Hopton Haynes entered the Royal Mint as a clerk in 1687, and moved into the Comptrollers office for the great recoinage, 1696. He was successively Weigher and Teller, 1701, and the King's Assay Master, 1749. He was also a unitarian writer. Publications: A brief enquiry relating to the right of His Majesty's Royal Chapel, and the privilege of his servants within the Tower (London, 1728); The Scripture Account of the attributes and worship of God, and of the character and offices of Jesus Christ (London, 1790).
No information available at present.
The Board of Trade began collecting annual agricultural returns in 1866. The returns of acreage and livestock were made by proprietors under the provisions of various Acts of Parliament, including the Agriculture Act of 1889 which set up a Board of Agriculture and transferred to it and its successors responsibility for the direction of the agricultural census.
The Privy Chamber was created by Henry VII (reigned 1485-1509) as a new department of the Royal Household. It was run by the Lord Chamberlain and consisted of Gentlemen of the Chamber, chosen by the monarch as personal attendants. The roles of Gentlemen were given as political rewards, and were bestowed mainly on members of the aristocracy.
No information available at present.
Isaac Rogers was Warden of the Company of Watchmakers 1810-12 and 1823. The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was founded by royal charter in 1631 in order to regulate the crafts of watch and clock-making. The Company had certain policing powers and actively sought out poorly made material, seizing and destroying it. The Company is still in existence.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
The hearth tax consisted of a half-yearly payment of one shilling for each hearth in the occupation of each person whose house was worth more than 20s a year, and who was a local ratepayer of church and poor rates. It was introduced by Charles II in 1662 and continued to be levied until 1688.
Benjamin Thompson was a dramtist who wrote plays including The Florentines, or Secret Memoirs of the noble family De C** (J. F. Hughes, London, 1808); Oberon's Oath; or, the Paladin and the Princess: a melodramatic romance, in two acts (London, 1816); The Recall of Momus. A bagatelle (G. Robinson, London, 1809); and The Stranger (J. Dicks, London, [1875]).
Merino sheep originated in North Africa descended from a strain of sheep developed during the reign of Claudius, from 14 to 37 A.D. They spread via the Spanish and French royal families to northern Europe. The original Merinos were a wool sheep, who sheared a very heavy, fine fleece.
Patrick Robertson (1794-1855) was a Scottish judge. He produced writings on legal and literary topics.
The earliest surviving mention of a public official charged with auditing government expenditure is a reference to the Auditor of the Exchequer in 1314. The Auditors of the Imprest were established under Queen Elizabeth I in 1559 with formal responsibility for auditing Exchequer payments. This system gradually lapsed and in 1780, Commissioners for Auditing the Public Accounts were appointed by statute. From 1834, the Commissioners worked in tandem with the Comptroller of the Exchequer, who was charged with controlling the issue of funds to the government.
The University of Copenhagen is the largest institution of research and education in Denmark, founded in 1479. In 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British bombarded Copenhagen and most of the University buildings were destroyed. The new main building was inaugurated in 1836, though building work continued for the remainder of the century.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
Dr Cuthbert Christy was educated at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated with a MB, CM in 1892. He served as a medical officer with the Army in Northern Nigeria from 1898 to 1900. He also served as a medical officer in India. From 1903 to 1914, Christy took part in several expeditions in India and Africa. Between 1911 and 1916 he conducted an expedition in the Congo for the Belgium government and from 1915 to 1916 he explored and mapped the Nile-Congo divide for the Sudan Government. During World War One he served in the Royal Army Medical Corp as an adviser on malaria in the East African Expeditionary Forces. He was also attached to the War Trade Intelligence (Africa) Staff at the War Office.
Christy was the representative for the League of Nations and Chairman of the International Commission of Enquiry to Liberia with reference to slavery and forced labour, which sat in 1930. He died in 1932.
Herbert Spencer was born in Derby in 1820. He was educated at Hinton Charterhouse near Bath and returned to Derby at the age of 17 to take up a post as an assistant schoolmaster. After three months, he became a civil engineer with the London and Birmingham Railway. In 1842, he was appointed honorary secretary of the Complete Suffrage Movement - allied to the Chartist agitation - and became editor of The Pilot, the newspaper of the Chartist movement. He became sub-editor of The Economist in 1848 and in 1850 published his first book, Social Statistics, detailing theories of evolution. In 1855, he published his second book, The Principles of Psychology. From 1860 to 1893, Spencer worked on a series of volumes with the intention of applying evolution to all the sciences and developing an all-inclusive philosophical theory. His volumes covered biology, psychology, sociology, and ethics. He died in 1903.
Charles James Booth was born the son of a Merseyside coal merchant on 30 March 1840. He was educated at the Royal Liverpool Institution and became apprenticed to a trading company, Lamport and Holt. Charles went on to set up a steamship company trading between Liverpool and Northern Brazil. Beyond his commercial aspirations, Charles wished to do something for the under-privileged of Victorian England and he joined the Birmingham Education League, founded to promote secular education.
Charles married Mary Catherine Macaulay (1843-1939), on 29 April 1871. Charles decided to move the merchandising arm of Alfred Booth and Company, the family firm, to London and extended his trade in leather to New York where he spent three months of each year. These long voyages led to the daily correspondence between Charles and Mary. Mary, by this time, was a partner in the company in all but name.
In 1884, Charles assisted in the analysis of statistics for the allocation of the Lord Mayor's Relief Fund and attempted to establish a Board of Statistical Research. In Spring 1886 he presented a paper, The Occupation's of the People of London, 1841-1881, to the Royal Statistical Society. Mary helped her husband in his 'Inquiry' into poverty in London. She was also associated with a circle of intellectual women, many of whose husbands were MPs. In April 1889, Charles' first work, Volume 1 of the Poverty Series of Life and Labour of the People of London: Trades of East London, was published. The survey of Central and South London followed in volume 2, published in May 1891, while all the time Charles was involved in commerce and social science.
Charles was made President of the Statistical Society in 1892 and set about researching for a survey into the condition of industry in England and its impact on poverty. This was followed in 1899 by an investigation into old age pensions and The Aged Poor. In 1912, Charles ceded the chairmanship of Alfred Booth & Company to his nephew. On 23 November 1916, following a stroke, Charles died. A memorial to Charles Booth was erected in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral on 15 December 1920.
John Bradley, son of a Stourbridge ironmonger, Gabriel Bradley (1726-1771), was born in 1769. He established himself in the iron business in his own right by trading at the Stourbridge Forge in around 1795. In 1800 he founded a new company, John Bradley & Co. He was the managing partner and finance was obtained from Thomas Jukes Collier (1761-1845) and the trustees of his stepfather, Henry Foster (1743-1793), each with a third share in the company.
The company soon set up a forge, steam engine and mills and began by converting pig iron into wrought iron plates and rods for local industry. Expansion was rapid and leases were secured on further forges and land. In 1813, the Stourbridge Iron Works obtained a contract to purchase the entire production of pig iron from New Hadley Furnaces for seven years at a guaranteed price but, in 1818, James Foster (1786-1853), son of Henry Foster oversaw the construction of two new blast furnaces, thereby controlling all stages of iron production.
James went into partnership with John Urpeth Rastrick in 1819 to expand Bradley's involvement in machinery production. Rastrick was the resident managing engineer of a new company, Foster, Rastrick & Co., built alongside the Stourbridge Iron Works. A new foundry was built in 1821 to cope with the expansion of the business. The company produced: bedsteads, cooking plates, wheels and tools, rails and railway sleepers. Foster, Rastrick and Co. was formally dissolved on 20, June 1831.
The assets were transferred back into the Stourbridge Iron Works with the foundry business continuing under the management of John Bradley & Co. In 1837, James Foster became the sole owner of John Bradley & Co. The Stourbridge Iron Works continued to produce rods, bars and wires while the foundry worked on specialist rolling machines. James's nephew William Orme Foster (-1899), inherited the £700,000 estate and under his stewardship, John Bradley & Co. continued to grow. A revolution in iron manufacture occurred in 1856 with the development of cheap steel but Foster failed to invest in new machinery and when the iron industry entered a slump in the 1870s, the productivity of the company declined. After the death of William Orme Foster, the company fell into the hands of his son, William Henry Foster (1846-1924). Preferring other pursuits, William sold the company's collieries to Guy Pitt and Company in 1913 and the remaining portion of the Stourbridge Iron Works was sold to Edward J Taylor Ltd. in 1913.
(Compiled from information extracted from: Ed. Paul Collins, Stourbridge & Its Historic Locomotives (Dudley Leisure Services. 1989))
Emile Cammaerts was born in Brussels in 1876 (he was baptised Emile Pieter at the age of 34). He received education at the University of Brussels and later at the revolutionary Université Nouvelle where he was a student of geography.
Cammaerts held the post of Professor of Belgian Studies and Institutions in the University of London, 1931-47, and became Professor Emeritus after his retirement from the university in 1947. He also received an honorary LL.D. from the University of Glasgow and a CBE. He was a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
During his life, Emile Cammaerts was a cartographer, geographer, journalist, poet, playwright, historian, art critic and devoted Anglican. He was Belgian by nationality, and deeply immersed in Belgian politics and culture, but after his marriage he spent his life in England, at Radlett, Hertfordshire, from where he commuted to his office in London. He was naturally concerned with Anglo-Belgian relations and with the Anglo-Belgian Union.
Rolland was born in 1866 in the district of Nièvre, France. He studied literature, music and philosophy, going on to publish two doctoral theses. After some years as a school teacher he went on to teach at the Sorbonne. His interest in music motivated him to publish numerous critical pieces on famous composers as well as artists and writers. As well as being a critic he began to publish his own literature, culminating in the winning of the Nobel Prize in 1915 for his Jean-Christophe. The themes of truth, humanism and altruism are identified most explicitly within his literary work. He died in Vézelay, 1944.
William Job Collins was born in London on 9 May 1859 and received his education from University College School, London and St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He became a Fellow, Scholar and gold medallist in Sanitary Science and in Obstetrics at London University and received Honours in Physiology, Forensic Medicine and Surgery. During his career Collins was also involved in many aspects of anatomy and ophthalmology, receiving the Doyne Medal for the latter from Oxford University in 1918. He was knighted in 1902.
William Job Collins was also Vice-Chancellor of the University of London, 1907-1909, 1911-12, and a member of the University Senate, 1893-1927. He was also a member of the Royal Commission on Vaccination, 1889-1896; Liberal Member of Parliament for West St. Pancreas, 1906-1910, and for Derby, 1917-18; London County Councillor for West St. Pancreas, 1892-1904; and Vice-Lieutenant of the County of London, 1925-1945.
The English Parliament is the main legislative body of the country.
No information available at present.
Harold Richard Goring Greaves (1907-1981) taught at the London School of Economics from 1930 onwards. He was Professor of Political Science in the University of London from 1960-1975.
The proposed United Nations University Institute was not established until 1973; it is called the UN University and based in Tokyo.
Purdon was born in London on 15 October 1883. From 1919 to 1928 he was Finance Director at Welwyn Garden City Ltd. Between 1928 and 1935 he edited a succession of journals: Everyman, 1928-1932, New Britain, 1933-1934 and Theatregoer, 1935. During World War Two, Purdon served with the Ministry of Food 1941-1943, Ministry of Supply, 1943 and Ministry of Information 1944. Purdon was also involved with the Garden City movement and town planning. He was the General Secretary of Equity, 1939-1940 and Joint Secretary of the London Theatre. After the war Purdon produced two plays by William Shakespeare, As You like It, 1949 and Macbeth in 1951. He also wrote widely on drama and on town planning. Purdon died on 8 July 1965.
Colonel (Robert) Thomas de Veil (d 1746) was the founder of the Bow Street court house in 1740. Notorious for the severity of his sentencing and his aversion to the consumption of alcohol, he was portrayed by William Hogarth in the 'Night' section of Four times of the day.
Robert Ridgill Trout was born in 1878 and by career was an antiquarian bookseller, who also carried out regular work valuing the libraries of county houses and institutions. In 1936 he met Alice Vere, a descendant of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. It was after conversations with Alice Vere that Ridgill Trout came to believe that Edward de Vere was the author of the plays and poetry attributed to William Shakespeare. Ridgill Trout died on 17 June 1969.
The committee's report, Adult Education: a plan for development, was published by HMSO in 1973.
No information was discovered at the time of compilation.
Edward David Stern was born on 18 July 1854. He received his university education from King's College, London. He was the head of the firm Stern Brothers and also Major in the Berkshire Imperial Yeomanry. In 1904 he became the High Sheriff of Surrey. He also served as President of the Surrey Unionist Association and President of the League of Mercy. Stern was knighted in 1904 and was created a baronet in 1922. He died 17 April 1933.
Douglas John Foskett was born on 27 June 1918. He was educated at Queen Mary College, London, (BA 1939) and Birkbeck College, London (MA 1954). Foskett held positions at municipal and academic libraries, Ilford Municipal Libraries 1940-1948, Librarian of the University of London Institute of Education 1957-1978 and Director of Central Library Services and Goldsmith's Librarian at the University of London, 1978-1983. He was Chairman of the Library Association in 1962, Vice President, 1966 to 1973 and President in 1976. He also served on many library committees including, Honorary Library Adviser to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf 1965 to 1990; member of the Advance Committee on Science and Technical Information 1969 to 1973; a Committee member for UNISIST/UNESCO and EUDISED/Council of Europe Projects. Foskett was a visiting Professor at the Universities of Michigan, 1964; Ghana, 1967; Ibadan 1967; Brazilian Institute for Bibliography and Documentation, 1971 and the University of Iceland 1974. He has published widely on information services. Publications include Assistance to Readers in Lending Libraries, 1952, Reader in Comparative Librarianship, 1977, as well as contributions to many professional journals.
Walter Boyd (1754-1837) worked as a banker in Paris previous to the French Revolution, which led him to flee for his life, leaving the assets of his firm Boyd, Ker and Co to be confiscated in October 1793. He established another banking firm, Boyd, Benfield and Co, in London in the same year, and was for a time very successful. Boyd and his partner Paul Benfield were elected to parliament for Shaftesbury (1795-1802). However, the permanent loss of his Paris properties eventually led to the liquidation of the firm and Boyd's financial ruin. Boyd visited France during the brief interval of peace (March 1802-May 1803), and was detained when war broke out again. He was not released until the fall of Napoleon in 1814. On his return to England Boyd recovered some of his former prosperity, becoming MP for Lymington from 1823-1830. He also wrote several pamphlets on financial subjects.
See also S.R.Cope, Walter Boyd : a merchant banker in the age of Napoleon (1983).
Charles Lethbridge Kingsford was born at Ludlow 25 December 1862. He received his education at St John's College, Oxford (1881-1886). After university he worked as a sub-editor for the Dictionary of National Biography for one year. Later, he went on to contribute nearly four hundred biographies for the Dictionary of National Biography. Kingsford also held positions at the Board of Education from 1890 to 1912. From 1912 he devoted all his time to historical research. He published works mainly on London history and topography. During the First World War Kingsford served as a special constable and at the Ministry of Pensions. After the war he was elected a fellow of the British Academy and prepared reports for the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Kingsford died at his home in Kensington on 27 November 1926.
Bibliographer, papyrologist, collector, and historian of Merovingian tapestries. De Ricci was an expert on the provenance of rare books. He created three reference books of manuscripts and rare books: Catalogue raisonné des premières impressions de Mayence, 1445-1467, Guide de l'amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, and Census of Medieval Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. In the field of Egypt papyrology, De Ricci traveled throughout Egypt, North America, and Europe to study works in various collections, publishing a bibliography of Egyptology in Revue Archéologique (1917-1918), and the Receuil Champollion (1922). He compiled specific and detailed information on each collection that he studied, which included the maiolica pottery and signed bookbindings in the Mortimer L. Schiff collection, and the Merovingian tapestries in the Pierpont Morgan collection in New York City. On completion of his Census of Medieval Manuscripts in the United States and Canada in 1934, De Ricci approached the Institute of Historical Research in London with the possibility of conducting a similar survey of manuscript sources in the British Isles. De Ricci was continuing the process of listing and gathering information, begun in 1902, when he died in 1942.
For more information on the 'Bibliotheca Britannica Manuscripta' project, please consult Joan Gibbs, 'Seymour de Ricci's Bibliotheca Britannica Manuscripta' in Calligraphy and Palaeography: Essays presented to Alfred Fairbank on his 70th Birthday (Faber, London, 1965)
Sir John Robert Seeley was born in London on 10 September 1834, He received his education from the City of London School and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1857. From 1857 to 1859 Seeley taught classics at Christ's. In 1859 he left Cambridge to become chief classical assistant at the City of London School and in 1863 he was appointed professor of Latin at University College London. In 1869 Seeley became professor of modern history at Cambridge; a position he held for the rest of his life. Seeley published works on the classics and history. Among his chief works are, Ecce Homo 1865, The First Book of Livy, 1871, The Life and Times of Stein, or Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age, 1878 and Lectures on Political Science, 1895.
Arthur Dickens was born in 1910, and educated at Hymers College, Hull and Magdalene College, Oxford, where he gained a degree in history. Following graduation, he became a Fellow and Tutor at Keble College (1933-1949) and an Oxford University Lecturer in sixteenth century English History (1939-1949), with a break for service in the Royal Artillery during World War Two. In 1949, Dickens was appointed Professor of History at the University of Hull, later becoming Deputy Principal and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, 1950-1953, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, 1959-1962. He took up the post of Professor of History at King's College London in 1962, where he remained until becoming Director of the Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and a Professor of History in the University of London, 1967-1977. Dickens was also active in other bodies, including President of the Ecclesiastical History Society, 1966-1968; a member of the Advisory Council on Public Records, 1968-1976; an advisor to the Council on the Export of Works of Art, 1968-1976; Secretary, Chairman and General Secretary of the British National Committee of Historical Sciences, 1967-1979; Foreign Secretary of the British Academy, 1969-1979; and Vice-President of the British Record Society, 1978-1980; Dickens enjoyed "a deep love affair with Germany" [Partick Collinson, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 77, p21], was a moving force in the establishment of the German Historical Institute in London and was decorated by the German government. His major publications include Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509-58 (1959); The English Reformation (1964); and The German Nation and Martin Luther (1974). Professor Dickens died in 2001.
George Herbert Perris was born in Liverpool in 1866. He began a career in journalism in 1883. He held various posts in provincial and national newspapers. During World War One he was war correspondent for the Daily Chronicle in France. He also published many works on foreign policy and military history. He died 23 December 1920.
Godfrey Fox Bradby was born in 1863. He was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was Assistant Master at Rugby from 1888 to 1920 and Housemaster from 1908 to 1920. Bradby published works on history including, The Great Days of Versailles and on literature including, About Shakespeare and his Plays and several novels. He retired in 1920 and died on 20 June 1947.
John Horace Round was born on 22 February 1854. He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford where he received an MA in modern history. He was Historical Adviser to the Crown in Peerage cases; Vice President of the Essex Archaeological Society, (President from 1916 to 1921) and Vice President of the English Place Name Society. He published many works of history including Geoffrey de Mandevill, 1892; The Commune of London, 1899; Calendar of Documents Preserved in France, 1899; Studies in Peerage and Family History, 1900; Peerage and Pedigree, 1910; The King's Sergeants, 1911. He also contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography, Victoria County History and to the English Historical Review. Round died on 24 June 1928.
Jones wrote several books on loyalists in the American Revolution, including The Loyalists of New Jersey; their memorials, petitions, claims etc from English Records (1927), The Loyalists of Massachusetts; their memorials, petitions, claims etc (1930) and The Society or Garrison of Fort Williamsburg; the Old Glynllivon Volunteers (1935). He also wrote books about church plate and the plate of other institutions, including The Old Plate of the Cambridge Colleges (1910), The Old Royal Plate in the Tower of London (1908), The Plate of Eton College (1938), Catalogue of the Plate of Merton College, Oxford (1938) and The Church Plate of the Diocese of Bangor (1906).
Roberts was born in Edinburgh in 1796, starting his professional life as a painter and decorator. After studying art in the evenings for some time, Roberts moved to London in 1822 and held an exhibition of his work at the Society of British Artists, becoming president of the society in 1831. He was most famous for sketches of foreign lands. Some of the sketches contained in MS 927 were exhibited at the Barbican Art Gallery during 1967.
Amy Ernestine Buller was born in London on 9 November 1891. She was brought up in South Africa as a Baptist, returning to England in 1911. Soon after, she went to Germany to learn the language, and to complete matriculation for Birkbeck College, London, where she took her degree in 1917 and became an Anglo-Catholic. She joined the Student Christian Movement (SCM) after the First World War and was appointed organising secretary in 1921. Moving from Manchester to become a London secretary in 1922, Buller organised a great many conferences and retreats bringing people of different doctrines and nations together. In 1929, she was appointed with 3 others to lead the SCM. In 1931, however, she left the movement to become warden of a women's residential hall at the University of Liverpool. During the 1930s she organised a number of delegations of prominent British churchmen to Germany in a bid for peace and to understand Nazism: what she saw as a new religion but ultimately condemned. She compiled a series of her conversations with people she had met in Germany and her views on the importance of some kind of religion to young people which were published under the title: Darkness over Germany (Longman Green, 1943).
Buller resigned from the University of Liverpool in 1942 and moved to London. Her time was taken up with plans to set up a new religious college. Initially, this was to be at the vacated precinct of the hospital of St. Katharine's, Regents Park. Her plans for a college at St Katharine's ran into difficulty both in terms of ethos and geographical issues and she had to abandon the location and search for another. After several other failures to a secure a site for her college, Buller was granted the use of Cumberland Lodge at Windsor Park after the death of its previous inhabitant, Lord Fitzalan. Buller wanted to retain the connection with St Katharine's, but the college had to remain separate from the original foundation. She decided to retain the same name, albeit with a different spelling, associated with St. Catharine, the Patron Saint of Philosophers. The name of the college changed in 1966 to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Foundation of St. Catharine's, Cumberland Lodge.
The college was designed as a place where students could discuss important matters of life and society in a pleasant environment, being given intellectual stimulus in areas outside their normal academic studies. It was a Christian foundation, although non-Christian students were admitted, the religious aspect was always fundamental, although the intention was to make it unobtrusive. Amy Buller remained Honorary Warden at the college until 1966. She died in 1974, aged 83.
(Taken largely from Walter James, A short account of Amy Buller and the founding of St. Catharine's Cumberland Lodge, printed privately (1979)).
No information was available at the time of compilation.
Ethne Thompson was involved in the running of a girls' club.
The Headfort Estate was purchased by Thomas Taylour of Sussex in 1660. Taylor had assisted Sir William Petty in his 'Down Survey' - an attempt to produce a topographical map of Ireland, and it is likely Taylour was either awarded Headfort for his assistance or bought it with revenue gained from his part in the survey. Thomas Taylour's son, Thomas Taylour (1662-1736) was made an Irish Baronet and was MP for Kells. His son, also Sir Thomas Taylour (d 1757) was the 2nd Baronet and also MP for Kells. The volumes date primarily from the period of Thomas Taylour (1724-1795), Earl of Bective.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
Noel Wildsmith designed the sets for the production of "The Homecoming" by Harold Pinter. This production of the play, which starred Pinter himself, took place at the Palace Theatre, Watford in February 1969.
The publishing house of Duckworth was founded in 1898 by Gerald de L'Etang Duckworth. In 1901 he was joined in partnership by George Harry Milsted. Thomas Balston became the third partner in 1923. Duckworth died in 1937, and in 1938 Mervyn Horder and Patrick Crichton Stuart bought interests in the firm and joined the Board of Directors. In 1950, George Milsted retired, and in 1955 Crichton Stuart moved on, leaving Mervyn Horder to become the Managing Director of the firm. By 1956 he had been joined by Charles Gifford as a director.
Such figures as Jonathan Cape and Anthony Powell were amongst the publisher's distinguished staff. Early authors included Hilaire Belloc, D. H. Lawrence and Evelyn Waugh. The firm also published the Sitwells, the plays of John Galsworthy and novels by Elizabeth Goudge. In earlier years, the firm published a wide range of material, including novels and plays, but by the 1950s it was primarily publishing educational material. Series published by the firm include the "Great Lives" series and the "Hundred Years" series, which was aimed at university students and gave accounts of the developments in various fields during the preceding hundred years. There were also two theological series - "Studies in Theology" and the Colet Library - and the "Modern Health Series", originally edited by Mervyn Horder's father, Lord Horder.
George Daniel was born in 1789. Though he made his main living as a businessman, he was also a writer and book collector. In his early years, he published squibs on Royal scandals, some of which were suppressed, and satirised contemporary poetasters in The modern Dunciad, 1814. He had a circle of literary friends, including Charles Lamb and Robert Bloomfield, and was also interested in the theatre, editing British Theatre (John Cumberland, London), 1823-1831, and Davison's Actable Drama. Daniel also wrote two farces for the Drury Lane Theatre, as well as numerous humorous and religious poems. At his residence, 18 Canonbury Square, London, he brought together a magnificent collection of Elizabethan books, black-letters ballads and theatrical curiosities, which were dispersed following his death in 1864.
John Baxter was born in Australia in 1939. He has written extensively on the cinema, producing biographies of Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Luis Bunel, Steven Spielberg, Frederico Fellini, Josef von Sternberg and George Lucas. He lived for a time in Los Angeles, where he was a film journalist and wrote screenplays. Baxter is also known for writing and commentating on science fiction. He has lived in Paris since 1989.