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Arthur Greig was born in London on 5 January 1893. One of eleven children, his formal education was not prolonged, but a schoolmaster had inspired him with an interest in books and ideas. On 13 October 1908, Greig joined the Society's staff (which then numbered only three) at the age of 15 on probation as an 'extra assistant in Library and Office'. He had been introduced to the Society by the then Clerk, Clyde Henderson Black, who was a neighbour and friend of the family. Greig's appointment was confirmed on 1 January 1909 as 'Assistant in Library, Office and Museum' at a salary of two shillings per week.

Following the outbreak of World War One in August 1914, Greig enlisted in the London Scottish Regiment and was posted overseas in March 1915. Apart from three months at an Officer Cadet School in Cambridge, Greig served with the infantry in France. Commissioned from the rank of sergeant in December 1916, he was demobilised in 1919, as a Captain.

On his return to the Society, he was promoted in October 1919 to Librarian. After C H Black's resignation as Clerk in April 1923, Greig was additionally given charge of the Library and Office with an assistant in each. In January 1931 he succeeded L L Belinfante as Assistant Secretary of the Society and editor of the Quarterly Journal. He was called up to serve again as a reserve officer in the Second World War, however his military duties involved aerodrome defence in South East England, guarding the Tower of London, which enabled him to keep in touch with Society business and continue his editorial duties. He was finally demobilised with the rank of Major. Greig retired as Assistant Secretary in 1961, but continued to serve the Society - creating cumulative indexes for the Quarterly Journal and contributing to the 'Annual List of Geological Literature Added to the Society Library'. He only relinquished these duties at the age of 90 years old, due to failing eyesight.

Greig's remarkable contribution to the Society was marked by his award of the Wollaston Fund in 1951, his award of an MBE in 1959 (nominated by the Society) and his election as Fellow on 8 May 1963, later becoming an Honorary Fellow on 29 April 1981. Arthur Greig died on 16 February 1989.

Born in Stoke Newington, London, John Lucas Tupper was the son of the lithographer George Frederick Tupper. He attended the Royal Academy Schools from about 1844 and at the same time became an anatomical draftsman at Guy's Hospital, London. This not only provided an income but reflected his lifelong interest in science. Tupper remained working at Guy's until 1863 and two years later became master of drawing at Rugby School. His teaching at Rugby pioneered '...teaching art from the human form, as shown in the skeleton, the anatomical figure and the best antiques...'. The 'Athenaeum' considered him one of the ablest 'draughtsmen of the day' and that his experiment to make the study of drawing more than 'a genteel accomplishment' was 'fully attained'. In recognition of his achievements, Tupper was appointed curator of the museum at Rugby School.

Tupper was an early member of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and was particularly close to William Holman Hunt (later godfather to one of his children) and to William Michael Rossetti who edited a published volume of his poems in 1897. Tupper was not only a poet but also contributed letters and articles on literature, art and art education to: 'The Germ'; 'Art and Poetry: Being Thoughts towards Nature Conducted principally by Artists'; 'The Crayon'; and 'The Portfolio'. In 1866 he published under the name of "Outis" 'Hiatus, the Void in Modern Education, its cause and Antidote' (Macmillan). Demonstrating his versatility, Tupper also wrote an article 'On the Centre of Motion in the Human Eye' which was published in the 'Royal Society Proceedings', vol. 22 (1874), pp. 429-30.

His interest in science is reflected in the subjects of his work. In the 1850s and early 1860s Tupper made a number of portraits of his colleagues at Guy's Hospital. He was also commissioned (c.1858) to make a statue of Linnaeus for the Natural History Museum at Oxford designed by the Dublin based practice of Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward.

William Hutton was born in on 26 July 1797 in Sunderland. He had little formal education, but by 1818 Hutton had joined the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne and in 1825 the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. By this time he had already become honorary curator of the George Allan Museum, which had been purchased by the Literary and Philosophical Society in 1822, and had began to amass his own collection of minerals and fossil plants.

He became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1828, and the next year helped found the Natural History Society of Northumberland, Durham and Newcastle upon Tyne, of which he also acted as secretary and curator. From 1830 until 1835 he was also co-secretary of the Newcastle Literary, Scientific and Mechanical Institution and from 1835 served as one of its vice-presidents.

Hutton's major contribution was his work on palaeobotany, publishing The Fossil Flora, between 1831 and 1837 which was co-authored by John Lindley (1799-1865). His other significant contribution was his work on the nature of coal. The fossil plant Huttonia was named after him in 1837 by Sternberg in recognition of his achievements and in 1840 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.

By 1845, Hutton had also taken on the post of treasurer for the Natural History Society, the extra work possibly contributing to the breakdown in his health which occurred the following year. For the next few years he lived in Malta, returning to Britain in 1851. He later moved to West Hartlepool, becoming involved with the local Literary and Mechanics Institution and the plan to establish a museum at the Athenaeum. He died on 20 November 1860.

Son of the civil engineer, Sir John Hawkshaw (1811-1891), John Clarke Hawkshaw was born on 17 August 1841 in Manchester. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating in the Mathematical Tripos. Between 1865-1868 he was a pupil of his father, and later Assistant Engineer, during the construction of the Albert Dock, Hull. In 1870 he became a partner in his father's civil engineering firm, which he continued after his father's retirement in 1890.

Hawkshaw was a member of various scientific societies, including the Geological Society, and notably served as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1902-1903. He died on 12 February 1921.

John MacCulloch was born in his grandparents' house in Guernsey on 6 October 1773. The third of eight children of James MacCulloch, a wine merchant, and Elizabeth de Lisle, the young MacCulloch was sent to schools in Cornwall between 1778-1790, before enrolling as a medical student at Edinburgh University in 1790. Whilst there he also read chemistry under Joseph Black and natural history under John Walker. MacCulloch graduated with an MD in 1793, but the following year his postgraduate studies were cut short by his parents' internment during the French Revolution.

MacCulloch became a surgeon's mate in the Royal Artillery on 15 August 1795, and by 1803 had risen to assistant surgeon. He was then drafted into the ordnance chemical department, becoming ordnance chemist in 1806 and retiring from the army with a small pension. He received his licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1808, and set up a private medical practice in Blackheath, south east London but had to give it up when ordnance duties demanded prolonged absences for geological surveys. He still, however, managed to be appointed physician to Prince Leopold, later king of the Belgians, in 1820. MacCulloch's main contribution to the field of medicine was his writings on fever, notably his work on malaria in the late 1820s.

MacCulloch's burgeoning interest in geology can be traced back at least to the early 1800s, notably on his tours of the Lake District (1805) and the west country (1807), when he visited mines and noted down comments on local rocks in his diary. He was elected a Member of the Geological Society on 5 February 1808, and his paper on the geology of the Channel Islands, opened the first issue of the Society's 'Transactions' in 1811.

In his search for silica-free limestone for millwheels, MacCulloch conducted geological surveys in Wessex, Wales, and Scotland, between 1809-1813, and then from 1814-1821 acted as geologist to the ordnance trigonometrical survey during which he had surveyed hundreds of Scottish peaks and produced a geological map of west Scotland. However this intense survey work affected his health, and in 1821 he developed an enlargement of the spleen. Although he returned to work in 1822, his consitution remained affected thereafter.

Between 1816-1820, MacCulloch served as president of the Geological Society and in 1820 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. When in 1824, the chemical department of the ordnance was abolished, the now retired MacCulloch instead spent his summer field seasons surveying Scotland for the geological survey. Essentially MacCulloch became the first government sponsored geological surveyor in Britain, a move which was controversial as it cost the Treasury over £1000 per annum. Despite suffering a stroke in 1831, MacCulloch still managed to draft the final reports and map before his death four years later, his geological map Scotland being issued posthumously in 1836. Although criticised for topographical and geological inaccuracies, the map was not superseded for many years.

MacCulloch was a prolific scientific author, writing not only on geology, medicine and chemistry but on varied subjects such as methods of transferring the habitat of saltwater fish to freshwater and horticulture. His most noted geological works were 'A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland' (1819), 'A Geological Classification of Rocks' (1821), 'The Highlands and Western Islands of Scotland' (1824) and 'The System of Geology' (1831). MacCulloch's 'Proofs and Illustrations of the Attributes of God' which connected theology and geology was published by his widow in 1837.

He married Louisa Margaretta White on 6 July 1835, but on whilst on honeymoon in Cornwall was thrown from his carriage and suffered severe leg injuries. Despite an operation to amputate his leg, John MacCulloch died on 20 August 1835.

John Piper was a major figure in modern British art. He was a painter in oils and water colour, designed stained glass, ceramics and for the stage, made prints and devised ingenious firework displays. In addition to this he was also a gifted photographer of buildings and landscapes. Piper also wrote poetry, art criticism and several guidebooks on landscape and architecture.

Piper was born at Epsom, Surrey on 13 December 1903 and educated at Epsom College. He joined his father's law firm as an articled clerk in 1921 and loyally stayed there until his father died in 1926. He then gave up law and entered the Richmond School of Art (1926-7), later moving to the Royal College of Art (1927-1929) where he studied engraving, painting, drawing, lithography and stained glass and also developed his interests in music, ballet and theatre. In 1929 he married Eileen Holding a fellow student at Richmond College of Art.

In the early 1930s Piper, influenced by the work of Picasso and Braque, produced some dramatic abstract works. He was involved in the avant-garde developments in British Art, showing paintings at the exhibitions of the London Group from 1931 and in 1934 he was elected a member of the 7&5 Society. He was soon appointed secretary of the group whose membership included Ben Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens and Henry Moore. In the late 1930s he moved away from this abstract phase and looked for new ways to record the landscape and architecture of England which he loved. He created a romantic idiosyncratic style which combined rich colour, sharp lines and varied textures. Piper also went on to develop his photography and use collage and printmaking.

Piper began writing reviews from the late 1920s making a name for himself as a critic writing for periodicals like 'The Listener' and the 'Architectural Review'. From 1935-1937 he assisted Myfanwy Evans, with the production of a quarterly review of contemporary European abstract painting called 'Axis'. In 1937 Piper was commissioned by his friend John Betjeman to write the 'Shell Guide to Oxfordshire'. Piper went on to write and provide photographs for a number of the guides as well as edit the series. In the same year John Piper married the writer Myfanwy Evans. Together they had two sons and two daughters and lived at Fawley Bottom Farmhouse.

He also designed stage sets and costumes, starting with the play 'Trial of a Judge' by Stephen Spender at the Unity Theatre in 1938 and thereafter designing for many theatre, ballet and opera productions. Designing for opera led to his friendship with Benjamin Britten with whom, in 1946, Piper founded the English Opera Group which became the mainstay of the Aldeburgh Festival. He designed Britten's last opera 'Death in Venice' (1973) and Myfanwy Piper wrote the librettos for three of Britten's operas.

Although not created an Official War Artist until 1944, Piper recorded the effects of bomb-damage to buildings in works such as 'St Mary le Port, Bristol' 1940 now in the Tate Collection (N05718) and he also drew Windsor Castle. In the 1950s he was given his first commission to design stained glass windows for Oundle School Chapel. This was followed by many other commissions including the blaze of colour he designed for the great Baptistery window of the new Coventry Cathedral and the windows for the Metropolitan Cathedral of Liverpool. From the 1960s he exhibited at the Marlborough Gallery a series of landscape paintings of Britain, France and Italy. Throughout his life Piper collaborated with other artists, designers and publishers in a mass of popular art on both a large and small scale. He planned decorative panels for buildings and in his sixties took up ceramics.

Piper was also a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission for a long period, served on the Arts Council and as a Trustee of the Tate Gallery for three terms and at the National Gallery for two. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1972. John Piper died in 1992.

The Artist Placement Group (APG) emerged in London in the 1960s. The idea of artist placements took its focus from the group of UK artists, including John Latham and Barbara Steveni, who were experimenting with new art forms. Initiated and directed by Steveni, the APG pioneered the concept of art in the social context; from the outset her concept of 'placement' directly acknowledged the isolated and marginal position that artists held within society and was an effort to overcome this situation. The APG acting outside the conventional art gallery system, attempted to place artists, through negotiation and agreement, within industry and in government departments. Artists such as Keith Arnatt, Ian Breakwell, Stuart Brisley, and Barry Flanagan, had important placements or early associations with the APG.

Today the organisation exists as Organisation and Imagination (O + I), and describes itself as 'an independent, radical international artist initiative, a network consultancy and research organisation'. Its board of directors, members and specialist advisors include leading artists, senior civil servants, politicians, scientists, and academics from various disciplines. The name was changed in 1989 in order to distinguish the initiative from arts administrative placement schemes set up following the APG example.

Kenneth McKenzie Clark was born on 13 July 1903, to a family who made their fortune in the Glasgow cotton trade. Clark described his parents as 'idle rich', moving between their country house in Suffolk, their home and yacht in Scotland and the South of France. An only child, he was sent away to Wixenford School, from where he went to Winchester College from 1917 to 1922. He gained a scholarship to read 'Greats' at Trinity College, Oxford, and it was here that he began to fully develop the artistic eye which had been nurtured by rearranging his parents' picture collection and by the exhibition of Japanese art in London in 1910. At Oxford, Clark made many of the friends he was to keep throughout his life, including Maurice Bowra, Colin Anderson and Gordon Waterfield. He also began to collect original works of art, managing to buy cheaply works from Old Master drawings and pictures by then unknown, or unfashionable, artists. He began to help out at the Ashmolean Museum, and was befriended by the Keeper, Charles Bell.

In 1925, during a visit to Italy, Bell introduced him to the art connoisseur Bernard Berenson at his house, I Tatti, near Florence. Clark made an impression on Berenson, who invited him to work for him on the revisions of his 'Florentine Painters'. After a struggle with his parents, who insisted on him finishing his degree, the arrangements were made for Clark to join Berenson. In the meantime Clark spent the summer of 1926 travelling in Europe and seeing the great collections in pre-war Germany, where at Berenson's instruction he learnt German. In 1927 Clark married Elizabeth Jane Martin, known as Jane (or Betty to her family), a fellow student at Oxford. They were introduced by Gordon Waterfield, her then fiancé. In 1928 their first son, Alan, was born, followed by the twins, Colin and Colette (known as Celly). There were plans for more work with Berenson, but in 1930 Clark was offered the position of Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, to succeed Bell.

Although he had little museum experience, Clark had made a name for himself, in particular through his work on the Royal Academy's exhibition of Italian art, a major exhibition of 1930, and was already working on the Leonardo drawings in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (eventually published in 1935). It was an unprecendented appointment, which damaged forever his friendship with Bell. Berenson urged Clark not to go into curatorship, but to concentrate on writing, but Clark accepted the position. His activities at the museum included the reorganisation of the collection and the notable acquisition of Piero di Cosimo's 'Forest Fire'. In 1933 Clark was offered the post of Director of the National Gallery. He was only thirty years old when he began to work there in 1934. The Clarks were launched into a whirl of public and social activity: they became the toast of London society and were constantly in the newspapers. 1934 also saw Clark's appointment as Surveyor of the King's Pictures. Clark's reign at the National Gallery was not without problems. In the first year he acquired seven panels, believed to be by Sassetta, in somewhat dubious circumstances from Duveen, an art dealer and National Gallery Trustee. Another controversy was the acquisition of four panels which Clark originally believed to be by Giorgione, although the Trustees acquired them as 'Giorgionesque'. Other problems included an appearance before the Committee for Public Accounts.

The outbreak of war in 1939 changed the Clarks' life. Jane and the children moved to Upton House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, where they had many guests including Graham and Kathleen Sutherland. Clark stayed in London, where his flat in Grays Inn was bombed in 1940, destroying many of his early papers. After the evacuation of the National Gallery's pictures to the mines of Manod, Wales, he was less involved with Gallery work than with his secondment to the Ministry of Information. Clark joined the Ministry in 1939. He was first Director of the Films Division, then Controller of Home Publicity until 1941. Clark found the work interesting, but the bureaucratic machinery and rivalries in the Ministry wearying. He was involved in some interesting work including propaganda and public information films, however, the cream of his work there was the War Artists' Advisory Committee. Clark was chairman of the Committee and it was a role he felt very useful in, although he was unable to help as many artists as he would have liked. Artists were selected to carry out work for the armed forces and Clark often acted as a mediator, for sometimes it was hard to reconcile the artists interests and desire to experiment, with what might be very conventional and specific requirements. The Committee met from 1939-1945, then faced the problem of dispersing the thousands of works created.

At the end of 1945 Clark resigned from the National Gallery as soon as he decently could. Contrary to popular belief he did not have another post to go to: he simply wanted to concentrate on his writing. However, he was soon invited to be Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford University, a post he held from 1947-1950. Over the winter of 1948-1949, Clark embarked on a trip to Australia. He found the country stimulating and made contacts with both art administrators and artists, including Joseph Burke and Sydney Nolan. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Clark spent much of his time writing and lecturing. He was always inundated with invitations to lecture and he accepted many. His books sold well and he became enormously popular in America. In 1953 he was appointed Chairman of the Arts Council, a post he held until 1960. Clark had been involved in radio broadcasting since the 1930s. As well as art based programmes, he often appeared as a "celebrity guest" on more general programmes. He was a regular panelist in the early days of the Brains Trust. With the development of television, Clark extended his broadcasting by bringing art images into thousands of homes. However, public reaction was mixed when he agreed to be Chariman of the new Independent Television Association in 1954. In the 1950s Clark became further involved with independent television production companies and began to work with his son Colin, a producer. The subject area of his material remained wide, but perhaps the culmination of his TV work was the 1969 series 'Civilisation'. This brought Clark worldwide fame and he became popularly known as 'Lord Clark of Civilisation'. In 1953 the Clarks moved from Upper Terrace House, Hampstead, to Saltwood Castle in Kent (to which Thomas à Becket's murderers had fled from the scene of their crime in Canterbury Cathedral). The Clarks kept a small flat in Albany, Piccadilly and Clark had a secretary in both residences. However, as the Clarks grew older the Castle became too much for them and they built The Garden House at the edge of the grounds, where they moved, while Alan, their son, moved into the Castle. In 1976 Jane, who had been intermittently ill for many years, died. Clark remarried in 1977, Nolwen de Janze Rice, who was French and owned an estate in Normandy. Clark continued to write and lecture on a smaller scale almost to the end. He died in 1983.

Naum Gabo was born Naum Pevsner in Russia, in 1890. He was the younger brother of the sculptor Antoine Pevsner. Gabo went to Munich University in 1910 to study medicine and natural sciences, but also attended art history lectures by Heinrich Wölfflin. In 1912 he transferred to an engineering school in Munich. In 1913 he joined Antoine, then a painter, in Paris and whilst there he met Kandinsky. After the outbreak of war, Gabo moved from Paris to Copenhagen and then to Oslo. From 1915 he began to make constructions under the name Naum Gabo. Between 1917 and 1922, Gabo was in Moscow with his brother. Whilst there, they jointly wrote and issued a 'Realistic Manifesto' on the tenets of pure Constructivism. In 1922 Gabo moved to Berlin, where he lived in contact with artists of the de Stijl group and the Bauhaus. In 1926 he co-designed with Antoine, costumes for Diaghilev's ballett 'La Chatte'. In 1932 Gabo moved back to Paris and became a member of Abstraction Création. In 1936 he left Paris, moved to London and married Miriam Franklin (née Israels) in 1937. Gabo edited 'Circle: International Survey of Constructivist Art' along with J.L. Martin and Ben Nicholson. Gabo became good friends with Nicholson, and in 1939 he moved to Carbis Bay, Cornwall, where Nicholson was also based. In 1944 Gabo joined the Design Research Unit and in 1946 he moved to the USA, settling in Conneticut in 1953. He became a US citizen in 1952. Between 1953 and 1954, he was a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture, Harvard University. From 1950 onwards, Gabo took a number of sculpture commmissions, including one for the Bijenkorf store in Rotterdam. In 1971 Gabo was awarded an Honorary KBE. He died in Conneticut in 1977.

Redwood College was formed in July 1993 by the merger of Roding and Romford Colleges of Nursing, Midwifery and Healthcare Studies. These Colleges were in turn formed by the amalgamation of several Schools of Nursing and Midwifery in Essex and London. Redwood College of Health Studies merged with South Bank University in 1994.

Records in this collection were created by several hospitals in Essex and London, which taught nursing but which no longer exist, with the exception of Whipps Cross Hospital.

The Royal Masonic Benevolent Annuity Fund was set up in 1842 to provide financial support for elderly freemasons. In 1849 a female annuity fund was set up to provide financial support for the widows, spinster daughters and sisters of freemasons. In 1850 a home for the care of annuitants was opened in East Croydon under the control of the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution, which was created at the same time through the merger of the two annuity funds. The home was moved to Hove in Sussex in 1955 and seventeen further homes were opened at locations around the country between 1966 and 1998.

Great Ormond Street Hospital was founded in 1852 on its Bloomsbury site. It has undergone several changes of title since its foundation. Its current description, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, dates from 1994.

Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children was founded on its Bloomsbury site in 1852, as the Hospital for Sick Children. It became part of the National Health Service in 1948.

Irving Rosenwater was born on 11 September 1932 at Mile End in London. He was initially known as 'Isidore' and was registered as such on his first birth certificate, until his parents (Rosenwater's father was Polish) decided to change his name. He was educated at Parmenter's Grammar School in Bethnal Green, London.

Rosenwater was a former assistant editor of The Cricketer magazine, founder editor of The Cricket Society Journal, a frequent contributor to Wisden, and a statistician for BBC and Channel 9. He was also a noted cricket writer - his book Sir Donald Bradman - The Biography, released in 1978, won The Cricket Society Literary Award. In 1970, Rosenwater became the cricket scorer for BBC TV, but he left in 1977 to become part of World Series Cricket. Rosenwater died in 2006 in Stepney, London.

Rosenwater was an avid collector of cricket material and the majority of this collection is made up of the period when he worked for BBC and Channel 9 - in particular during the World Series Cricket era - and contains scorecards, scoresheets and reports from that period, as well as ephemera. Also included in this collection is MCC records from the late 1920s-early 1930s, including letters sent to its then Secretary, William Findlay - an indication of Rosenwater's keenness for collecting any kind of cricket material. As Rosenwater was an MCC member he kept a lot of items sent to him during the course of his membership, such as invitations to events and notifications of meetings.

Henry Weston Elder was a bristlemerchant. He held the manor of Topsfield in Crouch End from 1855. He died in 1882 and his widow sold the property in 1894.

From: 'Hornsey, including Highgate: Manors', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 6: Friern Barnet, Finchley, Hornsey with Highgate (1980), pp. 140-146.

In 1780 Matthias Peter Dupont, an innkeeper from Aldersgate in the City of London, opened the Zion Chapel in Chase Side, Enfield. In 1791 a controversial ministerial appointment caused a split in the congregation and a second chapel was begun, called the Independent Chapel or the Chase Side Chapel. John Stribling became minister of the Zion Chapel in 1832 and retired in 1871. In 1865 the community voted to reunite and the Zion Chapel was demolished in order to make way for a new building, Christ Church. The Independent Chapel became a lecture hall. The church still stands as the Christ Church United Reformed Church.

The parish of Edgware lay on the northern boundary of Middlesex, bordered on the north by Elstree, on the west by Little Stanmore, and on the east by Hendon. The parish of Little Stanmore was bounded on the north by Bushey Heath, on the east by Watling Street, separating Little Stanmore from Edgware and Hendon, on the south by Kingsbury and on the west by Great Stanmore.

Parish officers were elected annually and were responsible for various aspects of local administration. Because of their proximity Little Stanmore and Edgware always shared their main areas of settlement. The north of both parishes included parts of the village of Elstree. This closeness meant that the two parishes formed various joint administrative bodies and shared some staff and facilities. For example in 1767 a punishment cage was built and used jointly by Edgware and Little Stanmore.

Major W H Morgan appears to have served with the 711 (Middlesex County Council) Company, Royal Engineers, during the First World War.

Iceland was occupied by British forces in May 1940 despite its neutrality. It was considered strategically important for control of the Atlantic and the battle against U-boat attacks on convoys.

For most of the 19th century local government in Edmonton was divided among several bodies, although membership often overlapped. At the time of the cholera outbreak in 1853, the vestry appointed a committee to consider the sanitary state of the parish. There was a watching and lighting committee, presumably set up after the Act of 1833, and the overseers collected a lighting rate. A board of the surveyors of the highway was responsible for the roads in the parish by 1841. In 1837 Edmonton parish became a medical district within the poor law union and in 1842 it was divided into three, each with its own medical officer.

Edmonton local board of health was set up in 1850 under the Public Health Act of 1848. It immediately replaced the highway board and took over responsibility for street lighting under the Local Government Act of 1858. It consisted of 12 members who met twice a month at the watch-house in Church Street. Its salaried officials were a clerk, a combined inspector of nuisances and surveyor, and a collector of rates, who later received a percentage of the collected rates in place of a salary. The board was financed by a general district rate, although sometimes there was a separate highway-rate. Expenditure on highways was nearly always considerably greater than on sanitary improvements.

There were many complaints about sewerage, especially from Southgate, where in 1879 a petition for separation from Edmonton was drawn up by the leading landholders and signed by more than 500 people. In 1881 Southgate was granted its own local board (under the Edmonton Local Board (Division of District) Act 1881) and Edmonton local board was reduced to 9 members. Although the loss of the large houses in Southgate deprived it of valuable rates, the Edmonton board seems to have been more active after the separation. Jerry-builders were vigorously prosecuted during the 1880s. During the 1880s and 1890s there were committees for the town hall, cemetery, works, finance, farms, engines, sanitation, and the library. A town hall 'in municipal Perpendicular' was built facing Fore Street in 1884 and enlarged in 1903.

Southgate local board had 9 members, whose first chairman was John Walker of Arnos Grove. The board met twice a month in Ash Lodge and in the village hall until 1893, when council offices were erected to a design by A. Rowland Barker, a Southgate resident; they were enlarged in 1914. Salaried officials were a clerk, treasurer, rate collector, sanitary inspector, medical officer of health, and a combined surveyor and engineer.

Under the Act of 1894 the two local boards became urban districts (U.D.). Edmonton local board of health had used the traditional wards of Bury Street, Church Street, and Fore Street. There had been proposals to add two new wards, Angel Road and Silver Street, and the new U.D. was organized accordingly, with three councillors for each of the five wards. After an inquiry in 1903 the district again consisted of three wards, with nine councillors each. In 1933 the area was divided into Bury Street, Church Street, Angel Road, and Silver Street wards, with seven councillors for each. Southgate U.D. had nine councillors in 1894 and twelve from 1900. In 1906 it was divided into four wards: Middle, South, North-east, and Northwest. Swimming baths and a refuse destructor were erected but the most important achievement was control over the development of the area. Although the number of houses increased eightfold between 1881 and 1931, Southgate remained one of the 'most agreeable of the northern suburbs', largely because of the council's regulations and its acquisition of 287 acres of park-land.

Southgate was incorporated in 1933, retaining its four wards. The council, consisting of a mayor, 7 aldermen, and 21 councillors, was enlarged. Edmonton was incorporated in 1937, after which it had four wards, a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Southgate Borough Council was consistently dominated by opponents of the Labour party, while Edmonton, at least after the Second World War, was controlled by Labour councillors.

In 1965 Edmonton and Southgate were united in Enfield London Borough, created under the London Government Act of 1963. The names of three Edmonton wards, Angel Road, Church Street, and Silver Street, survived among the 30 wards of the new authority. Edmonton and Southgate town halls were retained to house the borough treasurer, architect, engineer and surveyor, area housing and town planning offices. The education department was housed in Church Street, Edmonton.

From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 175-179.

The Teddington Methodist Circuit comprises the churches at Teddington, Sunbury, East Molesey, Hampton and Hanworth. These were originally part of the Richmond Circuit, but in 1887 were removed to form the new Hampton Court Circuit. This became known as the Teddington Circuit in 1892. A circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.

Shepperton lies on the north bank of the Thames opposite Walton and Weybridge on the Surrey bank. Until 1930 it consisted of 1,492 acres and formed a rough triangle, with the winding river as the base and the east and west sides meeting at the apex about two miles north of the village. In 1930 the parish was incorporated in Sunbury urban district, but 77 acres in the north (nearly all lying in the Queen Mary Reservoir) were transferred to Littleton civil parish, in the same urban district.

In the early 19th century the vestry of Shepperton usually met once or twice a month and the rector was normally in the chair. Voting power was related to the amount of property held, so that in 1845 49 people had 81 votes, of which 41 belonged to 9 persons. With rare exceptions there were under a dozen people at the vestries and half or more were parish officers. By 1820 the officers appointed by the vestry included the constable and headborough, who continued to be appointed after the parish was included in the Metropolitan Police District in 1840. From 1822 there was a salaried assistant overseer and from 1826 there were one or two poundsmen. There was a parish fire-engine by 1819. The chief preoccupation of the vestry before 1836 was of course the administration of the poor law. From 1796, and possibly from 1776, there was a regular workhouse. This stood in 1834 in Watersplash Road and was held by the parish on lease.

The parish council which existed from 1895 until 1930, when the parish was absorbed by Sunbury urban district, met in the Shepperton church school. At first there were nine councillors who met seven times a year, but by the 1920's there was a monthly council meeting. In 1895 the council appointed one of its members to be unpaid clerk. Until 1929 its servants included a poundsman. The parish property which the council took over included not only the pound and a farren right in Cowey for the poundsman, but a small piece of land in Ferry Lane and the allotments and recreation ground set out under the 1862 inclosure, which had been managed by the vestry. From about 1907 the council managed Lower Halliford Green and Walton Bridge Green. A lighting committee was formed in 1906 but the first lighting scheme, which came into force a year or two later, was supported by voluntary subscriptions. It lapsed in 1915, and in 1922 the council took over the 30 lamps. By 1930 the Staines rural district council had built 110 houses in the parish. Others have since been provided by the Sunbury urban district council.

William Schaw Lindsay (1816-1877) purchased the manor of Shepperton in 1856, and was succeeded by his grandson William Herbert Lindsay (died 1949). W. S. Lindsay usually lived at the manor-house and died at Shepperton. He was a ship-owner and member of Parliament and wrote a history of merchant shipping as well as one of Shepperton. He was largely responsible for the construction of the Thames Valley Railway. In 1954 W. H. Lindsay's widow transferred the estate to her husband's nephew, Mr. P. A. R. Lindsay, who was the owner in 1958.

From: 'Shepperton: The hundred of Spelthorne (continued)', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962), pp. 1-12 (available online).

Enfield Urban District was incorporated in 1955, by which date it was the second largest urban district in the country, with a population exceeding those of 39 of the 83 county boroughs. The borough had 10 wards: Bush Hill Park, Cambridge Road, Chase, Enfield Wash, Green Street, Ordnance, Ponders End, Town, West, and Willow, each electing three councillors. In 1965 the borough became part of Enfield London Borough, under the London Government Act of 1963.

The local board met in the Town until 1888, when Little Park, Gentleman's Row, was bought as council offices. Land for a new town hall in Church Street was purchased in 1902 but the Urban District Council remained at Little Park until 1961, when the first part of a new civic centre in Silver Street, designed by Eric G. Boughton, was opened. The uncompleted building was the administrative centre of Enfield London Borough in 1971, when the old offices in Little Park served as the health department. In 1972 work began on extensions to the civic centre, also designed by Boughton and including an eleven-storeyed tower block.

From: 'Enfield: Local government', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 241-243 (available online).

For a detailed history please see the entries for each individual chapel (ACC/1388-01, ACC/1388-02 and so on).

In Northwood, Hillingdon, Primitive Methodists first met in a house called 'Elthorne' from about 1896. In that year a school chapel was built on the corner of the High Street and Hallowell Road. The present church next to the school chapel was completed in 1903, with further extensions made in 1910 and 1927. Enemy action caused considerable damage to the building in 1944.

Ealing Broadway Wesleyan Methodist church originated in services at 1 Milford Villas, the Mall, 1864. A new chapel seating 300 was built in Windsor Road in 1865 while an adjoining church seating 1,000 was added on the corner with the Mall in 1869. The chapel was replaced by a hall in 1925. This building was compulsorily sold in 1970 and the church members moved to Ealing Green United Reformed Church in 1972.

A Wesleyan chapel was first erected in 1810 on the eastern side of Lower Road, Roxeth, and accommodated 218 people. The chapel was registered in 1856, but was replaced in 1905 by a red brick Gothic building, with room for 650, in Bessborough Road. The chapel was closed in 1972 and the congregation joined the North Harrow Methodist Church.

The Wesley Central Hall was constructed in 1930.

The Bath Road Methodist Church, Hounslow West, was opened in 1956. Before this, services had been held in the Hounslow Heath schools in Martindale Road since about 1930.

Northumberland Park Primitive Methodist church was founded in 1870. The church was constructed on the north side of Northumberland Park almost opposite Worcester Avenue and was registered in 1872. It was sold to the Calvary Church of God in Christ in 1971.

The first known Baptist Church in Crouch End was formed in 1807 and met in what was called the Broadway Hall, once part of the outbuildings of Old Crouch Hall. It continued until 1837. From 1879-1889 a second Baptist congregation met in the Broadway Hall, until the increasing urbanisation of the area, bringing an increased population, led to the erection of a more permanent chapel and the formation of the Ferme Park Baptist Church in 1889, located on the corner of Ferme Park Road and Weston Park. Ever growing congregations resulted in a new chapel being built adjacent to the old, between 1897-1900. The Baptist Chapel merged with the United Reformed Church in 1973 and opened on the same site as the Union Church in 1980.

A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.

A Methodist circuit is normally a group of churches in a local area served by a team of ministers. A minister will have pastoral charge of one or more churches, but will preach and lead worship in different local churches in the circuit, along with local preachers. The arrangements for leading worship in a circuit are drawn up in a quarterly Plan.

The Brunswick Church was constructed in 1834 while the Zion Church, Neate Street, was constrructed in 1855.

Taught Chemistry at Queen Mary College from 1948 to 1981.

Thomas Seccombe was reportedly the first lecturer in History at East London Technical College.

The Westfield Trust was established on 1 Nov 1988 for charitable purposes connected with Westfield College and Queen Mary and Westfield College. The creation of the Trust resulted from an agreement made in Mar 1987 to fully merge Westfield College and Queen Mary College with the gradual transfer of all activities to the Mile End site. In order to preserve something of the original intentions of the founders of Westfield College, both Colleges agreed to form the Westfield Trust.

Prior to the establishment of the Westfield Trust, another charitable trust had existed; the Westfield College Development Trust. The Development Trust was established in 1979 to raise funds for the College and support projects. This included the Centenary Appeal which funded a new hall of residence. With the announcement of a merger between Westfield College and Queen Mary College, no further fund raising was undertaken. With the creation of the Westfield Trust in 1988, it was decided in Jul 1989 to dissolve the Development Trust, with all of its assets being transferred to the Westfield Trust.

The Westfield Trust had representation on the new College Council and provided financial support for capital and smaller projects within the College. Projects supported by the Trust include the College Nursery, academic visitor accommodation, restoration of the Octagon, refurbishment of the Great Hall in the People's Palace, and the Westfield Student Village, as well as the provision of research studentships and bursaries.

In 2008 the decision was taken that the Trust had met its objectives and should be wound down. On 31 Jul 2009 all Trust assets and liabilities were formally transferred to the College. The final meeting of the Trust took place on 30 Nov 2009.

Chairman of the Westfield Trust:

Lord Jenkin of Roding, 1989-1999; Francis Vernon McClure, 1999-2009

Secretary to the Westfield Trust:

Michael Sumner, 1989-1995; Brian Murphy, 1995-2009

Established in November 1991, the ARA is the first Black-led, broad-based coalition campaigning to stem the rising tide of racism, anti-Semitism and support for the extreme right. The ARA is supported by over 800 organisations including many national Black and Jewish organisations. It also has the support of more than 90 MPs and MEPs from across the political spectrum, as well as thousands of individuals. The ARA organises campaigns locally and nationally against racist murders, attacks and harassment.

The Advice Services Alliance, established in 1982, is the umbrella body for independent advice services in the UK. Its members are national networks of not-for-profit organisations providing advice and help on the law, access to services and related issues.

Born, 1922, educated at the Sir George Monoux Grammar School in Walthamstow; grew up in the East End of London, descended from a long line of blacksmiths, although his father was a horse fodder dealer; served with the Royal Air Force, World War Two; for many years a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. He has had various careers and has been a professional boxer, a labourer, a strip cartoonist, a schoolteacher and a sign-painter. Barltrop has also published widely and his books include: The Monument: Story of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (1975), Jack London: The Man, the Writer, the Rebel (1977), Muvver Tongue with Jim Wolveridge (1980) and A funny age (Growing up in North East London between the Wars) (1985).

Born Georgetown, Guyana, February 1944, educated at St Joseph's RC, Sacred Heart and Ituni Government Schools, and at St Stanislaus College; analyst in the Demerara Bauxite Company, Guyana; moved to Britain in 1963; employed as a railway clerk, then enrolled at Tottenham Technical College, 1965-67, studied Mining Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 1967-1969; international telephonist, including work for the Union of Post Office Workers, 1969-1978; full time Area Officer for NUPE, responsible for its local authority and health workers, 1978-1981; helped establish the Black Trades Unionists Solidarity Movement (BTUSM), and worked for it, 1981-1984; joined the Tottenham Labour Party, 1973; elected a councillor, 1978; Leader of Haringey Council, London, 1985, and in this position achieved national recognition during the disturbances on Broadwater Farm Estate in 1985; elected to Parliament in 1987 as one of the first Black MP's in modern times; founded the Parliamentary Black Caucus, and took up a leading role in establishing contacts with black people and politicians throughout the world; accompanied the Reverend Jesse Jackson to South Africa, greeting Nelson Mandela on the day of his release in 1990; Chairman of the All Party Group on Race and Community, and of the British Caribbean Group; member of the Select Committee on International Development, 1997, and the Home Secretary's Race Relations Forum, 1998; founded the Standing Conference on Racism in Europe in 1990; established the Africa Reparations Movement in Britain; founded the Global Trade Centre, 1995; died, 2000.

The British Humanist Association has its origins in the ethical movement established by Felix Adler in America in 1876. The aim of the ethical movement was to 'disentangle moral ideals from religious doctrines, metaphysical systems and ethical theories'. Ten years later, the movement was brought to Britain by Doctor Stanton Coit who became a minister of the South Place Ethical Society and later established the West London Ethical Society. In 1896 the Union of Ethical Societies was formed creating a central body to which local societies could affiliate and send representatives to the annual Congress. From 1920 the organisation was known as the Ethical Union. The Ethical Union was involved with moral education, repeal of the blasphemy laws, penal reform and neighbourhood community work. They also assisted the women's movement and drew attention to racial, colonial and international problems by initiating and supporting effective action. Searching for alternatives to religious worship also led to the formation of the Ethical Church by the Stanton Coit in Bayswater, operating from c.1909 to c.1954. The immediate origins of the British Humanist Association stem from the 1962 annual conference of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. British representatives concluded that there was a need to establish a national Humanist body to incorporate the growing number of local and university Humanist groups. At this point the central point of contact and unity between the local societies remained the Ethical Union. A Humanist Council had been established in the 1950s to promote greater collaboration between secularist groups at a national level (representatives from the Ethical Union, Rationalist Press Association and National Secular Society were invited to sit on the Council) but it was disbanded by the mid-1960s. Further attempts were made to move towards greater collaboration in 1957 when the Rationalist Press Association and the Ethical Union formed the Humanist Association. The name ‘British Humanist Association’ was registered in 1961 and co-operation between the Ethical Union and Rationalist Press Association was formalised in 1963 with the inaugural dinner of the British Humanist Association at the House of Commons in May. Following the creation of the British Humanist Association there was an immediate rise in membership and local group activity. University humanist groups also became more active instituting the Humanist Student Federation. Harold Blackham, an influential figure in the ethical movement and a former assistant to Stanton Coit, was appointed Executive Director of the British Humanist Associations serving from 1963 to 1968. Despite the joint commitment to the British Humanist Association in 1963, both the Ethical Union and the Rationalist Press Association retained their individual identities: the Ethical Union in West London was concerned with public relations, and the Rational Press Association, in Drury Lane, with publishing. By 1965 collaboration between the Ethical Union and Rationalist Press Association was to become more difficult following amendments to the charity laws. The Ethical Union was removed from the charity register on a technical point. This necessitated the Rationalist Press Association, because of its own charitable status, to pull out of the joint running of the British Humanist Association. The issues surrounding charitable status led to the creation of the Humanist Trust in 1967 and the incorporation of the Ethical Union into the British Humanist Association. The Humanist Trust became a charitable organisation focused on funding educational activities, whilst the British Humanist Association (now solely operated by the former Ethical Union) was able to pursue political lobbying and campaigning. The battle for charitable status for the British Humanist Association continued and was eventually won in 1983. From its origins the British Humanist Association's activities have been wide and varied. These have included the publication of pamphlets, books and periodicals, arranging conferences, promoting campaigns and organising local groups. The Association also calls for and promotes new thinking, research and experimentation in moral and religious education, along with helping Humanist parents and teachers. It also seeks a fuller and fairer representation of Humanist views in broadcasting , the press and government. The British Humanist Association is linked internationally with the International Humanist and Ethical Union and has been affiliated to the United Nations Association and supported Freedom from Hunger and similar campaigns. It was also involved in establishing the Humanist Housing Association, the Agnostics Adoption Society, the Social Morality Council (now transmuted into the Norham Foundation), and a Humanist counselling service. Education continues to be a priority and many books, newsletters and literature are produced. The British Humanist Association members receive the official newsletter of the Association, Humanist News, and since 2001, The New Humanist, (published by the Rational Press Association). Presidents of the British Humanist Association: - Sir Julian Huxley, (1963-1965) - Professor AJ Ayer, (1965-1970) - Edmund Leach, (1970-1972) - George Melly, (1972-1974) - Harold Blackham, (1974-1977) - James Hemming, (1977-1980) - Hermann Bondi, (1981-1999) - Claire Rayner, (1999-2004) - Linda Smith, (2004-2006) - Polly Toynbee, (2007-2013) - Jim Al-Khalili, (2013- )

Noreen Branson was born Noreen Browne, a granddaughter of the 8th Marquess of Sligo. Her mother died of tuberculosis in August 1918. Her father, Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Alfred Browne, was killed in action just 11 days later, so she was left an orphan at the age of eight. Thereafter she and her siblings were brought up by her maternal grandmother at her house in Berkeley Square, London. At 18 she was presented at court. She was passionate about music and insisted on being allowed to study in London. She joined the Bach Choir, through which in 1931 she met her husband, Clive Branson. The son of an Indian Army officer, he was in a similar revolt against privilege. They met at a charity concert in the East End of London and were married in June 1931.
The young couple left the West End and set up home in Battersea. There they were able to use their private incomes to throw themselves into alleviating the wants of the poor of that area. Noreen Branson joining the Independent Labour Party and campaigned for Poor Law reform.
Meeting the veteran socialist leader Harry Pollitt, general secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain, she spent a number of years in the 1930s taking messages between the British party and other communist parties overseas. During her husband's absence overseas with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War she also began working for the Labour Research Department. Soon she was publishing articles on social issues in its magazine Labour Research, to which she continued to contribute for the next 60 years.
When the Second World War came, her husband joined the Army and was posted to the Far East. She continued writing for Labour Research, concentrating especially on the problems of the children of workers. Clive Branson was killed in action in Arakan in 1944, and she later published his letters under the title Letters of a British Soldier in India. In 1945 she became editor of Labour Research, continuing to write prolifically for almost every issue, covering the wide range of problems thrown up by the working of the welfare state in those early years of its existence. Her first book, Room at the Bottom, published in 1960 under the nom de plume Katherine Hood, was an analysis of its shortcomings as she perceived them. Britain in the Nineteen Thirties, written with Margot Heinemann and published in 1971 as part of E.J.Hobsbawm's History of British Society series, was a bleak analysis of, as the authors saw it, the failure of the Left to halt the slide to war in that decade.
Branson retired from the editorship of Labour Research in 1972, but continued writing for it and published further works on social history. Britain in the Nineteen Twenties (1976) was another volume in the History of British Society series. Poplarism, 1919-1925 (1979) was an account of the rates rebellion in the poverty-stricken East London borough of Poplar, led by its Labour Mayor, George Lansbury. Branson also contributed to the History of the Communist Party of Great Britain (1985), writing volume three, which covered 1927-1941 and Volume four (1997), covering 1941-1951. She continued as a reviewer until her death in 2003.

No further information at present.

The UK Committee for Freedom in Mozambique was formed in 1968 at the request of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), which had launched an armed national liberation struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in 1964. It expanded a year later to cover Angola and Guine-Bissau, where armed struggle was also under way, renaming itself as the Committee for Freedom in Mozambique, Angola and Guine (CFMAG).

CFMAG operated as a campaigning pressure group, aiming to build broad based political support for FRELIMO, the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the African Independence Party of Guine-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC). It worked with all political parties, the labour and student movements, churches, NGOs and many others. It had close relations with the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and encouraged a regional perspective for the future of Southern Africa. It organised visits by liberation movement representatives and various specific political and material aid campaigns, culminating in the End the Alliance Campaign of 1972/3.

Following the 25 April coup in Portugal in 1974 and the subsequent negotiations between the new Portuguese government and the liberation movements, the right of the colonies to full and immediate independence was acknowledged. CFMAG organised a victory party at St Pancras Town Hall on 25 June 1975, Mozambique's Independence Day, and closed down, its objectives achieved.

During the following phase the Mozambique, Angola and Guine Information Centre (MAGIC) was established with support from the independent governments to carry out educational and information work. Political solidarity work continued through first the Angola Solidarity Committeee and then the Mozambique-Angola Committee, with particular emphasis on supporting MPLA during its second war of liberation against the South African army.

The City Music Society was formed in 1943, influenced by lunchtime concerts organised by Hilda Bor at the Royal Exchange and by Myra Hess at the National Gallery. The driving force in the Society's foundation was Ivan Sutton, with help and encouragement by Bor, who became its Vice-President, and from Edric Cundell, Principal of the Guildhall School of Music, who served as its first President. The first event, a lecture by Cundell, took place in December 1943 at the Guildhall School, shortly followed by the first concert, a performance by the Morley College Choir, in January 1944. After subsequent Society concerts at the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Royal Exchange, Sutton succeeded in convincing the Goldsmith's Company to allow the use of its hall for a series of three evening concerts in the autumn of 1946. In the autumn of 1947 the lunchtime concerts moved from the Guildhall School to the Bishopsgate Institute where the opening concert by Louis Kentner attracted a capacity audience. Since then evening concerts at Goldsmith's Hall and Tuesday lunchtime concerts at Bishopsgate Institute have provided the regular framework within which the work of the Society has evolved.
The Society, at present, stages around 26 concerts per year and has over 2000 lunchtime and early evening concerts to its credit. It completed its 60th-anniversary season in April 2004. As well as featuring well-established musicians, the Society's policy has always attempted to invite outstanding young professional artists who are at the beginning of their careers to perform at its concerts, many of whom have since attained international status. Furthermore, over the years the Society has commissioned many new works - on average one every three years - from a wide and diverse range of British composers, including Roger Smalley, Nicholas Maw, Diana Burrell, Richard Rodney Bennett, Elizabeth Maconchy, Phyllis Tate, Robin Holloway, John McCabe, Geoffrey Burgon, Peter-Paul Nash, Kevin Volans and Michael Berkeley.

John Dore was born in Hammersmith, London on 7 August 1930, the only child of Frederick James Dore, a master plasterer and Mary Ross (nee Spark). He grew up in Richmond, Surrey and was educated at Richmond and East Sheen County Grammar School for Boys. He obtained a Surrey County scholarship to Imperial College of Science and Technology (London University) where, in 1951, he obtained a BSc in Botany with Zoology subsidiary. He then obtained a research award to attend Southampton University, 1951-1954, where he obtained a PhD in Botany, researching the regeneration of horseradish.

He joined the Labour Party in 1949 and was an active member of the Richmond and Barnes Labour League of Youth, Cromwell ward Labour Party and delegate to the General Management Committee. He met his future wife Christine Perfect, who always shared his political interests, at a meeting of the Labour League of Youth in 1949. She had been Chairman and Secretary of the Richmond and Barnes Branch and, at the time of their marriage on 7 March 1953, he was Chairman of the Southampton Branch.

Between 1954-1959 he worked for H M Overseas Civil Service as an Agricultural Research Officer (Botanist), researching into the growth of rice. He was based in Kula Lumpur, Malaya. He joined the Fabian Society in 1954 and while in Malaya he and his wife produced several articles for the Fabian Society publication Venture, about Malayan agriculture and the political situation there at the time. He also developed the agricultural policy of the Malayan Labour party.

On returning to the UK, he moved to Watford with his young family and he and his wife re-established the Watford and District Fabian Society that met regularly, for many years, at their home. After a short spell as a teacher for Middlesex County Council, he took up the post of Lecturer in Plant Physiology at Brunel University (originally Brunel College of Technology). He wrote several scientific papers and also contributed to Chambers Encyclopaedia. Later he lectured in Biology and Biochemistry including aspects of environmental pollution and pest control.

During the early 1960s he stood as unsuccessful Labour candidate for several local elections in Watford Borough and Hertfordshire as well as the parliamentary candidate in Heston and Isleworth in the 1964 general election. He also stood as a Labour candidate at the first European Elections. In 1967 he was elected to Hertfordshire County Council and remained a County Councillor until his retirement in 1986. He was an active trade union member joining in 1950 and representing his union (ASTMS, then MSF now Amicus) at the Trade Union Congress in the 1970s. He was Hon. Secretary of the local (Brunel) branch and was also a member of the AUT union. He was a long-term member of the co-operative movement and was, for a time, member of the Education Committee of Watford Co-op before it amalgamated with London Cooperative Society.

In 1986 he retired from his post of Senior Lecturer in Biology at Brunel University and relinquished his County Council seat. He then moved, with his wife who was also a County Councillor at that time, to Somerset. Over the next few years he stood as Labour and Co-operative party candidate in several West Somerset local and Somerset county elections. He was elected as a local Parish Councillor. He founded the West Somerset Branch of the Co-operative Party and held the posts of Chairman and Secretary and was the representative at the Constituency Labour party. He was also chair of the West Somerset District Labour Party.

The Evening Standard Outside Chapel represents the interests of distribution workers on the London newspaper, the Evening Standard, dealing with management on issues of newspaper distribution, employment, wages and working conditions. Its original headquarters were based at 47 Shoe Lane, EC4, the Chapel now resides at the print and distribution centre of Associated Newspapers Ltd in Harmsworth Quays, SE16. Originally part of the National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers, the Chapel became affiliated to the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT) when the NUPBPW joined with the National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants (Natsopa) in 1966. (Natsopa). The National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers became the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades Division A and Natsopa became the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades Division 1. The aim was to achieve a complete merger over time, but differences led to in-fighting and in 1972 the two divisions split, Division A retaining the name Society of Graphical and Allied Trades and Division 1 becoming the National Society of Operative Printers, Graphical and Media Personnel (but retaining the Natsopa acronym). In 1975, SOGAT officially became the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades 1975 (SOGAT '75) after amalgamation with the Scottish Graphical Association. In 1982, SOGAT '75 and Natsopa finally amalgamated to become the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades 1982 (SOGAT '82). In 1992, SOGAT '82 merged with the National Graphical Association to form the Graphical, Paper and Media Union, which subsequently merged with Amicus in 2005 to become that union's Graphical, Paper and Media industrial sector.

Founded in 1979 in the aftermath of the Gay News blasphemy trial, GALHA is the only autonomous national organisation worldwide for gay and lesbian Humanists. It has members in many parts of the UK and in other countries. GALHA is affiliated to the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the International Lesbian and Gay Association. GALHA is also affiliated to Amnesty International, whose UK section has its own active Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Network.

GALHA provides a fellowship and voice for the many non-religious in the lesbian and gay community. It aims to promote an awareness and understanding of the Humanist outlook in that community, as well as bringing gay and lesbian rights to the attention of its kindred Humanist organisations.

GALHA plays a part in the campaign to combat prejudice and discrimination against lesbians and gay men and to achieve their complete legal equality with heterosexuals. It also takes up issues of concern to Humanists. It lobbies MPs, the media and others. It makes submissions to government committees and responds to government consultative documents concerning lesbian/gay and Humanist rights. It takes part in demonstrations and rallies concerning these rights.

GALHA is an integral part of the British Humanist movement and has close links with other organisations in it. These include the British Humanist Association and the National Secular Society, which have each consistently backed homosexual law reform and supported making the age of sexual consent for gay men equal to that for heterosexuals. GALHA is represented on the Humanist Forum (a liaison committee) and it co-sponsors Humanist functions.

Jacob (Jack) Gaster was the twelfth of the thirteen children born to Moses Gaster, the Chief Rabbi of the Sephardic Community of England, and his wife, Leah (daughter of Michael Friedlander, Principal of Jews' College). Rumanian by birth, Moses Gaster was a distinguished scholar and linguist. He was also keenly active in early twentieth century Zionist politics.

Never attracted by Zionism and from 1946, a supporter of a "one state" solution to Israel/Palestine, Gaster still never broke with his father, merely with his father's ideas, becoming acutely aware of working class politics (and conditions of life) during the General Strike in 1926. While his favourite brother, Francis actually worked as a blackleg bus driver, Jack Gaster sided with the strikers. It was at this time that he joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP), then headed by James Maxton. Despite his admiration for Maxton (who remained with the ILP), as a leading member of the Revolutionary Policy Committee (RPC) within the ILP, Jack Gaster led the 1935 "resignation en masse", taking a substantial group within the ILP with him to join the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

In the immediate post war period, Jack Gaster was elected (as one of just two Communist councillors) to the London County Council (LCC). Representing the working class area of Mile End, Stepney, he immersed himself in the bread and butter issues of housing, employment and transport, while in 1952, (along with seven other representatives of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers) he made an illegal journey at the height of the Korean War to North Korea. The prime mission was to discover if the United Nations was using any biological weapons (germ warfare) against the North Korean civilians. On his return to Britain, Jack Gaster published a 38- page dossier, Korea… I Saw the Truth, indicting Washington not only for their use of germ, but other barbaric forms of warfare in North Korea. Jack Gaster was denounced by the patriotic press and there were serious calls for him to be indicted for treason.

A solicitor by profession, for some sixty years Jack Gaster was deeply involved with the legal aspects of political struggle, representing communists, trades union, civil rights and peace activists and also individuals of the left as different in temperament and ideology as Joe Slovo and Tariq Ali. He was for many years the Communist Party's principle legal adviser. A member of the CPGB until its dissolution, he had no sympathy with those who left the party over Hungary or Czechoslovakia, he viewed the Paris events of 1968 and the New Left as "subjectively progressive and objectively reactionary". He was totally opposed to Revisionism and the destruction of the CPGB seeing with absolute clarity that the fall of the Soviet Union would result not in a "Peace Dividend", but in new and more brutal "Imperialistic" wars.

In the 1990's Jack Gaster joined the Socialist Labour Party (SLP) headed by Arthur Scargill; though in his very ultimate years he was in no political party, he remained a vice-President of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.

The General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) is a national trade union centre in the United Kingdom. It has 35 affiliates with a membership of just over 214,000 and describes itself as the "federation for specialist unions". In the 1890s, the development of socialist organisations and socialist thinking also found expression in the British trade union movement. Many of the new unions formed during that period were committed to the socialist transformation of society and were critical of the conservatism of the craft unions. The debate revolved around concept of building "one-big-union" which would have the resources to embark on a militant course of action and even change society. This thinking gained strength after the 1897 Engineering Employers Federation lockout which resulted in a defeat for engineering workers. The view that it was necessary to develop a strong, centralised trade union organisation by forming a federation, which had been rejected only two years earlier, was now endorsed at the Trades Union Congress of September 1897. This resulted in the establishment of the General Federation of Trade Unions at a special Congress of the TUC in 1899, the principal objective of which was to set up a national organisation with a strike fund which could be drawn upon by affiliated trade unions. The GFTU participated in the foundation of the International Federation of Trade Unions at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam in July 1919. The GFTU now concentrates on servicing the needs of specialist unions. It does this by providing courses, undertaking research for its affiliated Unions and administering a Pension Scheme for officials and staff of affiliated Unions. In keeping with its original objectives, the Federation pays dispute benefit in appropriate cases to affiliated Unions. The Governing Body is the Biennial General Council Meeting, attended by delegates from affiliated Unions, at which policy and rule changes are debated and an Executive Committee of 14 members elected to meet on a monthly basis between Biennial General Council Meetings.

No further information.