itutions such as work and educational institutions for girls, a charity club for the Jewish community and a hospital. Regarding education, the town had numerous educational institutions making it the best-structured school system in the Palatinate.
Apart from the modern legal system introduced by the French, the Palatinate population had become accustomed to more liberal attitudes than their German compatriots to the east of the Rhine. This continuously led to tensions with the Bavarian king and government. The initially liberal-minded king failed in reinstating press censorship, which he himself had abolished just shortly before. Thus, the liberal and democratic trends of the �Vorm�rz� (March, 1848) turned Speyer into a regional centre for newspapers and the press with such renowned publications as the �Speyerer Anzeigeblatt� and the �Neue Speyerer Zeitung�. Renowned sons of the town at this time included the artist Anselm Feuerbach (*1829), the poet Martin Greif (*1839) and the artist Hans Purrmann (*1880).
After the Revolution of 1848 had been crushed many of its proponents fled the country and many others preferred to emigrate. With the administration dependent on Bavaria the Restoration and petty bourgeois mentality had quite a level playing field in Speyer. The liberal Speyer papers soon perished. In Munich, the Palatinate was considered to be defiant and the reins were held very tightly, to be somewhat loosened only towards the end of the century.
The Wilhelmian era provided Speyer with numerous stately new buildings: In commemoration of the Protestation of 1529 the neogothic Ged�chtniskirche, or Memorial Church (height: 105 m), begun in 1890, was consecrated in 1904, with financial support from Emperor William II and from Protestants all around the world. The event gave cause for considerable criticism in a town characterized by a Catholic cathedral and bishop. In reaction, only a few metres away, the Catholics built the twin-tower
