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.
Brian Lapping Associates was formed by Brian Lapping and Norma Percy in 1988, and is a London based television production company specialising in documentaries. Watergate was a joint production with the BBC and the Discovery Channel, produced by Norma Percy and broadcast in the UK and the USA in June and August 1994.
Thomas Sturge Moore was a poet, art and literature critic, book designer, illustrator, editor, stage-designer and wood engraver. He was born on 4 March 1870 and was educated at The Croydon Art School and Lambeth Art School. Sturge Moore was a prolific poet and his subjects included, morality, art and the spirit. His first pamphlet, Two Poems, was printed privately in 1893 and his first book of verse, The Vinedresser, was published in 1899. His love for poetry lead him to become an active member of the Poetry Recital Society. His first (of 31) plays to be produced was Aphrodite against Artemis (1906), staged by the Literary Theatre Club of which he became a member in 1908. He received a civil list pension in 1920 in recognition for his contribution to literature and in 1930 he was nominated as one of seven candidates for the position of Poet Laureate. He died on 18 July 1944.
Presbyterianism was established as the national religion of Scotland in 1690.
Basil Williams was born in 1867, and educated at Marlborough and New College, Oxford University, where he studied classics. He became a clerk in the House of Commons, but then signed up for service in the Second Boer War, 1899-1901. He remained in South Africa for a year, then resigned from the Army and returned as a civilian, where he worked as an administrator in the Education Department. Following his return to England, Williams began to write articles and books as a scholar of eighteenth century history. With no need to work, due to a private income, he concentrated on building a reputation as a historian, and stood unsuccessfully for Parliament as a Liberal in 1910. He acted as editor for Home Rule Problems (P. S. King & Son, London, 1911) and Makers of the Nineteenth Century (Constable & Co, London, 1915-28).
On the outbreak of World War One, 1914-1918, Williams served as an education officer in the Royal Field Artillery. He was awarded the OBE in 1919. Williams was appointed Kingsford Professor of History at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, from 1921 to 1925, and Professor of History at Edinburgh University from 1925 to 1937, the year of his retirement. He died in 1950.
Among his publications were Botha, Smuts and South Africa (Hodder & Stoughton for the English Universities Press, London, 1946), Carteret & Newcastle: a contrast in contemporaries (University Press, Cambridge, 1943), Cecil Rhodes (London, 1921), Erskine Childers, 1870-1922. A sketch (Privately printed, London, 1926), Stanhope. A study in eighteenth-century war and diplomacy (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1932), The British Empire (Thornton Butterworth, London, 1928), and The Life of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (Longmans & Co.: London, 1913).
The Garrick Club was founded in 1831 ". . . for the general patronage of the Drama; for the purpose of combining the use of a club, on economical principles, with the advantages of a Literary society; for bringing together the supporters of the Drama; and for the formation of a Theatrical Library, with works on costume". Its first proper meeting took place on 15 October 1831 and its first permanent premises were Probatt's Hotel, 35 King Street, Covent Garden. In 1864, in need of further space, the Club moved to new purpose-built premises, just 200 yards away, in what came to be called Garrick Street.
Famous members connected with the theatre and literary world have included Thackeray, Dickens, Irving, J.M. Barrie and Kenneth Grahame. Today, its list of members continues to include actors, writers, publishers and media professionals as well as businessmen. The Garrick Club Library is an important source for the study of British theatre history and houses a large collection of play-texts, playbills and programmes. It also has a significant collection of theatrical paintings and drawings. For further information about the club, see Richard Hough, 'The Ace of Clubs, A History of the Garrick'.
The first theatre on the site of what is now the Royal Opera House was opened in 1732 by John Rich ([1682]-1761), the founder of modern pantomime. The auditorium was gutted and rebuilt in 1782, and again in 1792. The actor John Philip Kemble (1757-1823), became a shareholder in 1803 and acted there with his sister, Sarah Siddons (1755-1831). The child performer Master Betty (1791-1874), was a huge hit at Covent Garden after Kemble engaged him, and the great clown Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1837) made his name there. In 1808 the theatre burnt down, but re-opened in 1809. Kemble, by now the manager, increased ticket prices which provoked the 'O.P.' (Old Price) riots. During the first half of the 19th century, most of the famous actors of the day appeared there, including Edmund Kean and his son Charles. In 1856 the theatre was again destroyed by fire, and when it reopened in 1858, it became a home for opera, and seasonal pantomimes. In 1892, it became known as the Royal Opera House. In 1946, it became London's most prestigious ballet, as well as opera venue. Following a controversial grant of lottery funding in the mid-1990s, the theatre was rebuilt with vastly improved stage, technical and operating facilities, yet retaining and restoring the 1856 auditorium. It reopened in 1999 as one of the most up-to date opera houses in the world.
Unknown.
Born Dunedin, New Zealand, June 1926; poet and playright, his radio play, Jack Winter's Dream (1959), made him internationally famous. Among his poetry collections was Pig Island Letters, published in 1966. In that year, he accepted the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. He resigned to live in Jerusalem, a Maori settlement on the Wanganui river and travelled to nearby cities to work with the poor. His poems of this period often railed against society for tolerating poverty. The ascetic life he led from this period resulted in his health suffering. He moved to a commune near Auckland and died there in October 1972.
The Anglican chaplaincy at Christ the King not only served the University of London but also other institutions such as City Polytechnic, City University, and Brunel University. In October 1963, Robert Stopford, the Bishop of London celebrated the Eucharist at Christ the King church in Gordon Square. In so doing, the Bishop began a new era in the church as the base for Anglican student life in London. The University of London Anglican Chaplaincy decided to cease holding its weekly service at Christ the King in July 1992.
John Lionel Tayler was a Unitarian minister in Newington Green and Lincoln. He was the author of A little corner of London in 1925 and also wrote books on biological subjects. His writings on America and other subjects were published posthumously in 1933 with the title New England and New America.
Rose Macaulay was born in Rugby in 1881 and educated at Somerville College, Oxford. She was a prolific writer: her first best-seller was Potterism in 1920 but she also published a biography of John Milton, and wrote verse. Her final novel, The Towers of Trezibond (1956) was especially highly regarded and created a literary sensation. She also wrote many articles for periodicals such as The Spectator and The Observer. Her correspondence with a distant cousin, the Revd. J.H.C. Johnson, was published posthumously as Letters to a Friend (1961) and Last Letters to a Friend (1962).
Sir Herbert Maxwell was Conservative member of Parliament for Wigtownshire from 1880-1906; during the latter years of his parliamentary career he was a supporter of Joseph Chamberlain's campign for tariff reform; Maxwell was a prolific author: his numerous books included a biography of the Duke of Wellington, written in 1899. He was the President of the Society of Antiquities of Scotland, 1900-1913.
Thomas James Bean wrote a number of articles on the art connoisseur and writer, Richard Ford (1796-1858). Bean also amassed significant collections of Ford's letters and books, which were alluded to in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on Ford of 2004. Among the papers on Ford given by Bean were those to the Richard Ford bi-centenary conference and the 1991 George Borrow Conference. Thomas Bean was also a farmer and in 2006 was a Liberal Democrat representative on Worcestershire County Council.
William Hone, a radical publisher, was made famous by the blasphemy trials of 1817 at which he was acquited. He often worked with the caricaturist, George Cruikshank, with whom he collaborated in a campaign to improve the condition of lunatic asylums. Hone began publishing the Reformists Register in 1817 and published parodies, which prompted his trial. Later in his life, he became an antiquarian publisher. Hone died in 1842.
Robert G Philip spent many years as a religious minister in Glencairn, Dumfriesshire. During that time, he translated and studied the Heliand, an epic poem in Old Saxon, written about 825 AD. The title means 'Savior' in Old Saxon, and it recounts the life of Jesus in the alliterative verse style of a Germanic saga. Philip was the author of A Vision and a Voice: the awakening of today (1913).
Hanley, James (1901-1985), novelist and playwright, was born in Dublin in 1901, the son of Edward Hanley, a ship's stoker. The only school Hanley attended was St Alexandra's Roman Catholic primary school, near his home. At the age of twelve he left school and joined the merchant navy, serving in a submarine during the First World War. Three years later he jumped ship at New Brunswick to enlist in the Canadian Black Watch and eventually saw action in France. Invalided out of the army suffering from the effects of gas, he returned to the sea, working as a stoker on troop carriers, which he featured in some of his novels. He continued to educate himself, mainly by reading Russian literature, and having come ashore in the late 1920s earned a precarious living in a variety of jobs in docks, on the railway, and for a while at Aintree racecourse. Many of his early stories were published in the Liverpool Echo, the editor of which, E. Hope Prince, became his mentor.
Hanley's first novel, Drift (1930), and his first volume of stories, The German Prisoner (1930), were published shortly before his move to Wales, where he settled first at Glan Ceirw, Ty-nant, near Corwen in Merioneth, and then, in the autumn of 1941, at Bodynfoel Lodge and Tan-y-ffridd in the village of Llanfechain, Montgomeryshire. His second novel, Boy (1932), was originally published in an edition of 145 copies for subscribers only. An expurgated trade edition followed, but when in 1934 it was issued in a cheap edition, copies were seized by the police and the book was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. The publisher was fined £400 and copies of the book were burnt. Hanley forbade republication of the novel during his lifetime and it was not reissued until 1990.
The first of Hanley's novels about the Furys, a Liverpool Irish family, appeared in 1935 and a volume of autobiography, Broken Water, in 1937. On the outbreak of the Second World War he found work with the BBC and later with the Ministry of Information, but his home remained in Llanfechain until 1963, when he and his wife moved to London. During the war he wrote three novels of the sea which are among his best work: Hollow Sea (1938), The Ocean (1941), and Sailor's Song (1943). He also wrote the autobiographical No Directions (1943). Many of his stories and radio plays were broadcast on the BBC Third Programme during the 1940s. During his long residence in Wales, Hanley wrote four books: a collection of essays, Don Quixote Drowned (1953), and the novels The Welsh Sonata (1954), Another World (1971), and A Kingdom (1978). His 'Selected Stories' appeared in 1947 and 'Collected Stories' in 1953. Hanley died of bronchial pneumonia in November 1985.
Matthew Manning was born in 1955. He became famous with the publication of his first book, The Link" in 1974 which sold over a million copies. "The Link and In the Minds of Millions (1977) were autobiographical works which described psychic phenomena. Matthew Manning was also notable for his skill in automatic drawing (ie producing artwork in the style of other other artists).
Herbert Somerton Foxwell was born on 17 June 1849 in Somerset, the son of an ironmonger and slate and timber merchant. He received his early education at the Weslyian Collegiate Institute, Taunton. After passing the London Matriculation examination at the minimum age, he obtained a London External BA Degree at the age of 18. He went to St. John's College, Cambridge in 1868. He was placed senior in the Moral Sciences Tripos in 1870 and was associated with the College for the rest of his life. He was made a Fellow in 1874 and held his College lectureship for sixty years. In the University he was largely responsible for the honours teaching of economics from 1877 to 1908. Foxwell was assistant lecturer to his friend Stanley Jevons who had held the Chair of Economics at University College London from 1868 and then succeeded Jevons as chair in May 1881, holding the post until 1927. At the same time, Foxwell was Newmarch Lecturer in statistics at University College London and a lecturer on currency and banking from 1896 at London School of Economics. In 1907 he became joint Professor of Political Economy in the University of London. In addition to these appointments, Foxwell gave extra-mural lectures for Cambridge University from 1874 and for London from 1876 to 1881 in London, Leeds, Halifax and elsewhere. He also held the following appointments: external examiner for London, Cambridge and other universities; first Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of London; vice-president and president of the Council of the Royal Economic Society; member of the Councils of the Statistical Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science; and secretary and later president of the University (Cambridge) Musical Society and the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. He also provided a course of lectures at the Institute of Actuaries. Foxwell was a dedicated book-collector and bibliophile and concentrated on the purchase of economic books printed before 1848. He described his library as a collection of books and tracts intended to serve as the basis for the study of the industrial, commercial, monetary and financial history of the United Kingdom as well a of the gradual development of economic science generally. Foxwell's library provides the nucleus of the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature. When The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths purchased the library of economic literature from Foxwell in 1901 for £10,000 it contained about 30,000 books. The Company also generously provided Foxwell with a series of subventions following the purchase of the Library to enable him to make further acquisitions prior to the gift of the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature to the University of London in 1903. From the sale in 1901, Foxwell kept back duplicates that formed a second collection which he sold to Harvard University for £4,000 in 1929. From the termination of dealings with the Goldsmiths' Company in 1903, he began creating a second major collection. By his death, on 3 August 1936, Foxwell had amassed a further 20,000 volumes that were sold to Harvard University creating the focus for the Kress Library.
Charles Lahr was born Karl Lahr in 1885 at Wendlesheim in the Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. During his teenage years he became first a Buddhist and later an anarchist. In 1905, to escape conscription into the German army, he left Germany for London. On arriving in London he worked as a baker and expressed his political involvement by joining and frequenting anarchist clubs. By 1914 Lahr had taken work as a razor grinder and had joined the British Section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He began to accumulate books at around this time as he moved from residence to residence in the Kings Cross area of London. He also let rooms to people he met through his political activities. Designated an enemy alien, Lahr was interned in Alexandra Palace in London from 1915 to 1919. After the war Lahr returned to his trade and continued his involvement with the IWW, where he met his future wife, Esther Archer, whom he married in 1922. Lahr and Archer both joined the Communist party in 1920, but left in 1921. It was during this brief membership that the Lahr met and became friends with Liam O'Flaherty. In 1921 Lahr took over the Progressive Bookshop at 68 Red Lion Square, Holborn. The bookshop became a centre for new writers and political activists from around the world, and specialised in the sale of radical literature and first editionsThe Lahr's first moves into publishing came in when K. S. Bhat recommended the editors of the New Coterie to take the magazine to the Lahrs. From 1925 onwards Lahr started publishing items on his own account, often using his wife's maiden name to counter anti-German prejudice. During 1925 to 1927 these took the form of offprints from New Coterie, and then articles within the magazine itself. In the publishing world he was in close contact with writers such as D. H. Lawrence, T. F. Powys, James Hanley, A.S.J. Tessimond, Liam O' Flaherty, Paul Selver, Russell Green, George Woodcock, Rhys Davies and several others. The New Coterie ran until 1927, and in 1930 Lahr launched his Blue Moon Booklets and a year later the Blue Moon Press. However, by 1933 Lahr was having financial problems. In 1935 his difficulties came to a head when he was found guilty of receiving stolen books and was sentenced to six months imprisonment. However, after his release he continued his publishing activities although on a much reduced scale. The bookshop continued to be a focus for radicals and revolutionaries.The bookshop in Holborn was bombed in May 1941. Lahr moved the bookshop to several locations in central London before finally moving it to the headquarters of the Independent Labour Party at 197 Kings Cross Road, London. Charles Lahr died in London in 1971.
References:R. M. Fox, 'Lahr's Bookshop' in Smoky Crusade, Hogarth Press, 1938, pp. 180-188.D. Goodway, 'Charles Lahr: Anarchist, Bookseller' in London Magazine, Jun-Jul 1977, pp. 47-55.
In 1769 Bruyard entered the Bureau of Trade, where he was trained by his father. In 1776-1777, he worked in Italy and Sicily. On 1 September 1780, Bruyard was appointed inspector of factories in Aachen and two years later (02-07-1782) he was appointed to a similar position in Paris. He lost his job after the Inspectorate was abolished following the revolution.
Laurence Whistler won the first King's Gold Medal for poetry in 1935. He published twelve books of poetry. Whistler was famed for his prodigious skill in point engraving on to glass. His work may be seen in many museums and numerous churches, including Salisbury Cathedral.
The Beer Trade Protection Society represented 41,000 "beershops" and 89,000 public houses in England. The Society was based in London and was mainly concerned with the sale of beer and ale within the capital. The Society had a number of functions. It was a political lobbying group but also cared for retired or distressed inn-keepers and their dependents. The Society was particularly concerned with defending the Beerhouse Act of 1830, which exempted the sale of beer from the need to be licensed by a justice. This provision of the Act was under constant pressure from temperance groups.
John Baker Holroyd was born in 1735. In 1781 he was created Baron Sheffield of Dunamare, Co Meath in the Peerage of Ireland and in 1802 created Baron Sheffield of Sheffield, Co. York in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. He was President of the Board of Agriculture, a Lord of Trade and one of His Majesty's most honourable Privy Council. He was known in the literary world as a writer on political economy. He died in 1821.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
John Urpeth Rastrick was born at Morpeth in Northumberland on 26 January 1780, the son of John Rastrick, an engineer to whom he became articled in 1795. In about 1801, he was working at the Ketley Iron Works in Shropshire and, in or after 1805, he joined in partnership with John Hazledine (soon succeeded by Robert Hazledine) of Bridgenorth, Shropshire. During this time, Rastrick assisted in the construction of the locomotive 'Catch me who Can' for Richard Trevithick in 1808, and in 1814, he took out a patent for a steam engine and soon started experimenting with steam traction on railways. His first major work was the cast iron road bridge over the Wye at Chepstow (1815-1816). In 1817 Rastrick left that partnership, to join with James Foster, in about 1819, at the iron works which then became known as Foster, Rastrick and Co., at Stourbridge, Worcestershire. His association with railway engineering began in 1822 when he became an engineer for the Stratford and Moreton Railway. Rastrick became an active supporter of railway proposals put before Parliament, an adviser to railway companies, and a designer and builder of locomotives - the 'Agenoria' and 'Stourbridge Lion' for example. He acted as surveyor or engineer to parts of a large number of lines, among them the Liverpool and Manchester (1829 onwards), the Manchester and Cheshire Junction (1835 onwards), and the series of lines later known as the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (1836 onwards). About 1847, he retired from engineering work, although he continued to occupy himself with railway business, and was active in a number of arbitrations concerning railway disputes. He retired to Sayes Court, Chertsey, Surrey and died on 1 November 1856.
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.
Charles Davenant was born in London in 1656. Educated at the grammar school, Cheam, Surrey and Balliol College, Oxford University, he became MP for St Ives, Cornwall, in 1685, and for Great Bedwin, 1690 and 1700. He was Commissioner of the Excise, 1678-1689, and Inspector General of Exports and Imports from 1705 until his death in Nov 1714. Davenant also wrote widely on politics and economics.
Publications: Reflections upon the Constitution and Management of the Trade to Africa, through the whole course and progress thereof, from the beginning of the last century, to this time (John Morphew, London, 1709); The Songs in Circe (Richard Tonson, London, 1677); An Account of the Trade between Great-Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Africa, Newfoundland, etc. With the importations and exportations of all commodities, particularly of the woollen manufactures. Deliver'd in two reports made to the Commissioners for Publick Accounts (A. Bell, W. Taylor; J. Baker, London, 1715); An essay upon ways and means of supplying the war (London, 1695); Essays upon Peace at Home, and War Abroad (James Knapton, London, 1704); A Discourse upon Grants and Resumptions, showing how our ancestors have proceeded with such Ministers as have procured to themselves Grants of the Crown revenue; and that the Forfeited Estates ought to be applied towards the payment of the Publick Debts (London, 1700); Sir Thomas Double at Court, and in High Preferments. In two dialogues, between Sir T. Double and Sir Richard Comover, alias Mr. Whiglove: on the 27th of September, 1710 (John Morphew, London, 1710); An Essay on the East India Trade (London, 1696); Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England (J Knapton, London, 1698); A Report (a second Report) to the Honourable the Commissioners for putting in execution the Act, intitled, An Act for the Taking, Examining, and Stating the Publick Accounts of the Kingdom (London, 1712); An Essay upon the probable means of making a People gainers in the Ballance of Trade (London, 1699); Essays upon I. the Ballance of Power; II. The right of making war, peace, and alliances; III. Universal Monarchy (London, 1701); New Dialogues upon the Present Posture of Affairs, the species of mony, national debts, publick revenues, Bank and East-India Company, and the trade now carried on between France and Holland (John Morphew, London, 1710).
Arthur William Symons was born at Milford Haven on 28 February 1865. At the age of twenty-one Symons wrote his first critical work An Introduction to the Study of Browning, 1886. From 1889 Symons made frequent trips to France and became interested in its literature and art. He contributed regularly to the Athenaeum, Saturday Review and Fortnightly Review. Symons published several books of poetry including Collected Poems 1900 and The Fool of the World and other Poems 1906. In 1906 he bought Island Cottage, at Wittersham, Kent, where he died on 22 January 1945.
Charles Davenant was born in London in 1656. Educated at the grammar school, Cheam, Surrey and Balliol College, Oxford University, he became MP for St Ives, Cornwall, in 1685, and for Great Bedwin, 1690 and 1700. He was Commissioner of the Excise, 1678-1689, and Inspector General of Exports and Imports from 1705 until his death in Nov 1714. Davenant also wrote widely on politics and economics.
Publications: Reflections upon the Constitution and Management of the Trade to Africa, through the whole course and progress thereof, from the beginning of the last century, to this time (John Morphew, London, 1709); The Songs in Circe (Richard Tonson, London, 1677); An Account of the Trade between Great-Britain, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Africa, Newfoundland, etc. With the importations and exportations of all commodities, particularly of the woollen manufactures. Deliver'd in two reports made to the Commissioners for Publick Accounts (A. Bell, W. Taylor; J. Baker, London, 1715); An essay upon ways and means of supplying the war (London, 1695); Essays upon Peace at Home, and War Abroad (James Knapton, London, 1704); A Discourse upon Grants and Resumptions, showing how our ancestors have proceeded with such Ministers as have procured to themselves Grants of the Crown revenue; and that the Forfeited Estates ought to be applied towards the payment of the Publick Debts (London, 1700); Sir Thomas Double at Court, and in High Preferments. In two dialogues, between Sir T. Double and Sir Richard Comover, alias Mr. Whiglove: on the 27th of September, 1710 (John Morphew, London, 1710); An Essay on the East India Trade (London, 1696); Discourses on the Publick Revenues, and on the Trade of England (J Knapton, London, 1698); A Report (a second Report) to the Honourable the Commissioners for putting in execution the Act, intitled, An Act for the Taking, Examining, and Stating the Publick Accounts of the Kingdom (London, 1712); An Essay upon the probable means of making a People gainers in the Ballance of Trade (London, 1699); Essays upon I. the Ballance of Power; II. The right of making war, peace, and alliances; III. Universal Monarchy (London, 1701); New Dialogues upon the Present Posture of Affairs, the species of mony, national debts, publick revenues, Bank and East-India Company, and the trade now carried on between France and Holland (John Morphew, London, 1710).
Herbert Somerton Foxwell was born on 17 June 1849 in Somerset, the son of an ironmonger and slate and timber merchant. He received his early educated at the Weslyian Collegiate Institute, Taunton. After passing the London Matriculation examination at the minimum age, he obtained a London External BA Degree at the age of 18. He went to St. John's College, Cambridge in 1868. He was placed senior in the Moral Sciences Tripos in 1870 and was associated with the College for the rest of his life. He was made a Fellow in 1874 and held his College lectureship for sixty years. In the University he was largely responsible for the honours teaching of economics from 1877 to 1908. Foxwell was assistant lecturer to his friend Stanley Jevons who had held the Chair of Economics at University College London from 1868 and then succeeded Jevons as chair in May 1881, holding the post until 1927. At the same time, Foxwell was Newmarch Lecturer in statistics at University College London and a lecturer on currency and banking from 1896 at the London School of Economics. In 1907 he became joint Professor of Political Economy in the University of London. In addition to these appointments, Foxwell gave extra-mural lectures for Cambridge University from 1874 and for London from 1876 to 1881 in London, Leeds, Halifax and elsewhere. He also held the following appointments: external examiner for London, Cambridge and other universities; first Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the University of London; vice-president and president of the Council of the Royal Economic Society; member of the Councils of the Statistical Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science; and secretary and later president of the University (Cambridge) Musical Society and the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. He also provided a course of lectures at the Institute of Actuaries.
Foxwell was a dedicated book-collector and bibliophile and concentrated on the purchase of economic books printed before 1848. He described his library as a collection of books and tracts intended to serve as the basis for the study of the industrial, commercial, monetary and financial history of the United Kingdom as well a of the gradual development of economic science generally.
Foxwell's library provides the nucleus of the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature. When The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths purchased the library of economic literature from Foxwell in 1901 for £10,000 it contained about 30,000 books. The Company also generously provided Foxwell with a series of subventions following the purchase of the Library to enable him to make further acquisitions prior to the gift of the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature to the University of London in 1903.
From the sale in 1901, Foxwell kept back duplicates that formed a second collection which he sold to Harvard University for £4,000 in 1929. From the termination of dealings with the Goldsmiths' Company in 1903, he began creating a second major collection. By his death, on 3 August 1936, Foxwell had amassed a further 20,000 volumes that were sold to Harvard University creating the focus for the Kress Library.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
John Henry Pyle Pafford was Goldsmiths' Librarian of the University of London Library from 1945 to 1967. He published works on librarianship, including Library Cooperation in Europe (1935) and American and Canadian Libraries: some notes on a visit in the summer of 1947 (1949), and acted as an editor of The Year's Work in Librarianship during 1939-1950. He was also an editor of literary texts, notably the Arden edition of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.
Charles Lahr was born Karl Lahr in 1885 at Wendlesheim in the Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. During his teenage years he became first a Buddhist and later an anarchist. In 1905, to escape conscription into the German army, he left Germany for London. On arriving in London he worked as a baker and expressed his political involvement by joining and frequenting anarchist clubs. By 1914 Lahr had taken work as a razor grinder and had joined the British Section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He began to accumulate books at around this time as he moved from residence to residence in the Kings Cross area of London. He also let rooms to people he met through his political activities. Designated an enemy alien, Lahr was interned in Alexandra Palace in London from 1915 to 1919. After the war Lahr returned to his trade and continued his involvement with the IWW, where he met his future wife, Esther Archer, whom he married in 1922. Lahr and Archer both joined the Communist party in 1920, but left in 1921. It was during this brief membership that the Lahr met and became friends with Liam O'Flaherty. In 1921 Lahr took over the Progressive Bookshop at 68 Red Lion Square, Holborn. The bookshop became a centre for new writers and political activists from around the world, and specialised in the sale of radical literature and first editions. The Lahr's first moves into publishing came in when K. S. Bhat recommended the editors of the New Coterie to take the magazine to the Lahrs. From 1925 onwards Lahr started publishing items on his own account, often using his wife's maiden name to counter anti-German prejudice. During 1925 to 1927 these took the form of offprints from New Coterie, and then articles within the magazine itself. In the publishing world he was in close contact with writers such as D. H. Lawrence, T. F. Powys, James Hanley, A.S.J. Tessimond, Liam O' Flaherty, Paul Selver, Russell Green, George Woodcock, Rhys Davies and several others. The New Coterie ran until 1927, and in 1930 Lahr launched his Blue Moon Booklets and a year later the Blue Moon Press. However, by 1933 Lahr was having financial problems. In 1935 his difficulties came to a head when he was found guilty of receiving stolen books and was sentenced to six months imprisonment. However, after his release he continued his publishing activities although on a much reduced scale. The bookshop continued to be a focus for radicals and revolutionaries.The bookshop in Holborn was bombed in May 1941. Lahr moved the bookshop to several locations in central London before finally moving it to the headquarters of the Independent Labour Party at 197 Kings Cross Road, London. Charles Lahr died in London in 1971.
References:R. M. Fox, 'Lahr's Bookshop' in Smoky Crusade, Hogarth Press, 1938, pp. 180-188; D. Goodway, 'Charles Lahr: Anarchist, Bookseller' in London Magazine, Jun-Jul 1977, pp. 47-55.
Charles Lahr was born Karl Lahr in 1885 at Wendlesheim in the Rhineland Palatinate, Germany. During his teenage years he became first a Buddhist and later an anarchist. In 1905, to escape conscription into the German army, he left Germany for London. On arriving in London he worked as a baker and expressed his political involvement by joining and frequenting anarchist clubs. By 1914 Lahr had taken work as a razor grinder and had joined the British Section of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He began to accumulate books at around this time as he moved from residence to residence in the Kings Cross area of London. He also let rooms to people he met through his political activities. Designated an enemy alien, Lahr was interned in Alexandra Palace in London from 1915 to 1919. After the war Lahr returned to his trade and continued his involvement with the IWW, where he met his future wife, Esther Archer, whom he married in 1922. Lahr and Archer both joined the Communist party in 1920, but left in 1921. It was during this brief membership that the Lahr met and became friends with Liam O'Flaherty. In 1921 Lahr took over the Progressive Bookshop at 68 Red Lion Square, Holborn. The bookshop became a centre for new writers and political activists from around the world, and specialised in the sale of radical literature and first editionsThe Lahr's first moves into publishing came in when K. S. Bhat recommended the editors of the New Coterie to take the magazine to the Lahrs. From 1925 onwards Lahr started publishing items on his own account, often using his wife's maiden name to counter anti-German prejudice. During 1925 to 1927 these took the form of offprints from New Coterie, and then articles within the magazine itself. In the publishing world he was in close contact with writers such as D. H. Lawrence, T. F. Powys, James Hanley, A.S.J. Tessimond, Liam O' Flaherty, Paul Selver, Russell Green, George Woodcock, Rhys Davies and several others. The New Coterie ran until 1927, and in 1930 Lahr launched his Blue Moon Booklets and a year later the Blue Moon Press. However, by 1933 Lahr was having financial problems. In 1935 his difficulties came to a head when he was found guilty of receiving stolen books and was sentenced to six months imprisonment. However, after his release he continued his publishing activities although on a much reduced scale. The bookshop continued to be a focus for radicals and revolutionaries.The bookshop in Holborn was bombed in May 1941. Lahr moved the bookshop to several locations in central London before finally moving it to the headquarters of the Independent Labour Party at 197 Kings Cross Road, London. Charles Lahr died in London in 1971.
References:R. M. Fox, 'Lahr's Bookshop' in Smoky Crusade, Hogarth Press, 1938, pp. 180-188.D. Goodway, 'Charles Lahr: Anarchist, Bookseller' in London Magazine, Jun-Jul 1977, pp. 47-55.
Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool on 17 January 1883. He received his education from St Paul's, London and Magdalen College, Oxford University, where he read Modern History. While at Oxford, Mackenzie founded and edited a magazine called the Oxford Point of View. He also became business manager for the Oxford University Dramatic Society.
George Borrow was born at East Dereham, Norfolk in 1803. He was educated at the High School in Edinburgh, where the family settled for a period of time. At the age of seventeen Borrow was articled to a solicitor at Norwich. Borrow also studied philology and began to consider literature as a profession.
In 1825 Borrow published Faustus translated from the German of F M von Klinger. Borrow went on to undertake a tour of England and Europe and, whilst in St Petersburg, Borrow published Targum or Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and Dialects. Borrow also acted as an agent for the British and Foreign Bible Society while he travelled through Europe and he became one of the first correspondents to write letters for the Morning Herald.
With the proceeds from the sale of his works, Borrow purchased an estate on Oulton Broad, Norfolk. At Oulton, Borrow befriended gypsies and permitted them to live on his estate. While living at Oulton, Borrow wrote, Lavengro (1850), The Romany Rye (1857), Wild Wales: Its People, Language and Scenery (1862), Romano Lavo Lil: Word Book of the Romany, (1872) and other works. Borrow won acclaim for his publication of two works in particular, Gypsies in Spain (1841) and an account of his travel in Spain The Bible in Spain (1843). George Borrow died at Oulton in August 1881.
Robert Southey was born in Bristol on 12 August 1774. He was educated at schools in Corston and Bristol before being sent to Westminster School in 1788. 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. The play was published without Southey's consent in 1817. By then Southey had become a supporter of the Tory government.
In 1795 Southey journeyed to Spain and Portugal. That year saw the publication of his epic poem Joan of Arc. On his return to England in 1797, Southey entered Gray's Inn, London, but only for a brief period, before moving to Westbury in June 1798 and then to Burton, Hampshire in 1799. He was appointed secretary to Isaac Corry, the chancellor of the Irish exchequer c 1801. In 1803 Southey moved to Greta Hall, Keswick where he stayed with his family for the remainder of his life.
In 1809 Robert 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. Southey 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. To commemorate the death of King George III in 1821, he wrote his poem A Vision of Judgement. In 1820 the University of Oxford created Southey DCL and in June 1826 he was elected MP for Downton, Wiltshire, but was disqualified for not possessing the necessary estate. Southey died in Keswick on 21 March 1843.
Alfred Tennyson was born on 6 August 1809 at Somersby, Lincolnshire. At the age of seven he was sent to live with his grandmother at Louth where he attended Louth Grammar School. He returned home in 1820 to be educated by his father. In 1827 he entered Trinity College Cambridge, where he won the Chancellor's Gold Medal in 1828 for his poem Timbuctoo. Tennyson published Poems Chiefly Lyrical in 1830 and Poems in 1832, which were given a mixed reception by several periodicals. In 1842 he published another volume of poems which established his popularity. Tennyson received a Civil List pension of £200 per year in 1845 and he was appointed Poet Laureate in 1850. In June 1855 Tennyson received the degree of DCL from Oxford University. Tennyson continued writing poetry until the last year of his life. He died on 5 October 1892 at the age of 83.
George Gordon Noel Byron was born in London on 22 January 1788. At the age of ten, he inherited his great uncle William's barony to become the 6th Baron of Rochdale. Byron was educated at Harrow School 1801-1805 and Trinity College Cambridge, 1805-1808; where he received a Master of Arts degree. Whilst at Cambridge, Byron had several poetry books and other works printed and published. On leaving Cambridge, he settled in Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire, the ancestral home of the Byrons. He took his seat in the House of Lords on the 13 March 1809 and later that year he began a tour of the Mediterranean and the Near East (1809-1811).
In 1812 Byron published Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Canto I and II and made his maiden speech at the House of Lords. In April 1816 he left England for the continent and spent nearly seven years travelling and writing in Italy. While in Italy he wrote Don Juan, which was published in several parts between 1818-1822. Byron sailed for Greece in July 1823, to help that country in its war for independence. In April 1824 Byron fell ill and died in Missolonghi, Greece.
Little is known about the life of Olive Moore. She was born in England around 1905 and visited America during the 1920s, where she did some writing. Her poem, First Poem was published by Charles Lahr's publishing company Blue Moon Press in 1932. Between 1929 and 1934, she wrote and had published Celestial seraglio, Spleen, Fugue, and The Apple is bitten again. Moore died circa 1970.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on 25 May 1803. Emerson was educated at Boston Latin School, 1812-1817 and at Harvard College, 1821-1825. In 1822 he published his first article in The Christian Disciple. Emerson was admitted to Harvard Divinity School in 1825 and was ordained minister of a Unitarian Church in Boston in 1829, where he remained until October 1832.
On resigning his only pastoral post, because of doctrinal disputes, Emerson embarked upon the first of three trips to Europe in December 1832, during which time meetings with other writers developed his notions of the transcendent. On returning to the United States in 1834, Emerson settled in Concord, Massachusetts, which became a centre of Transcendentalism. The following year Emerson published Nature, which stated the movement's main principles. Throughout his life Emerson lectured and wrote on philosophy, literature, slavery and religion. Emerson died in Concord, age 78, on 27 April 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on 25 May 1803. Emerson was educated at Boston Latin School, 1812-1817 and at Harvard College, 1821-1825. In 1822 he published his first article in The Christian Disciple. Emerson was admitted to Harvard Divinity School in 1825 and was ordained minister of a Unitarian Church in Boston in 1829, where he remained until October 1832.
On resigning his only pastoral post, because of doctrinal disputes, Emerson embarked upon the first of three trips to Europe in December 1832, during which time meetings with other writers developed his notions of the transcendent. On returning to the United States in 1834, Emerson settled in Concord, Massachusetts, which became a centre of Transcendentalism. The following year Emerson published Nature, which stated the movement's main principles. Throughout his life Emerson lectured and wrote on philosophy, literature, slavery and religion. Emerson died in Concord, age 78, on 27 April 1882
Hanley, James (1901-1985), novelist and playwright, was born in Dublin in 1901, the son of Edward Hanley, a ship's stoker. The only school Hanley attended was St Alexandra's Roman Catholic primary school, near his home. At the age of twelve he left school and joined the merchant navy, serving in a submarine during the First World War. Three years later he jumped ship at New Brunswick to enlist in the Canadian Black Watch and eventually saw action in France. Invalided out of the army suffering from the effects of gas, he returned to the sea, working as a stoker on troop carriers, which he featured in some of his novels. He continued to educate himself, mainly by reading Russian literature, and having come ashore in the late 1920s earned a precarious living in a variety of jobs in docks, on the railway, and for a while at Aintree racecourse. Many of his early stories were published in the Liverpool Echo, the editor of which, E. Hope Prince, became his mentor.
Hanley's first novel, Drift (1930), and his first volume of stories, The German Prisoner (1930), were published shortly before his move to Wales, where he settled first at Glan Ceirw, Ty-nant, near Corwen in Merioneth, and then, in the autumn of 1941, at Bodynfoel Lodge and Tan-y-ffridd in the village of Llanfechain, Montgomeryshire. His second novel, Boy (1932), was originally published in an edition of 145 copies for subscribers only. An expurgated trade edition followed, but when in 1934 it was issued in a cheap edition, copies were seized by the police and the book was successfully prosecuted for obscenity. The publisher was fined £400 and copies of the book were burnt. Hanley forbade republication of the novel during his lifetime and it was not reissued until 1990.
The first of Hanley's novels about the Furys, a Liverpool Irish family, appeared in 1935 and a volume of autobiography, Broken Water, in 1937. On the outbreak of the Second World War he found work with the BBC and later with the Ministry of Information, but his home remained in Llanfechain until 1963, when he and his wife moved to London. During the war he wrote three novels of the sea which are among his best work: Hollow Sea (1938), The Ocean (1941), and Sailor's Song (1943). He also wrote the autobiographical No Directions (1943). Many of his stories and radio plays were broadcast on the BBC Third Programme during the 1940s. During his long residence in Wales, Hanley wrote four books: a collection of essays, 'Don Quixote Drowned' (1953), and the novels The Welsh Sonata (1954), Another World (1971), and A Kingdom (1978). His Selected Stories appeared in 1947 and Collected Stories in 1953. Hanley of bronchial pneumonia died in November 1985.
The University of London was established in 1836 out of the principle of a more inclusive approach to education, free from religious tests and more affordable. With its power to grant degrees the University worked generally in close alliance with University College and King's College London as well as numerous other colleges around Britain.
In terms of degrees awarded, the University was the first in England to introduce a Bachelor of Science, tending away from the more general degree. Honours degrees were established in 1903. Of the more marginal degrees, Music was instituted in 1877, the D.Sc. in 1859 and the D.Litt in 1885. Certificates of Higher Proficiency for 'female candidates' were introduced in 1867. Regulations for medical degrees were established in 1839 but continued to change for many years to come.
In 1893, after many years of dispute, a commission sat with the aim of forming a single teaching university in London. The reconstructed University would consist of: University College; King's College; the Royal College of Science; nine medical colleges; the London School of Medicine for Women; the City and Guilds Institute; Bedford College; six theological colleges and four colleges of music. Added to these proposed institutions were the London School of Economics and Political Science; Royal Holloway College and the South Eastern Agricultural College. These proposals were passed in an Act in 1898.
A new committee was established to examine the structure of the University in 1924 that suggested the University adopt the now familiar federal model alongside other recommendations. The University of London Act, 1926, set up a Statutory Commission to pursue the committee's recommendations. In the first half of the century, thirteen more schools were admitted into the federal structure.
The newly modelled University needed more appropriate housing than its present scattered buildings. With the assistance of a sizeable gift from the Rockefeller Foundation a new site was purchased in Bloomsbury. The construction of this new building began in 1933 and it was occupied from 1936.
After the interruption of the war with its occupation of the Ministry of Information, the University began to increase significantly in size and complexity. Expansion also took place outside of Bloomsbury such as Imperial College in South Kensington in the mid 1950s.
The structure and organisation of the University was examined closely in the mid 1960s under the guidance of the Robbins Report. Many of the schools were given a new voice to air their concerns and show their deep-rooted support for the federal system. Numerous other reports would shape the evolution of the University over the next decades. That same evolution and growth exists today.
Until 1901 the Registrar as Treasurer of the University was responsible for financial matters. By 1898 the Assistant Clerk to the Senate who was responsible for compiling accounts assisted him in this duty. After the reconstitution of 1901 an Accounts Department was formed which initially comprised one accountant who reported to the Finance and General Purposes Committee. After the reconstitution of 1928 the accountant reported to both the Court and Finance and General Purposes Committee.
The Accountant's Department was amalgamated in 1977 with the Management Systems Department to form the two divisions of the Department of accounting and Administrative Computing. In 1982 the two divisions of the Department of Accounting and Administrative Computing were separated to become independent divisions of the Court Department. On 1 October 1985 the Accounting and Management Systems Division ceased to be part of the Court Department and from that date reported to the Principal through the Clerk of the Senate.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
The Central File was created after the Registrar's Office was dissolved in 1901.The main task of the Central File was to file correspondence of the University. After World War Two the Central File was renamed the Central Registry. Sometime during the mid-1980s the Central Registry ceased.
The registers of deaths and changes of names of graduates was probably administered by the Registrar's Office and then after it was dissolved in 1901, by the Central File. After World War Two the Central File was renamed the Central Registry. Sometime during the mid-1980s the Central Registry ceased operations.
In 1876 the London Society for the Extension of University Education was founded with the aim of encouraging working people into higher education. In 1900 it became the Board to Promote the Extension of University Teaching (BPEUT) and became part of the University of London. The BPEUT became the University Extension and Tutorial Classes Council in 1928. This body was replaced by the Council of Extra-Mural Studies (later the Department of Extra-Mural Studies). The Department was integrated into Birkbeck College in 1988 and was initially known as the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies.