John Warburton attended Caius College Cambridge and was a Member of the Royal Medical Society Edinburgh. He died, 1843.
Unknown
Born, 1614; educated: Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1637; Trinity College, Oxford; studied chemistry and medicine with John Scrope at Bolton Castle, 1642-1645; moved to London to study medicine, 1645; returned to Oxford, 1646; DM, 1647; Fellow of the College of Physicians, London, 1650; incorporated at Cambridge on his doctor's degree, 1652; served as a censor of the College of Physicians, London, 1658, 1661, 1666, 1667, 1668, and 1673; practised medicine in London, 1648-; physician to St Thomas's Hospital, London, 1657-1673; died, 1673.
Born, 1618 or 1619; educated: the free school of Thame, Oxfordshire; Trinity College, Oxford, 1635-1639; fellow of Merton College, 1640; studied medicine at Leiden, 1642-1645; incorporated his Leiden MD at Oxford, 1647; Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, 1648-1656; fellow of the College of Physicians, 1649; cared for seamen, wounded in the Dutch war, at Ipswich, Harwich, and possibly London, 1653-1654; physician to Bulstrode Whitelocke's embassy to Sweden, 1653; practised in London, 1654-; served twelve terms as censor of the College of Physicians between 1657 and 1680; College of Physicians registrar, 1674-1682; College of Physicians elect from 1676; College of Physicians treasurer, 1682; College of Physicians president, 1683; died, 1684.
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).
Pitt , Thomas Stanley Lane , Fox- , 1897-1989 , RN Commander , Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society
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 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. In 1942 the Scottish Committee organising support for the Christian Literature Society for China was incorporated into the United Society for Christian Literature. For further information see G Hewitt, Let the People Read (London, 1949).
Arthur Cowper Raynard was born in Kent in 1845; studied at University College London, co-founding a mathematical society with George De Morgan (son of Augustus De Morgan), before entering Pembroke College, Cambridge, from which he graduated MA in 1868. Ranyard was called the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1871 and thereafter practised law, but his income was sufficient to allow him to spend much of his time studying astronomy. He became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1863 and spent many years serving on its council. Ranyard died in 1894.
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.
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.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
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.
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.
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.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
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.
Dr Bruce Barker-Benfield is a librarian in the Special Collections and Western Manuscripts department at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.
John Sinclair was born in Thurso, Caithness in 1754. He was educated at the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Oxford. He qualified as a lawyer in both Scotland and England but never practised law. In 1780 he entered the House of Commons as MP for Caithness, subsequently serving as MP for several English and Scottish constituencies between 1784 and 1811. Sir John wrote several works on economics and agriculture and became the first
President of the Board of Agriculture in 1793. His Statistical Account of Scotland popularized the use of the word 'statistics' in English.
John Sinclair was born in Thurso, Caithness, and educated at the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Oxford. He qualified as a lawyer in both Scotland and England but never practised law. In 1780 he entered the House of Commons as MP for Caithness, subsequently serving as MP for several English and Scottish constituencies between 1784 and 1811. Sir John wrote several works on ecnomics and agriculture and became the first president of the Board of Agriculture in 1793. His Statistical Account of Scotland popularized the use of the word 'statistics' in English.
Samuel Smiles was born in Haddington, East Lothian in 1812. He studied medicine in Edinburgh. He also became a journalist, lecturer and campaigner for political reform, writing radical articles for regional newsapers, most often in Leeds. In later years he worked for railway companies and the National Provident Institution, and also became a noted biographer. Smiles's radical views mellowed into liberalism and his writings turned towards advocating self-improvement. His book Self Help, with illustrations of character and conduct (1859) became a bestseller and was translated into more than ten languages.
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).
Gilbert Wakefield was born in Nottingham and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge. He became a fellow of the college in 1776, concentrating on Biblical studies. He was ordained in the Church of England, but gave up his curacy after a few years because of his disagreements with aspects of Anglican teaching, including the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and subsequently taught in several Unitarian schools. His speeches and writings gave him a reputation as a political and religious controversialist: he was opposed to slavery and to many of the policies of the Pitt government, but supported the French Revolution. Wakefield was imprisoned in Dorchester Gaol after writing an anti-government pamphlet in 1798; he died a few months after his release in 1801.
Charles Wood was born in Pontefract, Yorkshire in 1800. He was educated at Eton and at Oriel College, Oxford. He entered Parliament as Liberal MP for Great Grimsby in 1826, subsequently serving as MP for Wareham, Dorset (1831-1832), Halifax (1832-1865) and Ripon (1865-1866). He also held several cabinet posts, being successively Chancellor of the Exchequer (1846-1852), President of the Board of Control (1852-1855), First Lord of the Admiralty (1855-1858) and Secretary of State for India (1859-1866). He was created a baronet in 1846 and entered the House of Lords as Viscount Halifax in 1866. In general his policies were progressive but not radical. His wife, Mary (1807-1884), was the daughter of the 2nd Earl Grey.
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.
Charles George Gordon was born in Woolwich, Kent, and educated at the Royal Military Academy there. He was commissioned as an army officer in 1852. He took part in the Crimean War and served in China for several years, but is best known for his service in Sudan in the 1870 and 1880s. He became Governor General of Sudan in 1874. He was killed when Khartoum was captured by forces of the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, after a siege of 317 days; at the time of his death he held the rank of major-general. His nicknames 'Chinese Gordon' and 'Gordon of Khartoum' were derived from the places with which he was most associated in the public imagination.
Samuel Plimsoll was born in Bristol in 1824. He was brought up in northern England. He became a clerk and later a businessman before entering parliament as Liberal MP for Derby in 1868, retaining the seat until 1880. Plimsoll was concerned with the struggles of the poor and with sailors' interests. He spoke out against the common practice of overloading ships with goods and devised the Plimsoll line, marked on ships to show the safe depth at which they may sit in the water. Plimsoll gym shoes, so-called because their outer rubber band is reminiscent of a Plimsoll line, are indirectly named after him.
Godfrey Lushington was born in Westminster in 1832. He was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford. His father, Stephen, was a judge and his twin brother, Vernon, was an eminent lawyer; both twins were strongly influenced by Auguste Comte's positivist philosophy. An early supporter of the labour movement, Godfrey Lushington was one of the first teachers at the Working Men's College in London, founded in 1854. He became a civil servant, rising to permanent under-secretary at the Home Office in 1885, and was knighted in 1892. On his retirement, Sir Godfrey became an alderman of the London County Council from 1895 to 1898.
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.
Charles Stanhope was born in London and educated at Eton College and the University of Geneva. He became MP for High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, in 1780, keeping the seat until 1786, when he became Earl Stanhope on his father's death. Politically, his opinions were liberal and strongly democratic: he supported the abolition of slavery and was sympathetic to religious dissenters and to the French Revolution. Stanhope was also strongly interested in science: he became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1772 and conceived several inventions, including a new type of printing press. William Pitt the Younger was his brother-in-law from his first marriage and Lady Hester Stanhope, who travelled widely in the Middle East, was his eldest daughter.
Wilhelmina Stirling (1865-1965) was a collector of artefacts. She was the younger sister of the painter Evelyn De Morgan, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite art circle.
Walter Copeland Jerrold was born in Liverpool in 1865. He married Clara Bridgeman in 1895 and they had 6 children. The subjects of Jerrold's books include Thomas Hood, Charles Lamb and George Meredith, as well as Jerrold's grandfather, the playwright and journalist Douglas William Jerrold. Walter Copeland Jerrold died in London in 1929
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'.