldermen and twelve councillors. Area, 8946 acres.
Tenterden (Tenterdenne, Tentyrden) figures frequently in contemporary records from 1300 onwards. In 1449 Henry VI. incorporated it by the name of a “ Bailiff and Commonalty," and united it to Rye. In return for these and other privileges it was to contribute towards the services due from the latter as one of the Cinque Ports. The troubles of 1449 apparently hindered the issue of the charter, since in 1463 Edward IV. brought it into operation. In 1600 it was incorporated under the title of the “ Mayor, Jurats and Commons ” of the town and hundred of Tenterden, in the county of Kent, the members of the corporation ranking henceforward as barons of the Cinque Ports. A weekly corn market on Friday and a yearly fair on the first Monday in May were granted, both of which are held at the present day. In 1790 a contemporary writer mentions the market as being little frequented, whilst the fair was large and resorted to by all the neighbourhood. This charter was exemplified by that of the year 1700. The size and importance of Tenterden can be estimated from a receipt of 1635 for £90
