Philip Magnus was born in London in 1842. He was educated at University College School before entering University College London. He studied for 3 years in Berlin before becoming a rabbi in London. By supplementing his income by tutoring privately in mathematics and science he gained several lecturing and teaching posts, and eventually rose to national prominence in the field of technical education. In 1880 he became director of the new City and Guilds of London Institute for the Advancement of Technical Education. His wife, Katie Magnus, whom he married in 1870, was also active in the Jewish community as an educationist. During 1906-1922 Magnus was MP for London University. He was created a baronet in 1917; his grandson Philip Montefiore Magnus succeeded him on his death in 1933.
Edward Thring was born in Somerset in 1821. He was educated at Eton College and King's College, Cambridge. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1846 and worked for several years as a curate, teacher and private tutor before becoming headmaster of Uppingham School, Rutland, in 1853. He remained in post for 34 years, increasing the number of pupils considerably and introducing radical revisions to the curriculum. His writings on educational theory were very influential in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Teachers' Guild began in 1883, and was formally incorporated in 1885 as the Teachers' Guild of Great Britain and Ireland. The Guild was established as a central professional body to promote the welfare and independence of teachers and create a closer bond amongst members of the profession. The Guild operated through a number of committees, of which the most significant were the Political Committee, the Education Committee and the Thrift and Benefits Committee. In 1916 the Guild established an Education Reform Council and from 1907 it administered the Anna Westmacott Trust, a charity for female teachers set up in 1897. In 1921 it became the Education Guild.It went into voluntary liquidation in 1929, at which point the funds of the Anna Westmacott Trust and those of the Teachers' Guild Benevolent Fund were passed over to four trustees, one of whom was to be a representative of the Association of Assistant Mistresses.
Sean O'Casey was born John Casey in Dublin in 1880. He joined the Gaelic League in 1906 with the intention of learning the Irish language, adopting the name Seán O'Cathasaigh, but later re-Anglicizing the surname as O'Casey. He also became involved in the Irish Transport and General Workers Union set up by Jim Larkin to represent unskilled workers and in 1914 became General Secretary of Larkin's Irish Citizens Army. He had several works performed at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in the 1920s but after his play The Silver Tassle was rejected by the Abbey in 1929 he severed all links with the theatre. He then moved to England where he wrote Within the Gates in 1934, Purple Dust in 1940 and Red Roses for Me in 1953. He died of a heart attack in Torquay in 1964.
John Cartwright was born in Marnham, Nottinghamshire, in 1740. He served as a naval officer from 1758-1775, and was appointed as a Major in the Nottinghamshire militia in 1775. He published several works on political reform. His clergyman brother Edmund (1743-1823) became well known as the inventor of a power loom, and his niece, Frances Dorothy Cartwright (1780-1863) was his biographer.
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.
William Ewart Gladstone was born in Liverpool in 1809, the youngest son of Sir John Gladstone, 1st Baronet (1764-1851). He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, graduating in 1831 with a double first. He was elected to parliament in 1832 and served successively as MP for Newark, Oxford University, South Lancashire, Greenwich and Midlothian; intially he was a Conservative, but he joined the Liberal party in 1859. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer 4 times before serving as Prime Minister, also 4 times (1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886 and 1892-1894). He tried twice unsuccessfully to introduce Home Rule in Ireland (1886 and 1893). His working relationship with Queen Victoria was famously difficult. Gladstone was much involved in efforts to 'rescue' and rehabilitate London prostitutes, and he read and wrote widely on religion, literature, economics and politics. In later life he was nicknamed 'Grand Old Man'.
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.
George Chalmers was born at Fochabers, Moray, Scotland, in 1742. He received his education from the parish school at Fochabers and from King's College Aberdeen. He went on to study law in Edinburgh and then in 1773 put these skills into practice as a lawyer in Baltimore, USA in 1773. He returned in 1775 to settle in London, where he devoted his life to writing books about Ireland, affairs of America and the British monarchy. In 1786 he was appointed chief clerk of the committee of the Privy Council for trade and foreign plantations. Chalmers wrote numerous biographies and in 1807 his first volume of Caledonia, a work intended to record the history and antiquities of Scotland was published. Volumes 2 and 3 of Caledonia were published in 1820 and 1824 but Chalmers died, on 31 May 1825, before he could finish the series although he left a manuscript collection intended for its completion.
Chalmers was a prolific writer on history throughout his life as well as a collector of books and manuscripts. His library was sold in three parts between September 1841 and November 1842, yielding £6189 in total. Publications: An Answer from the Electors of Bristol to the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq. on the affairs of America (T. Cadell, London, 1777); An Appeal to the Generosity of the British Nation, in a statement of facts on behalf of the afflicted widow and unoffending offspring of the unfortunate Mr. Bellingham (M. Jones, London, 1812); An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the Present and Four Preceding Reigns; and of the losses of her trade from every war since the Revolution (C. Dilly & J. Bowen, London, 1782); An Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the Colonies (Baker & Galabin, London, 1782); Another Account of the Incidents, from which the title, and a part of the story of Shakspeare's Tempest, were derived; and the true era of it ascertained (R. & A. Taylor, London, 1815); Caledonia: or, an Account, historical and topographic, of North Britain; from the most ancient to the present times: with a dictionary of places, chorographical and philological (T. Cadell, London, 1807-24); Comparative Views of the State of Great Britain and Ireland; as it was, before the war; as it is, since the peace (T. Egerton, London, 1817); Considerations on Commerce, Bullion and Coin, Circulation and Exchanges; with a view to our present circumstances (J. J. Stockdale, London, 1811); Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce, of Great Britain (Reed and Hunter, London, 1814); Opinions on Interesting Subjects of Public Law and Commercial Policy; arising from American independence (J. Debrett, London, 1784); Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763 (J. Bowen, London, 1780); Proofs and Demonstrations, how much the projected Registry of Colonial Negroes is unfounded and uncalled for (Thomas Egerton: London, 1816); The Life of Daniel De Foe (John Stockdale, London, 1790); The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots; drawn from the State Papers(John Murray, London, 1818); The Life of Thomas Ruddiman (John Stockdale, London, 1794); Churchyard's Chips concerning Scotland: being a collection of his pieces relative to that country, with historical notices, and a life of the author (Longman & Co, London, 1817); A Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and other Powers (John Stockdale, London, 1790); Parliamentary Portraits (T. Bellamy, London, 1795); Facts and Observations relative to the coinage and circulation of counterfeit or base money; with suggestions for remedying the evil (London, 1795);The Arrangements with Ireland considered (John Stockdale, London, 1785); editor of The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay (Longman, London, 1806); An Apology for the believers in the Shakspeare Papers [forged by W. H. Ireland], which were exhibited in Norfolk Street (T. Egerton, London, 1797); A short view of the proposals lately made for the final adjustment of the commercial system between Great-Britain and Ireland (John Stockdale, London, 1785); A Vindication of the privilege of the people, in respect to the constitutional right of free discussion, with a retrospect to various proceedings relative to the violations of that right (London, 1796); Thoughts on the present Crisis of our Domestic Affairs (London, 1807).
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.
The Club de Dakar was founded on 2-3 December 1974 as a French initiative to improve industrial relations between western industries and Francophone African countries. It was instigated by Mohammed T. Diawara (later President of the Club), Minister for Planning, Ivory Coast. Following conferences in Birmingham in 1978, a British branch was established and interests were expanded to include Anglophone African countries. It seems that the Club de Dakar ceased its activities in c1988.
Hannah Stanton was born on 30 November 1913. She was educated privately at Summerleigh, Teddington, and went on to read English at London University, and to take a diploma in Social Science at the School of Economics. She worked for some time as a Hospital Almoner in Liverpool and London. From 1947 to 1948 she worked with the Friends Relief Service with refugees in post war Europe. In 1954, she began a Theology degree at Oxford.
Following the completion of her degree in August 1956, she visited her brother Tom who worked for the Community of the Resurrection in South Africa. She became involved in the Tumelong Mission in Lady Selborne, a black township near Pretoria, and in December 1956 took over as Warden. Whilst working at the Mission, she endeavoured to undertake her spiritual and material work for the people of Lady Selbourne despite the forces of apartheid. However, following the increased violence and activities of the police culminating in the Sharpeville Massacre of 21 March 1960, she found herself under surveillance. On 30 March 1960 she was arrested and held without charge, and without access to a lawyer until 21 May 1960, when she was deported. During this time she was held at Pretoria Central Gaol. She shared a cell with Helen Joseph. In 1962 she worked as Warden for the Mary Stuart Women's Hall at Makere University, Kampala, Uganda.
Following her return to England she wrote Go Well, Stay Well: South Africa, August 1956 to May 1960, describing her experiences in South Africa. Once she had returned home to Hampton Hill, she became involved in various campaigns including support for the Anti-Apartheid Movement. She also served as Secretary and Assistant Treasurer of the United Kingdom and Ireland Group of the World Conference on Religions and Peace. Hannah Stanton died on 9 December 1993.
James Philip Mills was born in 1890 and educated at Winchester School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1913 he joined the Indian Civil Service and served in North-East India until 1947. He was Sub-divisional officer at Mokokchung in the Naga Hills of Assam from 1917-1924 and Deputy Commissioner, based at Kohima, during the 1930s. In 1930 he married Pamela Vesey-Fitzgerald.
In 1930 he was appointed the Honorary Director of Ethnography for Assam. His first monograph, The Lhota Nagas, was published by the Government of Assam in 1922, followed by The Ao Nagas in 1926 and The Rengma Nagas in 1937. In 1942 he was awarded the Rivers Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute for anthropological fieldwork among the Nagas. In 1943 he was appointed as Advisor to the Governor for Tribal Areas and States, with overall responsibility for tribal matters in North-East India. This appointment enabled him to travel among and study for the first time tribal people living north of the Brahmaputra towards the Tibetan frontier, and to give permission to his good friend Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, and also Ursula Graham-Bower, to enter this closed area and carry out their pioneering studies.
Mills was elected to the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1948 and served as its President from 1951-1953. In 1948 he became Reader in Language and Culture with special reference to South-East Asia at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Here he worked with Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf from the inception of the Department of Cultural Anthropology in 1950 until ill health forced his retirement in 1954.
Frederick William Hugh Migeod was born on 9 August 1872 in Chislehurst, Kent. Educated at Folkestone, he joined the Royal Navy Pay Department in 1889. In 1900 he began service with the Colonial Civil Service and was stationed in the Gold Coast until 1919. He then began a series of expeditions to Lake Chad, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone, and twice crossed equatorial Africa. From 1925-1927 and again in 1929 and 1931 he led a British Museum East Africa expedition to excavate dinosaur bones. Following his return to England he became a local councillor and Alderman in Worthing and was Chairman of the British Union for Abolition of Vivisection. He married Madeleine Marguerite Adrienne Charlotte Banks in 1925. He died on 8 July 1952.
Frederick Migeod's publications include The Languages of West Africa (1913), A Grammar of the Hausa Language (1914), Across Equatorial Africa (1923), Through Nigeria and Lake Chad (1924) and Through British Cameroons (1925).
Thomas Stanley Lane Fox-Pitt was born on 27 November 1897. From the age of 12 he attended the Royal Navy College, Osborne, and two years later the Royal Naval College, Dartford. When war was declared in 1914 he was mobilised for active service. He retired from the navy after the war and joined the Colonial Administrative Service in Northern Rhodesia in 1927. He was stationed at Balovale, then part of Barotseland, as a cadet in 1928 and appointed District Officer in 1930. In the same year he married Marjory Hope Barton.
From 1923 to 1939 he served on the Copperbelt, first as a District Officer at Ndola and then at Mpika. He was particularly concerned at the conditions of the mineworkers and represented their complaints to the Colonial Government. During the Second World War, Fox-Pitt served in the Royal Navy with a convoy escort in the North Atlantic. Afterwards he returned to the Copperbelt, this time to Kitwe. He spent two evenings a week teaching English in an African night school. In the face of great opposition from the Colonial Government he encouraged the emergent trade unions and helped them to forge links with the European miners' trade unions. As a result he was transferred from the Copperbelt to become acting Provincial Commissioner in Barotseland in 1948, and a year later to Fort Jameson in the Eastern Province. Again he became involved in a dispute over African labour, concerning the sale of flu-cured tobacco. In 1951 he was put on the retired list. He remained in Northern Rhodesia, living on a smallholding in Kitwe and working with African organisations in opposition to the growing possibility of a Central African Federation.
One of the most fervent opponents of federation was a Lithuanian, Simon Ber Zukas, who had returned to Northern Rhodesia at the beginning of 1951 but was deported the following year for 'conducting himself so as to be a danger to peace and good order in the territory'. He and Fox-Pitt worked very closely together for the same cause after Fox-Pitt's return to England in December 1952. Fox-Pitt's term as Secretary of 'Racial Unity' (1952-1953) spanned the advent and birth of the Central African Federation which received the Queen's Assent on 1 August 1953. In 1953 he became Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, co-operating closely with other anti-federation movements such as the Movement for Colonial Freedom and the nationalist Congress parties in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It was decided after the return of Harold Macmillan's Conservative Government in November 1959, which supported federation, that the work of the campaign would have to go underground. From 1960, Fox-Pitt's energies were channelled largely into the London Committee of Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party (UNIP). As a consequence he found himself embroiled in a libel case with Sir Roy Welensky. The magazine produced by the Committee had, in Fox-Pitt's absence, made an unsubstantiated claim that Welensky was involved in the death of the Secretary General of the United Nations. UNIP was fined 1000 dollars.
The Central African Federation was dissolved on 31 December 1963. Fox-Pitt attended the Zambia Independence celebrations in 1964 at which he received the Order of the Freedom of Zambia. For the next two years he served in the Local Government Department of the Independent Zambian Government and on a commission concerning civil service salaries. In 1966 he retired to England. He died in 1989.
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).
Edward Charles MacIntosh Bowra was born in 1841. He was educated at the City of London College before entering the Civil Service and gaining a position in the London Customs House. However, in July 1860 he gave this up to join the British Legion of Garibaldi's Red Shirts in Italy, where his exploits included fighting a duel over the honour of the British contingent. Returning to England he worked briefly for the 1861 census whilst trying unsuccessfully to join the Chinese Consular service. In 1862 he became Private Secretary to Sir William Verner, MP for Armagh, and the following year was appointed clerk in the Chinese Maritime Customs, journeying out to China on the same boat as J. D. Campbell. After an initial spell in Tientsin he was sent to Shanghai in August 1863. From 1864 he served as a student interpreter in Peking, and in September 1865 he was appointed interpreter in Canton. When the Chinese Secretary of Customs, Pin Chun, was sent on a European tour Bowra was appointed to organise the trip. In March 1866 they set off for Europe visiting London, Paris, the Hague, Copenhagen, Stockholm, St. Petersburg and Berlin. Whilst in England Bowra became re-acquainted with a family friend, Thirza Woodward, whom he married on 15 August. On his return to China he was sent to Ningo and his children Ethel and Cecil were born there. Following a transfer to Canton in 1870 he worked on a history of the province which was published in the China Review. He was promoted to Deputy Commissioner in 1872 and was made responsible for the collection and transportation of objects to be exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, following which the Austrian Emperor gave him the Order of the Iron Crown. His youngest son, also called Edward, was born in May 1874 whilst the Bowras were still on leave in England. On 15 October Bowra died at the age of thirty-two after complaining of ill health for a number of months.
Cecil Arthur Verner Bowra, eldest son of Edward Charles MacIntosh Bowra, was born on 22 August 1869. His father's early death caused the family some financial hardship but Cecil was educated at Park House School, Gravesend and then at St. Paul's. Although he matriculated from London University his mother, now married to George Mackie, insisted he should leave school at sixteen. He thus applied to the Chinese Maritime Customs with the recommendation of Sir Robert Hart. In 1886 he arrived in China, firstly living in Peking as a language student and then moving to Tientsin. He then worked in Chefoo (1888-1890), Canton (1890) and Amoy (1891). On home leave he met Ethel Fleay and they were married in 1896, returning to Chefoo where two years later Bowra was appointed to Second Assistant. In 1899 he was made Assistant-in-Charge at Newchwang, Southern Manchuria, where he had to maintain relations between the large Russian presence and his Chinese employers. As the Boxer Rebellion took hold in 1900 Cecil Bowra was made Commander of the Combined Defence Force; however, it was the Russian forces who took control when Newchwang was attacked, and in 1903 he was replaced by a Russian Commissioner. Following further periods of employment in Soochow and Amoy and a period of home leave, Bowra became Senior Commissioner in Manchuria, and Advisor to the Viceroy in 1908. With the appointment of Sir Francis Aglen as Inspector-General Bowra was made Chief Secretary in Peking (1910-1923). The post meant that he became Acting Inspector-General when Aglen was on leave in 1911 and 1917. Bowra retired in 1923 having received such honours as the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government, the Norwegian Order of St. Olaf and the Chinese awards of the Red Button and the Second Class of the Striped Tiger. He died in 1947.
Peter Malcolm Holt was born on 28 November 1918. He was educated at Lord William's Grammar School and later at Oxford University, where he obtained Master of Arts and D. Litt degrees. He joined the Sudan Civil Service, Ministry of Education in 1941, where he served until 1953. He was appointed Government Archivist from 1954-1955. In 1955 he returned to the United Kingdom and joined the School of Oriental and African Studies. In 1964 he was made Professor of Arabic History. From 1975-1982 he was Professor of History of the Near and Middle East at the University of London. In 1980 the Republic of Sudan awarded him the Gold Medal of Science, Letters and Art.
His publications include The Mahdist State in the Sudan 1881-1898 (1958); The Modern History of Sudan (1961); Historians of the Middle East (co-ed. with B. Lewis, 1962); Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt (1968); The Cambridge History of Islam (co-ed. with A. K. S. Lambton & B. Lewis, 1970); and Studies in the History of the Near East (1973).
The Religious Tract Society (RTS) was founded in 1799 to print and distribute religious tracts among those who with, in the words of the Proceedings of the first twenty years, 'little leisure and less inclination to peruse entire volumes might thus be furnished with agreeable and useful employment and eventually be led to an acquaintance with the state of their own hearts and a knowledge of Salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ'. The founders of the Society were drawn from the same group of evangelicals who had earlier set up the London Missionary Society and were later to found the British and Foreign Bible Society, in the realization that more might be achieved through co-operation between denominations than by individual denominational efforts. From its earliest years the Society concerned itself not only with the distribution of tracts in Britain but with similar work in continental Europe, in the British colonies, and in the many countries of the world where British missionary societies were active. By 1848 the RTS was operating, directly or indirectly, in China, Singapore, Borneo, Thailand, Burma, India, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand, the South Pacific islands, Africa, Madagascar, the West Indies, the United States, Canada, most European countries, and the countries of the Near and Middle East.
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 Christian Literature Society for China had a complex genesis. It originated as a School and Text Book Committee of the China Missionary Conference in 1877, developing into the Chinese Book and Tract Society in Glasgow in 1884 and forming the Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge (SDCGK) among the Chinese in 1887. It was supported by the Christian Literature Society for China, organised in 1892 to succeed the Chinese Book and Tract Society. In 1906 the SDCGK changed its name to the Christian Literature Society for China.
The United Society for Christian Literature (USCL) was formed in 1935 when the Religious Tract Society and the Christian Literature Society for India and Africa merged. The RTS China kept its old title in China, with USCL as a sub-title. In 1941 the London Committee and in 1942 the Scottish Committee organising support for the Christian Literature Society for China were incorporated.
For further information see William Jones, The Jubilee Memorial of the Religious Tract Society (London, 1850); S G Green, The Story of the Religious Tract Society (London, 1899); G Hewitt, Let the People Read (London, 1949), the last of which surveys the work of all three societies.
The Australian Studies Centre was established as part of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, Sep 1982 and received funding from the Menzies Memorial Trust and the Australian Government. It was officially opened, 7 Jun 1983. The first Head of the Centre was Professor Geoffrey Bolton; Professor Thomas Millar became Head in 1985. The Menzies Centre's object is to promote Australian studies in British and European universities and to act as an Australian cultural base in London, providing a forum for the discussion of Australian issues. In 1988 the Australian government ceased its financial support for the Centre and the Menzies Memorial Trust took up the full financing. The Centre was subsequently renamed the Sir Robert Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. The Centre moved from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies to King's College London in 1999 and was then known as the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies. At this time the Centre was endowed permenantly by the Australisn government whilst continuing to receive funds from the Menzies Foundation and Monash University.
Born in Gloucester, 1909; educated at the Crypt Grammar School, Gloucester, 1920-1928; graduated from St John's College Cambridge with a first class degree in both parts of the Natural Science Tripos (Part ll Biochemistry); began postgraduate research in the Biochemistry Department at Cambridge, receiving his PhD for 'Some comparative studies on phosphagen', 1934; principal research interest was comparative biochemistry; Fellow of St John's College Cambridge, 1936-1941; worked under Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins as Demonstrator in Biochemistry, 1936-1943; also worked for periods at marine biological stations in France and at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Plymouth, in the 1930s; undertook a series of investigations of the pharmacology and physiology of Ascaris lumbricoides, 1940-1949; Lecturer in the Biochemistry Department at Cambridge, 1943-1950; Senior Fellow of the Lalor Foundation, USA, carrying out research into the phosphagen of the invertebrates at the Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 1948; as Joint Honorary Secretary and member of the Congress and Executive Committees, active in the organisation of the First International Congress of Biochemistry, in Cambridge, 1949; Professor of Biochemistry at University College London (UCL), 1950-1969; his reputation as an educator was one of the principal reasons for his appointment; established the first undergraduate biochemistry course at the College and orientated the biochemistry department as a branch of biological rather than chemical science; awarded the Cortina Ulisse Prize for the Italian edition of Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry, 1952; after his move to UCL, his principal research interests were the comparative biochemistry of nitrogen metabolism and water shortage effects on the ureotelic metabolism; carried out research on ureogenesis in elasmobranch fishes during a period as Visiting Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, University of California, 1956-1957; author of several influential books on biochemistry; died, 1969. Publications include: An Introduction to Comparative Biochemistry (1937); Dynamic Aspects of Biochemistry (1947); The Nature of Biochemistry (1962).
This company was the last of the great Argentine railway companies to be liquidated.
Edward Spencer Beesly went to Wadham College Oxford, graduating in 1854. In 1859 he was appointed Principal of University Hall, London. He was Professor of History at University College London, 1860-1893, and also Professor of Latin at Bedford College London, 1860-1889. In 1869 he married Henry Crompton's sister Emily. In 1882 he was a radical candidate for Marylebone and in 1885 a radical candidate for Westminster. In 1893 he became editor of the Positivist Review. Beesly died in 1915.
The British Maritime Law Association was founded in 1908 to promote the study and advancement of British maritime and mercantile law; to promote, with foreign and other maritime law associations, proposals for the unification of maritime and mercantile law in the practice of different nations; to afford opportunities for members to discuss matters of national and international maritime law; to collect and circulate information regarding maritime and mercantile law; and to establish a collection of publications and documents of interest to members. Membership comprises representatives from shipowners, shippers, merchants, manufacturers, insurers, insurance brokers, tug owners, shipbuilders, port and harbour authorities, bankers, and other bodies interested in the objects of the Association. The Association also has individual members - employees of corporate or institutional members, barristers, or others without a corporate identity. The two principal functions of the Association are, firstly, to advise UK Government bodies responsible for maritime legislation or regulation and, secondly, to co-operate with its international parent body, the CMI (Comité Maritime International, or International Maritime Committee, composed of the maritime law associations of more than 30 nations), in research and drafting of international instruments for the harmonisation of maritime and mercantile law. The Association publishes documents pertaining to its interests, and organises an annual lecture, dinner, and other events. Its work is delegated to standing committees on particular topics, and to ad hoc sub-committees, appointed from time to time to report as necessary on topics not under consideration by a standing committee.
The Chilean merchants Balfour Williamson & Company Ltd were founded in 1851, with an interest in most Chilean imports and exports including nitrates, and some business with Peru.
Chadwick was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1823. In 1832 he was appointed Assistant Commissioner to the Poor Law Enquiry and the following year Royal Commissioner to the same Enquiry, and to enquire into the employment of children in factories. In 1834 he was appointed Secretary to the Poor Law Commission, and in 1836 Royal Commissioner to enquire into a rural constabulary. In 1842 Chadwick published the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population (known as the 'Sanitary Report'). In 1847 he lost his position as Secretary of the Poor Law Commission, but was appointed Royal Commissioner on London sanitation, and Metropolitan Commissioner of Sewers. In 1848 he was created CB and was appointed Commissioner to the General Board of Health. He resigned from the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers in 1849 and from the General Board of Health in 1854. In 1857 he became interested in standing for Parliament and in 1859 stood as candidate for Evesham. In 1865 he stood as candidate for London University but withdrew before the poll. In 1868 he stood for Kilmarknock Burghs. He was created KCB in 1889. See also S E Finer, The life and times of Sir Edwin Chadwick (London, 1952).
Raymond Wilson Chambers studied at University College London (UCL), 1891-1899, and was appointed Quain Student in English there in 1899. He stayed at UCL and was Librarian from 1901 to 1922. He was also Assistant Professor in the English Department, 1904-1914. In 1915 he became Reader in English. From 1915 to 1917 he served for a time with the Red Cross in France, and with the YMCA with the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium. In 1922 he became Quain Professor of English at UCL in succession to W P Ker. In 1933 he visited the USA to deliver the Turnbull lectures in Baltimore. He published Widsith: a study in Old English herioc legend in 1912, Beowulf: an introduction to the study of the poem, with a discussion of the stories of Offa and Finn in 1921, Life of More in 1932, Thomas More in 1935, and Man's unconquerable mind in 1939. Chambers retired in 1941 and died in 1942. The fullest account of Chambers' life is given by C J Sisson in the Proceedings of the British Academy, vol xxx (1944), pp 427-39, with a bibliography by H Winifred Husbands.
Davis was born on 30 April 1915. He was educated at the London School of Economics, 1946-1950. He then became a Lecturer and Reader in Economic History at the University of Hull, 1950-1954. He became Professor of Economic History at the University of Leicester in 1964, and in 1976 he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor there. Davis was a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum from 1968 to 1975. He published articles and books, mainly on trade and the shipping industry. Davis died on 30 September 1978.
Fletcher was educated at University College London and the Royal Academy. He won the Architectural Association Medal for Design in 1888. He was a Lecturer and then Assistant Professor at King's College London, lecturing on architecture. He was also an Examiner to the City and Guilds of London Institute. From 1901 to 1938 he was an Extension Course Lecturer at London University. He then became a partner in the firm of Banister Fletcher & Sons. Fletcher was knighted in 1919. He published some professional text books on architecture. He died on 17 August 1953.
Francis Galton was born in Birmingham on the 16th February 1822. His father was Samuel Tertius Galton (1783-1844), a banker, and his mother was Frances Anne Violetta Darwin (1783-1874), daughter of the physician Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). Through his mother's family he was a cousin of the naturalist Charles Darwin.
Galton was educated in Kenilworth and at King Edward's School, Birmingham, until the age of sixteen. Following in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, he was enrolled to study medicine at Birmingham General Hospital in 1838 and moved to King's College Medical School in 1839. However, he gave up his medical education and in 1840 spent six months travelling through Europe, Turkey and Syria. On his return he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge to read mathematics and was awarded his BA in 1844. When his father died later that year, a generous inheritance allowed Galton to give up his plans to study medicine at Cambridge and instead he embarked on a year-long tour of the Middle East.
In 1850 he explored south-west Africa on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society and later published two books as a result of his experiences: Tropical South Africa (1852) and The Art of Travel (1855). He married Louisa Jane Butler in 1855 and they established a home in Rutland Gate in South Kensington, London.
Galton then devoted his life to the study of diverse fields, including the weather, physical and mental characteristics in man and animals, the influence of heredity, heredity in twins, and fingerprints. He was preoccupied with counting and measuring, and collected a huge amount of statistical data to support his research.
Today, Galton is perhaps best known for his studies into the inheritance of mental characteristics in humans, for example estimating the frequency with which eminent individuals come from similarly distinguished families. His questionable hypotheses and methods led him to conclude that talents could be inherited, and later in his life he was zealous in advocating the study of "those agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally". He invented the word "eugenics" to describe this. Many of his genetic theories, such as eugenics, have since been discredited, although his study into the concept of inheritance - that certain physical characteristics can be passed from one generation to the next - is an important legacy.
One of Galton's other important legacies was his work on fingerprints. He discovered that a person's fingerprints could be used for personal identification because they are unique and do not change throughout a person's lifetime. His archive contains a large number of examples of fingerprints, which he used to create a taxonomic system still in use today. Galton also carried out further studies into the method of inheritance, for example disproving Charles Darwin's theory of pangenesis (inheritance via particles in the bloodstream) and making various discoveries through his data analysis that eventually formed the basis of biostatistics.
Galton was also involved in many societies and organisations, particularly the Royal Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He was on the governing committee of the Meteorological Office from 1868 to 1900. He founded the Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics at University College London to further his work on eugenics, although under the leadership of L S Penrose in the 1960s the name of this department was changed to the Galton Laboratory, Department of Human Genetics and Biometry.
Francis Galton died on the 17 January 1911 and he was buried at the Galton family vault in Claverdon, Warwickshire. His wife Louisa predeceased him; they had no children.
Born, 1929; educated, Grocers' Company's School, Hackney; taught Jewish religion classes in east London and officiating in synagogue ceremonial; Jews' College; BA in Hebrew and Aramaic, 1951; MA in Hebrew and Aramaic, 1953; studied for a BA in English at Birkbeck College, 1951-1954; Postgrad Certificate in Education; primary school teacher, 1954-1957; Head of English Department at Hasmonean Grammar School, Hendon, 1957-1964; taught evening classes at Goldsmiths' College, 1965; research assistant in the Survey of English Usage, University College London (UCL), 1965-1968; PhD, 1967; Visiting Professor in English language at the University of Oregon, Eugene, 1968-1969; Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1969-1972; Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1972-1973; chair in English language, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 1972-1983; Quain Professor of English language and literature, UCL, 1983-1990; Director of the Survey of English Usage, 1983-1996; resigned the Quain chair, 1990, but continued as a Research Professor Director of the Survey of English Usage; founded the International Corpus of English; Dean of the Faculty of Arts, UCL, 1988-1990; Visiting Professor, English Department, UCL, 1990-1995; died, 1996.
Helga Hacker was born in 1898, she was the youngest of the three children of Karl Pearson and his wife Maria Sharpe. She died in 1975.
Frederick Huth first established his own business in Corunna, Spain, in 1805. He came to London in 1809 and set up business as a merchant. In 1814 he took John Frederick Grüning into partnership and the resulting firm, Huth & Company, was formed. Throughout the 19th century the firm is described in London directories as 'merchants'; only from 1904 is the description 'bankers' added, although it is clear that the business always included banking. From 1912 the firm had a fur warehouse; it also had a tea warehouse from 1921. In 1936 the company was dissolved: the banking business was acquired by British Overseas Bank Ltd, and the fur business by C M Lampson & Co Ltd.
Born, 1907; educated, Wells House, Malvern Wells; Magdalen College, Oxford, 1925-1928; tutor and zoologist, Magdalen College, Oxford, 1929-1945; Vice-President of Magdalen, 1943; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1945; Chair of Human Anatomy at University College, London, 1945-1974; President and Vice-President of the Marine Biological Association of Great Britain; retired 1974; continued to conduct research work at the Wellcome Foundation and later, in the Psychology Department, Oxford; died, 1997.
Publications: The Life of Vertebrates (1950)
The Life of Mammals (1957)
Jones was born in central London, the son of Daniel Jones, a barrister, and his second wife, Viola. Although Jones himself passed the bar exams, he never practised law as he had already developed an interest in the then relatively new science of phonetics. Jones's association with University College London began in 1907 when he became a part-time lecturer in phonetics. In 1912 phonetics attained departmental status and expanded both in staffing and scope. In 1913 an experimental research laboratory was set up, in 1914 Jones was made Reader in Phonetics and in 1921 he became the first Professor of Phonetics in a British university. During his years at University College London and after his retirement in 1949, Jones published several works. His major publications were 'The pronunciation of English' (Cambridge University Press, 1909), 'An English Pronouncing Dictionary' (Dent, 1917), 'An Outline of English Phonetics' (Teubner, 1918), 'The Phoneme, its nature and use' (Heffer, 1950) and a number of phonetic readers of various languages. Jones was involved with the International Phonetics Association becoming President in 1950. He was also active in the Simplified Spelling Society, the BBC, and the Advisory Committee on Spoken English.
The James Joyces Centre was set up in 1973. The collection was started with the help of the Trustees of the Joyce Estate, Faber & Faber, the Society of Authors and other donors. The Centre started collecting archival material in 1974.
Born in Leipzig, Germany, 1911; University of Leipzig, MD 1934; emigrated to London, 1935; Biophysical research, University College London (UCL), 1935-1939; Carnegie Residential Fellow, Sydney Hospital, Sydney, 1939-1942; served in Second World War in the Pacific with RAAF, 1942-1945; Assistant Director of Research, Biophysics Research Unit, UCL, and Henry Head Research Fellow (Royal Society), 1946-1950; Reader in Physiology, UCL, 1950-1951; Professor and Head of Biophysics Department, UCL, 1952-1978; Vice-President, Royal Society, 1965; Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, 1970; Emeritus Honorary Research Fellow, 1978; died, 2003.
Ker was born in Glasgow, the eldest son of William Ker, a merchant, and Caroline Agnes Paton. He was educated at Glasgow Academy and Glasgow University, then in 1874 he went to Balliol College Oxford with a Snell exhibition. He was elected to a Fellowship of All Souls, Oxford, in November 1879. In 1878 Ker was appointed assistant to William Young Snellar, Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh University. In 1883 he was appointed Professor of English Literature and History in the new University College of South Wales, Cardiff. In 1889 he became Quain Professor of English Language and Literature at University College London, where he remained until his retirement in 1922. In 1900 Ker was appointed Chairman of the Modern Languages Board and later of the English Board in the University of London. A department of Scandinavian studies was founded in London University in 1917 and Ker was its first director. Ker died walking in Italy in July 1923 and was buried in the old churchyard at Macugnaga, Italy. Ker wrote numerous books, articles and lectures, mainly on literature and poetry, many of which are listed in John Pafford's bibliography 'W.P. Ker, 1855-1923: a bibliography' (University of London Press, 1950). Ker's successor as Quain Professor of English at University College, R.W. Chambers, wrote a number of biographical studies of Ker.
Raymond Wilson Chambers studied at University College London, 1891-1899, and was appointed Quain Student in English there in 1899. He stayed at University College and was Librarian from 1901 to 1922. He was also Assistant Professor in the English Department, 1904-1914. In 1915 he became Reader in English. From 1915 to 1917 he served for a time with the Red Cross in France, and with the Y.M.C.A. with the British Expeditionary Force in Belgium. In 1922 he became Quain Professor of English at UCL in succession to W.P.Ker. In 1933 he visited the U.S.A. to deliver the Turnbull lectures in Baltimore. He published 'Thomas More' in 1935 and 'Man's unconquerable mind' in 1939. Chambers retired in 1941 and died in 1942.
Unknown.
Born, 1913; read Modern History at Oxford University; served in World War Two; joined University College London as Lecturer in Ancient History, 1948; founder and first editor of Past and Present, 1952; visited India as a lecturer for the Indian University Grants Commission, 1968-1969; Senior Lecturer, University College London, 1969; involved in several socialist organisations, particularly the Institute for Workers' Control; died, 1977. Publications: The Age of Arthur (1973); co-editor and translator of the Phillimore edition of The Domesday Book; co-editor with A H M Jones and J R Martindale of the Prospography of the Later Roman Empire (from 1971); Londinium: London in the Roman Empire (1982), revised by Sarah Macready and published posthumously.
Unknown.
Petrie was born in Charlton and educated privately. He worked on many excavation sites, mostly in Egypt. He was Edwards Professor of Egyptology at University College London from 1892 to 1933, and Emeritus Professor from 1933. He published many works on excavation. Petrie was knighted in 1923.
Ambrose Fleming studied physics and mathematics at University College London and later studied chemistry at the Royal College of Chemistry. In 1877 he was an undergraduate at St John's College Cambridge, where he studied under James Clerk Maxwell. In 1881 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Physics at University College Nottingham and in 1883 became a Fellow of St John's College Cambridge. In 1884 Fleming was invited to give a course of lectures on electro-technology at University College London and the following year became the first Professor of Electrical Technology there. Fleming was associated with the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company as scientific adviser from 1899. In 1904 he patented his rectifying valve. In 1926 he resigned his Professorship at University College London. Fleming was knighted in 1929. He was awarded the Ruddell Medal by the Physical Society in 1931, the Franklin Medal by the Franklin Institute, USA, in 1935, and the Kelvin Medal by the three Engineering Institutions of Great Britain in 1935.
Augustus De Morgan was born in Madura in the Madras presidency, the son of a Colonel in the Indian army. Seven months after his birth his parents moved to England. The De Morgan children were brought up with the strict evangelical principles of their parents. Augustus was sent to various schools: he had a gift for drawing caricatures and for algebra. In February 1823 he entered Trinity College Cambridge to develop his already apparent mathematical ability, graduating in 1827. De Morgan had never definitely joined any church, and he refused to carry out his mother's wishes by taking orders. In the end he decided to become a barrister and he entered Lincoln's Inn. However, he did not take to the law. The new University College London was just being established and in February 1828 De Morgan was unanimously elected the first Professor of Mathematics there. He resigned this post in July 1831 in response to the Professor of Anatomy being dismissed without reason. In 1836 his successor was drowned and De Morgan offered himself as a temporary substitute. He was then invited to resume the Chair. The regulations concerning dismissal had been altered, so De Morgan accepted the post and was Professor for the next 30 years. He also sometimes took private pupils. Besides his professorial work, he served for a short period as an actuary and he often gave opinions on questions of insurance. He again resigned his Chair in November 1866 due to his view that personal religious belief of a candidate should not be taken into account in appointing a candidate for the vacant Chair of Mental Philosophy and Logic: others did not agree. De Morgan had many children, some of whom died before him. De Morgan himself died on 18 March 1871. In 1828 De Morgan had been elected a fellow of the Astronomical Society and he was also a member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, contributing a great number of articles to its publications. He also wrote on mathematical, philosophical and antiquarian points. After De Morgan's death, his library, which consisted of about three thousand volumes, was bought by Lord Overstone who presented it to the University of London.
Rotton was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1860. From 1869 to 1876 he was Legal Assistant to the Medical Department of the Local Government Board, becoming Legal Adviser in 1883. He was a member of the Council of University College London, 1869-1906, and Vice-President of the Senate in 1878 and 1882. Rotton was knighted in 1899. He died on 9 April 1926.
No information could be found at the time of compilation.
Amelia Edwards was born in London on 7 June 1831 and educated at home, chiefly by her mother. As a child she was good at art, writing and music, and some of her poems and stories were published. As an adult she earned her living by writing. She wrote eight novels and many articles. She became interested in Egyptology and after a visit she paid to Egypt in 1873-1874 she abandoned all her literary interests. She formally founded the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1882, to carry out scientific excavation, and devoted herself to its work. She contributed many articles to journals on Egyptology. In 1889-1890 she went to the United States of America on a lecturing tour which was a great success. Edwards died in Weston-Super-Mare on 15 April 1892. She bequeathed her Egyptology library and collection of Egyptian antiquities to University College London. She also founded a Chair of Egyptology there and destined the first occupant to be Professor W M Flinders Petrie.
No information could be found at the time of compilation.
Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, was founded by Henry VI in 1440-1441 and largely educates boys from the upper classes. The precise background to this manuscript is unknown.
Walter Bagehot, an economist and journalist, was born at Langport in Somerset in 1826. He went to school in Bristol, and in 1842 he entered University College London, where he became a good mathematician under Professor De Morgan. He also read very widely in all branches of general literature. Poetry, metaphysics and history were his favourite studies. Bagehot took his BA degree in the University of London, with a mathematical scholarship, in 1846 and then his MA in the same university in 1848, with the gold medal in intellectual and moral philosophy and political economy. He then began to read law. He was called to the bar in 1852 but decided not to pursue the law as his profession, but to join his father in his shipowning and banking business at Langport. Bagehot still had a passion for literature and contributed first to the Prospective Review and from 1855 onwards to the National Review (of which he was one of the editors), a series of essays which attracted attention by their brilliancy of style and lucidity of thought. For the last 17 years of his life, Bagehot edited The Economist newspaper which was established by the Rt Hon James Wilson. In 1858 Bagehot married Wilson's eldest daughter. Bagehot was a considerable authority on banking and finance, and was consulted by Chancellors of the Exchequer; but in the literary world he was even better known for his lively, vivid and humorous criticisms. He published many works including The English Constitution, Physics and Politics and Lombard Street; he also published a series of essays. Bagehot died in Langport in 1877.