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Malcolm Guthrie was born in 1903, in Hove, Sussex, the son of a Scottish father and Dutch mother. After leaving school, he gained a BSc in metallurgy at Imperial College, London, thus perpetuating the strong engineering tradition of the Guthrie family. However, shortly after graduating, he felt called to work in the Church and enrolled at Spurgeon's College to study for the Ministry in 1925. He subsequently took up a pastorate in Rochester, Kent. He married Margaret Helen Near in 1931.

In 1932, he was posted to Leopoldville as a missionary with the Baptist Missionary Society, where his interest in language work developed. By 1934 he had published his Lingala Grammar and Dictionary, the first of several books on Lingala including a translation of the New Testament. During his 1935 furlough he studied at the School of Oriental Studies (later the School of Oriental and African Studies). On returning home from the mission field in 1940 he became lecturer, and subsequently senior lecturer at SOAS in 1942. During two years study leave 1942-1944 he undertook a linguistic field-study throughout Bantu Africa, collecting much of the data he used in his comparative language work. His primary interests included tonology, which became the subject of his doctoral thesis, The Tonal Structure of Bemba, and classification, which led to the publication of The Classification of the Bantu Languages in 1948. By 1950, Malcolm Guthrie was Head of the Department of African Languages and Culture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, a post he held for 18 years. In addition to this post he was a member of several boards including the Board of Studies in Oriental and African Languages and Study (Chairman from 1960 to 1965); the Board of Studies in Anthropology, Comparative Linguistics and Theology; the Board of the Faculty of Arts (Vice-Dean from 1960 to 1967); the Advisory Boards in Colonial and Religious Studies; the Committee of Management of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies; the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the African Studies Association of the UK.

He undertook extensive study of Bemba, Lingala, Kongo, Fang, Mfinu and the Teke languages, working on over 200 Bantu languages. Through his work on classification, he developed a means of establishing the genetic relationship between languages by using his famous two-stage method. This involved firstly collecting lexical items with a common meaning, which could be related by consistent sound shifts and correspondences and symbolising them by creating (hypothetical) starred forms collectively known as Common Bantu. He then interpreted the inferences from this data in terms of pre-history, to present a hypothesis of Bantu origins from a common ancestor language. By 1960 Guthrie had finished stage one of his magnum opus Comparative Bantu, which appeared in 4 volumes published in 1967 (volume 1), 1970 (volumes 3 and 4) and 1971 (volume 2).

During 1966-1968, Guthrie suffered from ill health. His wife also died from cancer in 1968. That same year he was elected Fellow of the British Academy, the first time this honour had been bestowed upon anyone in the field of African language study. He died unexpectedly on 22 November 1972 of a heart attack, leaving his work on Bemba Grammar, General Bantu Grammar, Lingala material and planned work on Teke unfinished. Some of the preparatory material for these works can be found in this collection, in addition to much of the data he used in the compilation of Comparative Bantu.

H. G. A. Hughes was born 21 July 1921 in Pontlottyn, Wales. He was educated in Pontypridd and at Jesus College, Oxford. In 1947 he gained a diploma in Education from the Institute of Education and then remained there as a research assistant on Community Development and Tropical Education. From 1949 to 1954 he was lecturer in Linguistics with reference to Oceanic Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies and during this period, from Jan 1951 - Jun 1952, he undertook research in Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands, Solomon Islands and Samoa. From 1955 to 1959 he was International Librarian at the International Library, Liverpool and from 1959 to 1963 Head of Department of Commerce and Liberal Studies at the Technical College, Colwyn Bay. In 1963 he became Visiting Senior Lecturer at Charles University, Prague and received a doctorate from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. From 1966 to 1974 he was Borough Librarian for Flint and then worked as a tutor for the Open University, trainee solicitor and financial administrator and Hospital Secretary, St. Clare's, Pantasaph.

Dr Hughes has written numerous publications on a wide range of subjects, but with a particular reference to the Pacific, and since 1947 he has been Director of a number of companies involved in reviewing, publishing and translating; particularly on Welsh subjects. Membership of organisations includes Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Societé des Oceanistes, Polynesian Society, Linguistic Society of New Zealand, Association of Social Anthropologists in Oceania, Institute of Journalism, Society of Authors, Translators Association, Welsh Academy, Welsh Union of Writers, Communist Party of Great Britain, Democratic Left, and Plaid Cymru.

Frances Butcher was born on 7 March 1887 in Lewisham, South London. She trained as a Nursing Sister at the London Temperance Hospital and at Carey Hall. On 31 July 1920 she sailed to China, where she worked as a Nursing Sister at the Tientsin Hospital for the London Missionary Society. Frances Butcher resigned her position in October 1924 when she married William Sheldon Ridge.

William Sheldon Ridge was born in Selby, Yorkshire on 10 Jan 1875, and worked as a teacher. He married Mary Louisa Craven in 1903, who died in 1923. They went out to China in 1904 when Ridge became Headmaster of the Shanghai Municipal Public School for Chinese. In 1905 he became Assistant Editor of The Shanghai Mercury, and held a series of editorships including The National Review China (1907-1916); The Peking Daily News (1917-1921); and The Far Eastern Times (1922-1926). In 1930 Ridge started The Chronicle, which he continued until 1939 when he retired. As well as doing journalistic work Ridge was Lecturer on Chinese geography and international relations at the North China Union Language School (from 1917), and Professor of English Language and Literature at the Chinese Government College of Salt Administration (from 1920) and at the Chinese Government University of Communications (from 1927). On their retirement the Ridges moved to Yenchi, and were interned by the Japanese in 1943. In 1945 Ridge died suddenly from a gall stone obstruction.

Born in Freetown, Sierra Leone on 11 March 1907, Cole went to the Government Model School in 1914 and then to Sierra Leone Grammar School in 1918. He entered Fourah Bay College in 1923 to read for the Durham University degree in Arts. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926 and was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer in mathematics in 1927 at Fourah Bay College. He obtained an Upper Second Class degree in Philosophy in 1928.

He came to England in 1928 and entered Newcastle-upon-Tyne Medical School. In 1933 he obtained his M.B, B.S. with First Class Honours. He began his medical career as a House Surgeon at Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle. He set up his own General Practice in Newcastle in 1934. In 1943 he obtained a Doctorate in Medicine and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. In 1944 he passed the Master of Surgery examination, M.S. In October of that year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons at Edinburgh and in November he became the first African and first black person to be elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He toured West Africa (Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Cape Coast, Gold Coast and Nigeria) during March to September 1945, as a member of the Colonial Office Advisory Committee for the Welfare of Colonial Peoples. In 1950 he moved his General Practice to Nottingham and was practising there until he joined the Nigerian Civil Service as a Consultant Surgeon in 1962. In 1964 he proceeded to Sierra Leone to work as Consultant Surgeon to the Sierra Leone Government. He returned to England in 1974. In 1962, Dr Cole lost his British nationality status, which was not restored until 1981.

With his wide interests in West African students and African affairs he became President of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne and North East England East and West Friendship Society. He was also the President of the Society for the Cultural Advancement of Africa. He became a Director of the West African Students Union and was a founder member of the West African Society and editor of its journal Africana. He became President of the League of Coloured People of Great Britain and Ireland and he also served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Colonial Bureau of the Fabian Society from 1943-1950. From 1942 to 1958 he was a Member of the Colonial Office Advisory Committee on the Welfare of Colonial Peoples in the United Kingdom, the Colonial Advisory Medical Committee and the Colonial Economic and Development Council.

He married three times, Anna Isabel Brodie in 1932, Amy Manto Bondfield Hotobah-During in 1950 and Anjuma Josephine Elizabeth Wyse in 1980.

His published works include Kossoh Town Boy (Cambridge University Press, 1960); An Innocent in Britain (Autobiography) (London, 1988). Unpublished works include Black Paradise. Fiction includes Country Doctor and Black Swan.

The survey was undertaken by the Centre for Social and Economic Research at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the Division for Urban and Rural Planning at Kaduna Polytechnic.

Wilfred Howell Whiteley was born in Liverpool, on 19 November 1924. He was educated at King Edward's High School, Birmingham, with the last two years at Lancaster Grammar School. His education was interrupted by a period of National Service, which took him to East Africa for a time. This lasted until the end of the War, when he became a student at the London School of Economics, graduating in Anthropology in 1949. He was appointed as Research Assistant at the International African Institute, but after a short time accepted the post of Government Anthropologist, Tanganyika. His duties took him mainly to the Southern province, where he became interested in the local Bantu languages. During this period, he was also in touch with the East African Institute of Social Research at Makerere, Uganda. When his contract as Government Anthropologist ended in 1952, he was appointed Research Fellow of the Institute, and continued in this post until 1958.

During his time in East Africa, Whiteley concentrated on linguistic research. After discussing his plans with Malcolm Guthrie at the School of Oriental and African Studies, he focused on the languages to the east of Lake Victoria in both Tanganyika and Kenya. He collected a great deal of material, which he used in his thesis, awarded by the University of London in 1955. He had also become competent in Swahili, and was asked to become the Secretary of the East African Swahili Committee, formed in 1930 at Kampala to co-ordinate work on Swahili throughout then British East Africa. Under his leadership, this committee played an important role in raising the status of Swahili at a time when many East African territories were gaining independence.

In 1959, the University of London established the Readership in Bantu Languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Whiteley was appointed as its first incumbent, focusing on teaching and research into Swahili. He also began his investigations into the Yao language, and was granted overseas research leave 1961-1962, which was spent partly in Nyasaland working on Yao, and partly in Kenya working on Kamba. From 1963 to May 1964, he was seconded to the University of Wisconsin as Visiting Professor. At this time, plans were finalised to establish a Department of African Languages and Linguistics at University College, Dar es Salaam, and Whiteley was seconded as Professor and Head of the Department, 1964-1967. He also became Director of the Institute of Swahili Research, which was established on his recommendation to take over the functions of the East Africa Swahili Committee. In 1965, the University of London conferred the title of Professor of Bantu Languages on him, and in 1967 he returned to SOAS. In 1968, he succeeded Malcolm Guthrie as Head of the Department of Africa. However, he was prevented from taking up the post until October 1969, because of his involvement in the Survey of Language Use and Language Planning in East Africa, under the auspices of the Ford Foundation. From 1968-1969, he was Director of the team dealing with the Kenya section of the survey. When Guthrie retired in 1970, Whiteley also succeeded him to the Chair of Bantu Languages.

Whiteley's main interest and field of work was socio-linguistics, but he also made significant contributions to the study of Swahili syntax. He died suddenly on 16 April 1972 at the age of 47, whilst on a lecture tour to Indiana University.

Around fifty of Whiteley's works have been published, including: Studies in Iraqw - an Introduction (Kampala, 1953); A Practical Introduction to Kamba (OUP, 1962); A Study of Yao Sentences (Clarendon Press, 1965); Some Problems of Transitivity in Swahili (SOAS, 1968). Articles include: 'Some problems in the syntax of a Bantu languages in East Africa', in Lingua, IX, 2 (1970); 'Notes on the syntax of the passive in Swahili', in African Language Studies, X (1970); 'Focus and entailment, further problems of transitivity in Swahili', in African Language Review, VIII (1969).

Archibald Norman Tucker was born in Cape Town on 10 March 1904. He was educated at South African College School. He obtained his MA from the University of Cape Town in 1926, his PhD from the University of London in 1929, and later also his DLit, in 1949.

He worked as Linguistic Expert of non-Arabic languages for the Sudan Government from 1929 to 1931. In 1932 he became Reader at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He was an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and a Conscientious Objector during World War II.

Much of his language work was concerned with orthographic research, which he undertook in both Uganda and Kenya (on Ganda and Kikuyu respectively). He organised and directed an orthography conference in Western Uganda in 1954, and, prior to that, in 1949-1951, he supervised a Bantu line expedition in the Belgian Congo for the International African Institute. Archibald Tucker was married. He died on 16 July 1980.

His publications include Suggestions for the Spelling of Transvaal Sesuto (1929); The Eastern Sudanic Languages, Vol. 1 (1940); Swahili Phonetics (1942); M. A. Bryan & A. N. Tucker, Distribution of the Nilotic ad Nilo-Hamitic Languages of Africa (1948); A Maasai Grammar with Vocabulary (1955); Linguistic Survey of the Northern Bantu Borderland, Vol. 4 (1957); A. N. Tucker & M. A. Bryan, Linguistic Analyses: The Non-Bantu Languages of North-Eastern Africa (1966); The Comparative Phonetics of the Suto-Chuana Group of Bantu Languages (1969); A Grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo) (1994); and Tribal Music and Dancing in the Southern Sudan (Africa), at Social and Ceremonial Gatherings.

Sir Alwyne Ogden was born on June 29th 1889, the son of a Railway Auditor. He was educated at Dulwich College and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Failing to enter the Indian Civil Service he chose to go to China and was appointed as a Student Interpreter at the British Legation in Peking on December 3rd, 1912. His work involved roaming through Henan Province from August 1916 to the following February, buying cattle for the British Army, serving as Acting Consul at Changsha in 1916 during an anti-foreign riot, and working with the recruitment of the Chinese Labour Corps in Shandong Province from October 1917 to July 1918. Afterwards he served in Peking and Tientsin from 1918-1920, where he met Jessie Vera Bridge, the daughter of a local missionary, Albert Henry Bridge. The couple was eventually married in Tientsin in 1922.

In 1922 he visited the Tibetan frontier on special assignment, before being caught up in a siege in Chengdu upon his arrival to serve as Vice Consul. He became Acting Consul General there from December 23rd, 1922 until the following May. In June 1925 he was appointed Acting Vice Consul at Hankow, and in February 1926 he became Consul at Jiujiang. He served there during the traumatic and violent period when the British concession was overrun and abandoned in January 1927 at the height of the Northern Expedition of the Guomindang. His actions in this period of crisis earned him an OBE in June 1927.

After a period of home leave he served in Tientsin from September 1928 as an Acting Vice Consul, and from January 31st as a full Vice-Consul. He served there, often as Acting Consul General until his next home-leave when he was briefly employed by the Department of Overseas Trade to draw up a booklet entitled China: Notes on some aspects of life in China for the information of business visitors (1934). His next appointment was at Shanghai in 1933. From December 1933 he became Acting Consul at Chefoo, and full Consul from February 1934 until April 1936. After a stint in Kunming he was in charge of the Consulate in Shanghai from March 1937 for two years. During this period he organised the evacuation of all British women and children from the city during the Sino-Japanese hostilities. From February 1940 to April 1941 he was put in charge of the Consulate in Nanjing, then under Japanese occupation. In 1941 he was transferred to Tientsin as Acting Consul General. At the outbreak of the Pacific War he was placed under house arrest with his family before being repatriated in July 1942. Thereafter he was Consul General in Kunming and then Shanghai, where he landed on September 7th 1945. He was responsible for the administration of the internment camps there, which held some 7,000 Britons, until they were closed. For this he was awarded the CMG in 1946. His experiences thereafter in Shanghai, as a member of the newly amalgamated Foreign Service, were not particularly happy and he left the service in 1948, six months after becoming a KBE.

In retirement he played an active role in organisations supporting Chiang Kai-šhek's regime after it fled to Taiwan at the close of the Chinese civil war in 1949. He was also an early advocate and publicist of Tibet's plight after 1950. He wrote reviews of works on contemporary China and its history, and many drafts of an autobiography that was never completed. He maintained an interest in British business relations with China through the China Association, and cultural relations through the China Society. He died in 1981.

Henry Marion Durand was born in 1812. He went out to India in 1829, arriving in May 1830, as Second Lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers. He was involved in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, as Agent to the Governor General of central India 1857-1858. By 1870 Durand was Lieutenant General of the Punjab. His prestigious career was unfortunately ended on 1 January 1871, when he died following an accident when he fell from an elephant whilst entering the town of Tank, with the local Maharajah.

Henry Mortimer Durand was born in 1850. He was educated at Blackheath School, Eton House, Tonbridge and at the Bar, Lincoln's Inn. He entered the Indian Civil Service, arriving in India on 1 February 1873. Durand rose up through the ranks of the Indian Civil Service, and from 1884 to 1894 was Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. This was followed by a period of service as British Envoy, at the Court of the Shah of Persia. In 1900 Durand was appointed British Ambassador to Spain, a post which he held until 1903. In 1903 he became British Ambassador to the United States of America, but was recalled at the end of 1906. Durand stood as Conservative and Unionist candidate in the election of 1910 for Plymouth, with Waldorf Astor, but failed. In addition to his work as a civil servant and diplomat, Durand wrote a number of novels and other works, including a biography of his father. Durand married Ella, daughter of Teignmouth Sandys, in 1875. They had two children, a son and daughter, Amy Josephine (Jo). Josephine accompanied her father on many official duties owing to her mother's ill health. Lady Durand died in May 1913, aged 60. Sir Henry Mortimer Durand died in 1924.

Derek Alec Rawcliffe was born on 8 July 1921. He gained a BA from the University of Leeds. Following his training at Mirfield, he was made a Deacon in 1944. In 1945 he became a priest and was appointed to St. George's, Worcester. In 1947 he was posted to work in Melanesia as Assistant Master, and then Head Master at All Hallows School, Pawa, Solomon Islands (1949). From 1956-1958 he was Head Master at St. Mary's School, Maravovo, Solomon Islands. In 1959 he was appointed Archdeacon of Southern Melanesia. He was made first Bishop of New Hebrides in January 1974, leaving this post in 1980 to become Bishop of Glasgow and Galloway. From 1991 to 1996 he was Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Ripon. He was awarded an OBE in 1971.

Barbara Whittingham Jones (married name Oppenheim) was a British journalist who spent some time living in Malaya. She became known for her forceful article 'Malaya Betrayed', which appeared in World Review, May 1946, during the Malayan Union controversy. The article caused a sensation throughout Malaya. In September 1947, she also became the first British correspondent to visit Patani, to observe the political oppression of the 700,000 Malays in this part of the Kingdom of Siam. She continued her work as a correspondent for various publications, covering political events in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. These publications included Eastern World, Straits Times, Straits Budget, letters to The Times, and radio broadcasts with Macassar Radio. Her husband was Henry Rolf Oppenheim (1902-1987).

Anthony John Arkell was born on 29 July 1898. Educated at Bradfield College and Queen's College, Oxford he was a member of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War and received a military cross in 1918. In 1920 he joined the Sudan Political Service serving from 1921-1924 as Assistant District Commissioner for Darfur Province and then becoming acting Resident at Dar Masalit (1925-1926). He followed this with a period as District Commissioner for Kosti (White Nile Province) from 1926-1929 and then for Sennar (Blue Nile Province) from 1929-1932. In 1928 he married Dorothy Davidson (d. 1945) and was also awarded an MBE. He received the Order of the Nile (Fourth Class) in 1931. He was Deputy Governor for Darfur from 1932-1937. Arkell worked for the Sudanese Government as Commissioner for Archaeology and Anthropology from 1938-1948 as well as being the Chief Transport Officer 1940-1944 and Editor of Sudan Notes and Records, 1945-1948.

From 1948-1953, Arkell was a lecturer in Egyptology at University College, London whilst remaining Archaeological Adviser to the Sudanese Government. In 1950 he married his second wife, Joan Burnell. He was appointed Reader in Egyptian Archaeology in 1953 and held this post as well as that of Curator of the Flinders Petrie Collection of Egyptian Antiquities at University College, London until his retirement in 1963. Following his retirement Arkell entered the Church, becoming Vicar of Cuddington with Dinton from 1963 until 1971. He died on 26 Feb 1980.

Arkell's publications include Early Khartoum (1949); The Old Stone Age in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1949); Shaheinab (1953); History of Sudan from Early Times to 1821 (1955; 2nd. ed. 1961); Wanyanga (1964); and The Prehistory of the Nile Valley (1975).

D W Arnott was Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Publications include: The nominal and verbal systems of Fula (1970); supplementary bibliography in Diedrich Hermann Westermann and Margaret Arminel Bryan's The languages of West Africa (1970).

(Edward) Denison Ross was born in London on 6 June 1871. From Marlborough he went to University College London. In 1894 he was awarded a Doctorate in Persian from Strasbourg University and in 1896 was appointed Professor of Persian at University College London.

In 1901 he went to India as Principal of the Madrasah Muslim College (Calcutta) and in 1911 this post was combined with that of Officer in Charge of Records of the Government of India and Assistant Secretary in the Department of Education. As a Fellow of Calcutta University and an active member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, he did not confine himself to Islamic Studies but gained some knowledge of Sanskrit and Chinese and a more profound knowledge of Tibetan. He married Dora Robinson in 1904. He was made Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire in 1912.

Denison Ross returned to Britain in 1914 to become First Assistant in the British Museum, where he was appointed to catalogue the Stein Collection. On the outbreak of the War he joined the Postal Censorship Department and the Department of Military Intelligence, where he prepared vocabularies in several languages. In 1916 he was made the first Director of the newly founded School of Oriental Studies (later the School of Oriental and African Studies). He was knighted in 1918. He remained as Director of the School until 1937. In 1939 he was sent as Head of the British Information Bureau in Istanbul where he died on 23 September 1940, a few months after his wife.

Towards the end of 1857 representatives of four British missionary societies working in India - the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society and the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society - put forward proposals for a new society, to be named the Christian Vernacular Education Society for India. The proposers did not, according to its First Annual Report, intend the new society to compete with 'existing educational establishments which employ the English language and literature and which are chiefly attractive to the higher classes of Hindu youth ... but rather to reach the village populations, and the masses of the lower orders in towns throughout the country, exclusively through the vernacular of each district'. The new society was formally instituted in May 1858 as a memorial to the Indian Mutiny. John Murdoch was appointed 'Representative and Travelling Secretary in India'. In 1891 the name of the Society was changed to the Christian Literature Society for India and in 1923 the words 'and Africa' were added when the Society extended its work to that continent. The organisation merged with the Religious Tract Society in 1935 to form the United Society for Christian Literature (USCL) For further information see G Hewitt, Let the People Read (London, 1949).

Sir Francis Arthur Aglen (1869-1932) joined the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1888. He was Acting Inspector-General in 1910 before succeeding Sir Robert Hart in 1911, serving as Inspector-General until his retirement in 1928.

Cecil Arthur Verner Bowra (1869-1947) joined the Chinese Maritime Customs and served in China from 1886 until 1923, including a period as Chief Secretary in Peking under Sir Francis Aglen, 1910-1923. He was subsequently employed in the London Office of Chinese Maritime Customs.

No information available.

No information was available at the time of compilation.

Algernon Charles Swinburne was born in Grosvenor Place, London on 5 April 1837. Swinburne attended Eton in 1849 before entering Balliol College, Oxford in 1856. He left Oxford without graduating in 1860. He contributed to periodicals including the Spectator and Fortnightly Review. The first poem to be published under his name was Atalanta in Calydon (1865), which was received with critical acclaim. He also wrote the political work Songs before Sunrise and continued to write until a few years before his death. He died of influenza on 10 April 1909.

Augustus de Morgan was born at Madura, India in 1806; educated at various English schools. In February 1823 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1827. In 1828 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at University College London. De Morgan resigned his post in 1831, on account of a disagreement with the University Council who claimed the right of dismissing a professor without assigning reasons. He resumed his chair in 1836 on assurance that the regulations had been altered so as to preserve the independence of professors, remaining Professor of Mathematics at UCL until he resigned in November 1866; he died in 1871.

Barry Eric Odell Pain was born in 1864 in Cambridge and educated at Sedbergh School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. After graduating he spent several years as an army coach before moving to London to pursue writing. He was a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction, but is most often remembered today for his 'Eliza' series, a humorous portrait of working class, suburban life. The painter Rudolf Lehmann was his father-in-law and the composer Liza Lehmann his sister-in-law.

Benjamin Hall was born in London in 1802 of Welsh parents and educated at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford. He served as Whig MP for Monmouth for several years in the 1830s before being elected Liberal MP for Marylebone in 1837. He became a baronet in 1838 and entered the House of Lords as Baron Llanover in 1859. He also spent periods serving as as president of the General Board of Health, as Chief Commissioner of works, and as Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire. Hall's wife Augusta (née Waddington) was a leading figure in the movement to revive the Welsh language, literature and culture. The Great Bell of Westminster is believed to have been given its nickname 'Big Ben' in his honour. Hall died in 1867.

Anne Isabella Ritchie was born in 1837, the elder daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1861), a well-known Victorian novelist. Anne (Anny) was a prolific novelist, essayist and writer of memoirs. By 1875, The Works of Miss Thackeray had been published in eight volumes (Smith, Elder and Company), extended to 15 volumes by 1866. Most of her critical essays appeared in The Cornhill Magazine. Her first contribution appeared in the magazine's first year, 1860, and most of her fiction appeared serially in the magazine including, The Village on the Cliff, Old Kensington, Miss Angel and Mrs Dymond. Anne Thackeray married her cousin, Richmond Thackeray Willoughby Ritchie, in 1877; their son's wife Margaret Paulina Ritchie was the daughter of Charles and Mary Booth. Richie died in 1919.

Caspar von Voght was born in Hamburg. With his business partner Georg Heinrich Sieveking, he led one of the largest trading firms in that City during the late 18th century and travelled widely across Europe. Voght's greatest achievement was perhaps his reform of the welfare system in Hamburg. He was granted the title of Reichsfreiherr (usually rendered in English as 'Baron') in 1801.

Brenda Elizabeth Spender was born in Bray, Berkshire. She was the literary editor of Country Life magazine between 1925 and 1946. Spender also wrote the 'On'y Tony' series of books for children.

Alfred John Fairbank was born in Grimsby , Lincolnshire, in 1895 and brought up in Gillingham, Kent. He joined the civil service aged 15, initially working as a writer at Chatham dockyard, where a colleague introduced him to calligraphy. Whilst working at the Admiralty in London in th 1920s, Fairbank was able to study handwriting formally, becoming an acknowledged expert in both the study and practice of calligraphy and the author of several books on the subject, as well as a founder-member of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. He was awarded the CBE in 1951 and died in 1982.

Adam Smith was born in Fifeshire and studied at the University of Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford. During 1751-1763 he was a Professor of at Glasgow, teaching logic and moral philosophy, and subsquently worked a private tutor and independent scholar before becoming Commissioner of Customs for Scotland in 1788. His friends and associates included the philosopher David Hume, the scientist Joseph Black and the geologist James Hutton. Smith's academic work helped to create the discipline of economics in its modern form and provided an intellectual rationale for capitalism and free-market economics. His best known works are The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and The Wealth of Nations (1776).

Benjamin Thompson was born in Massachusetts in 1753. He became interested in science when young. In 1772 he married Sarah Rolfe, a well-connected heiress, and became a landowner and a major in the New Hampshire militia. He fought for the British during the American Revolution and moved to London in 1776, where he continued to serve in the British army, spending much of his time in Bavaria and taking part in the French Revolutionary Wars. He carried out scientific work throughout his army career, concentrating particularly on thermodynamics and inventing several devices relating to heat retention. Thompson was knighted in 1784 and created Count Rumford in the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire in 1792. With Sir Joseph Banks he established the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1799, and he endowed a professorship at Harvard University. In later life Sir Benjamin settled in Paris. Sarah Thompson having died in 1792, he married Antoine Lavoisier's widow, Marie-Anne, as his second wife in 1804, but they separated a few years later. He continued his scientific work until his death in 1814.

William Ernest Henley was born in Gloucester in 1849. He was educated at the Crypt School there, where the poet T E Brown was his headmaster. He left school in 1867 and moved to London, where he worked as a journalist. He was often in ill-health and spent nearly two years in hospital in Edinburgh, where he met both Hannah Johnson Boyle, whom he married in 1878, and the writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who became a close friend and collaborator for several years. Henley spent most of his life working as a writer and editing periodicals, including the National Observer, and the New Review. He was also a poet of some note, perhaps best known for the line 'I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul'.

Robert Southey was born in Bristol in 1774. He was educated in Corston, Bristol and Westminster School. He entered Balliol College, Oxford in 1792 after he was expelled from Westminster for denouncing flogging in a school magazine, The Flagellant. In 1794 Southey wrote the play that belied his then republican spirit, Wat Tyler. Southey became a supporter of the Tory government. His epic poem Joan of Arc was published in 1795. He was appointed secretary to Isaac Corry, the Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer in c 1801. In 1809 Southey joined the staff of the Quarterly Review and wrote regularly for the periodical until 1839. From 1809 to 1815 he edited and principally wrote the Edinburgh Annual Register. He also wrote several books including, The Book of the Church Vindicated (1824), Sir Thomas More (1829) and Lives of the British Admirals (1833). Southey was appointed Poet Laureate in 1813, and to commemorate the death of King George III in 1821, he wrote his poem A Vision of Judgement. In 1826 he was elected MP for Downton, Wiltshire, but was disqualified for not possessing the necessary estate. He died in Keswick in 1843.

Sir Robert Peel was born in Lancashire in 1788. He was at Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford. He entered parliament aged 21 as Tory MP for Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland, subsequently serving as MP for Chippenham, Wiltshire and Oxford University before succeeding his father as MP for Tamworth, Staffordshire in 1830. He first became a cabinet minister in 1822 and served two terms as Prime Minister (1834-1835, 1841-1846). Peel's Tamworth Manifesto of 1834 and his government's repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 (which led to its fall and provoked a split in the Tories) both strongly influenced the development of the Conservative party into its current form. However, he is best remembered for establishing the Metropolitan Police ('Bobbies' or 'Peelers') whilst Home Secretary in 1829. He died in 1850 after falling from his horse. His son (also Robert) succeeded him as baronet and as MP for Tamworth.

Richard Doddridge Blackmore was born in Berkshire in 1825. He was educated at schools in Devon and Somerset and at Exeter College, Oxford. After graduating, he studied law and was called to the bar in 1852; he practised law for some years but also worked as a teacher and journalist during that time. After inheriting money in 1857, he became a fruit farmer in Teddington, Middlesex, where he lived for the rest of his life. He served on the fruit and vegetable committee of the Royal Horticultural Society from 1883 until 1892. Blackmore also wrote poetry and several novels, including the bestselling Lorna Doone.

Philip James Bailey was born in Nottingham in 1816. He was educated at Glasgow University before reading law at Lincoln's Inn, London. He never practised law seriously, instead writing poetry. His most successful poem was the early work Festus, which became a bestseller.

No information was available at the time of compilation.

No information was available at the time of compilation.

John Burnett was born in Alnwick, Northumberland, in 1842. He was orphaned at the age of twelve, he went to live with an uncle on Tyneside, where he became an engineering apprentice and attended evening classes. He was prominent in the Newcastle Mechanics' Institute. He became a trade union leader, eventually becoming general secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in 1875. He became labour correspondent at the Board of Trade in 1886, and continued to work for the Board until his retirement in 1906.

Maximilian II was born in Vienna in 1527. He became King of Bohemia in 1562 and King of Hungary in 1563, before succeeding his father, Ferdinand II, as Holy Roman Emperor in 1564. His son, Rudolf II, succeeded him as Emperor on his death in 1576. A Roman Catholic himself, Maximilian was sympathetic towards Lutheranism and worked for peace and religious tolerance.

John Burns was born in Lambeth, in 1858. He trained as an engineer and became active in the labour movement and local politics. He was a leader of the London dock strike of 1889. Burns was elected to London County Council on its inception in 1889, remaining in office until 1907. He also served as Member of Parliament for Battersea (1892-1918) and was president of the Local Government Board (1905-1913) and the Board of Trade (1914). Burns resigned from the Cabinet in protest at the British decision to declare war in August 1914.

William Benjamin Carpenter was born in Exeter, Devon, in 1813. He studied medicine at Bristol, London and Edinburgh. In 1844 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and took up a professorship at the Royal Institution. He subsequently held several appointments at the University of London, including Registrar of University College from 1856-1879.

Sophia Elizabeth Frend was the eldest daughter of the nonconformist writer William Frend. She married the mathematician Augustus De Morgan in 1837 and they had 7 children, including the novelist and ceramicist William Frend De Morgan. Sophia collaborated with her husband on studies of psychical mediumship and wrote several books, including memoirs of her father and her husband.

William Warde Fowler was born in Somerset in 1847. He was educated at Marlborough College and at New and Lincoln Colleges, Oxford. He became a fellow of Lincoln College in 1872 and continued to work and teach there until his retirement in 1910, holding at various times the positions of dean, librarian and lay sub-rector. His central academic interest was Ancient Rome during the republican period, but he also wrote published works on such diverse subjects as Mozart and bird migration. Fowler was President of the Classical Association in 1920.

Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, and educated locally. From the age of 13 he worked unsuccesfully as a draper's assistant and chemist's assistant, before beoming a pupil teacher Midhurst Grammar School. In 1884 he began studying under Thomas Huxley at the Normal School (later the Royal College) of Science in South Kensington, but left without a degree; he finally gained a University of London BSc in 1890. Wells became a teacher and freelance journalist before branching out into novels and short stories. He was married twice and had several other ongoing liaisons with women, including the writer Rebecca West (afterwards Dame Cicily Andrews). Today he is best known for his science fiction works, including The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898); during his lifetime he was also known as a non-fiction writer and a committed socialist.

Henry Crabb Robinson was born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and educated locally and in Devizes, Wiltshire. Being from a nonconformist family, he could not attend university, instead working as a legal clerk in Colchester, and later in London. Inheriting money from an uncle in 1798 enabled him to travel in Europe and study at university in Germany. Returning to England, he became a lawyer and a journalist, and for a while editor of The Times (1808-1809). He also participated in the founding of University College London. Today he is best known for his diary, kept between 1811 and his death in 1867, of which a large portion has been published.

(John) Frederick Denison Maurice was born in Suffolk into a Unitarian family. He was educated at Trinity College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and studied for the bar, but became a journalist instead of a lawyer. In the late 1820s his religious beliefs changed and he decided to become an Anglican clergyman. He studied at Exeter College, Oxford, before being ordained in 1834. Maurice was much involved with the theological issues and religious controversies of his day, and was known as a Christian socialist and for his views on hell and on the nature of divine revelation. He held a chair in casuistry, moral theology and moral philosophy at Cambridge from 1866 to 1869.

George Jacob Holyoake was born in Birmingham on 13 April 1817. For thirteen years until 1839 he worked at the Eagle Foundry, and in 1836 joined the Mechanics' Institute, where he developed an interest in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and phrenology. Holyoake became a leader in the free-thought movement and a social reformer. He was imprisoned for 6 months in 1841 for blasphemy. He coined the term secularism in 1846. He spent the latter part of his life working for the co-operative movement. He died in 1906.

William Frend De Morgan was born in London in 1839. The second child of Augustus De Morgan (1806-1871) and his wife Sophia née Frend. He studied at University College London and the Royal Academy before working as a potter and designer of ceramics. In the 1900s he became a successful novelist.

Eden Phillpotts was born in India and educated in Plymouth, Devon. He spent several years working as an insurance officer before becoming a prolific novelist, playwright and poet. He was president of the Dartmoor Preservation Association for many years and a large proportion of his works are set on Dartmoor. His daughter Adelaide (1896-1993) also became a writer and collaborated with her father on several works, including the play 'Yellow Sands'.

Henry Morley was born in London and educated at schools in England and Germany before studying medicine at King's College London. He worked as a doctor for some years before deciding to become a school teacher in the late 1840s. At the same time, he began a parallel career in journalism, initially writing on health issues. Between 1851 and 1865 he worked for Charles Dickens on the staff of Household Words and All the Year Round, and he was editor of The Examiner from 1861 to 1867. From 1857 Morley became involved in higher education, lecturing in English literature as part of the university extension movement and in 1865 he became a professor at University College London. He retired to the Isle of Wight in 1889, where he lived in Carisbrooke until his death in 1894.

Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was born in Durham and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He joined the Fabian Society whilst still a student. After graduating, he joined the civil service and worked for the Board of Trade for more than 15 years; during this time he wrote many articles and reviews, and several books on philosophy. In 1930 he left the Board of Trade to become head of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, a position he held for many years. Joad's personal life was unconventional: he left his wife after 6 years of marriage and subsequently had many short-term relationships. His left-wing political views, support for divorce, abortion and Sunday trading, and opposition to war and religion made him controversial during his lifetime, though many of his views changed during the last 5 years of his life. He became well known to the public as a regular panellist on the BBC radio programme The Brains Trust.

Cecil Louis Troughton Smith was born in Egypt to British parents and educated in Britain before becoming a writer under the pseudonym C S Forester. After the Second World War he settled permanently in the United States. He is now best known as the author of The African Queen (1935) and a series of historical novels about a naval officer, Horatio Hornblower (1937-1962); both of these have become well known through film and television adaptations.

Edward Hawkins was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and educated locally and in Kensington. As a young man he worked in banks in Cheshire and in Wales. He was interested in botany and history from an early age and became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1806, a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1821, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1826. His greatest interests as a scholar, however, was coins; he was a founder-member of the Numismatic Society of London and served twice as its president. In 1825 Hawkins became assistant keeper of the Department of Antiquities at the British Museum; he was promoted to keeper the following year and retained the position for 35 years.