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Born, c1923; volunteered for the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, 1940; basic training at Guildford; posted to the Records Office at Winchester; moved to Bournemouth; the work included writing up secret war diaries; posted to London to study for six months at Regent Street Polytechnic, 1942; kept apart from the civilian students; taught in the electrical and radio workshops; sent to Gainsborough for the final stages of training, including learning how to search for signals which could be relayed to guns and to calibrate the information; posted to Charminster, working in the radio workshops and on the gun sites; posted to various workshops around England, eventually at Kippings Cross near Pembury, Kent; discharged, 1946; married P R Baker.

The Schools of Engineering at Regent Street Polytechnic were used between 1940 and 1945 for training technicians in various disciplines for the army, navy and air force. Departmental laboratories were used under a double-shift system, and several thousand personnel were trained over the period. Civilian day courses were maintained, but with a restricted number of students, and evening courses were discontinued until the end of the war.

Stacey was appointed to be chief instructor at the Regent Street Polytechnic School of Hairdressing in 1939, having previously been in charge of the hairdressing department at Harrods. Leslie Henry was a pupil at the School from 1938-41. He later became head of hairdressing at Brighton Technical College.

Hairdressing was one of four trade and technical schools at the Polytechnic which were amalgamated in 1929 to become the Craft Schools. They provided general education and specialist trade instruction for boys from 14-17. The Schools also had large evening departments. There were usually about 350 day boys, and in September 1939 about half that number were evacuated to the village of Winscombe in Somerset. A garage was converted into a ladies hairdressing saloon. In 1942, Hairdressing was one of two Schools allowed to make an early return to London. Changes after the War, including the implementation of the 1944 Education Act, meant that the Craft Schools were unable to continue as before, and in 1952 the London County Council moved the Senior School of Hairdressing to Barrett Street Technical College (one of the predecessor bodies of London College of Fashion).

The Polytechnic of Central London (PCL) was redesignated as the University of Westminster following the Higher and Further Education Act (1992), which created a single funding council, the Higher Education Funding Council, for England and abolished the remaining distinctions between polytechnics and universities. As a university, Westminster gained the power to grant its own degrees. The name was changed from "Polytechnic of Central London" to "University of Westminster" by Special Resolution passed on 30 March 1993, with the consent of the Privy Council given 16 June 1992 pursuant to Section 77 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992.

The merger of Harrow College of Higher Education and PCL in 1990 was followed in 1991 by the commissioning of an Accommodation Strategy. This identified the legacy of the fragmented and widely dispersed estate, spread across more than 20 sites. The University has been consolidating onto its main sites in the West End, at Marylebone Road, and at Harrow. A major redevelopment of the Harrow site was completed in 1995 to house the School of Communication (now the School of Communication and Creative Industries). Little Titchfield Street was then refurbished to house the School of Law (completed in 1998), and its former site in Red Lion Square, acquired through the amalgamation with Holborn College of Law, Languagues and Commerce in 1970, sold.

In 1997/98 the University introduced a new devolved structure based on four campuses - Cavendish, Harrow, Marylebone and Regent - supported by a small core of central service units. In 1998 the University acquired the Policy Studies Institute and also the London School of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine, and in the same year opened Polyclinic for the teaching and provision of complementary therapies.

Further information on the University is available on its website: http://www.westminster.ac.uk.

York Place Ragged School was founded in 1864 by the philanthropist and educationist Quintin Hogg (1845-1903), inspired by his observation of the poor in London. With Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird (1847-1923, later 11th Baron Kinnaird), he rented rooms in York Place (formerly Of Alley), off the Strand, for a boys' school, initially a day school, which subsequently began to open in the evenings. Hogg was himself involved in teaching the boys. Another of Hogg's Eton friends, the Hon Thomas Henry William Pelham (1847-1916), was also involved in its inception. The Strand premises were gradually expanded, and a boys' home opened in 1866. The school was associated with a mission room. Later initiatives also catered for girls. By 1869 the institution had more spacious premises at Castle Street, Long Acre. York Place was retained as a home for young women. Hogg, who was engaged in various philanthropic and educational enterprises, also founded the Youths' Christian Institute (later known as the Young Men's Christian Institute). The removal of this Institute to larger premises in Long Acre in 1878 marked its separation from the Ragged School, which ceased when the Board Schools made such institutions less necessary. The missionary work and boys' homes continued under others, but Hogg himself was increasingly absorbed with his Institute.

Roy William Waters (1928-2010), M.A. Cambridge, spent the majority of professional life in education, working as an English teacher and then a school inspector. He began his career at Wandsworth School, south-west London (1954-63), before working as deputy head of Spencer Park School (1963-66). His final teaching post was as head of William Penn School in Dulwich (1966-68); feeling he lacked the necessary skills to excel as a head teacher Waters moved on to work for the Inner London Education Authority schools inspectorate, a post that he held for twenty years until his retirement in 1988.

During his career Roy Waters also undertook the arrangement of school plays and personally took on a number of performance and broadcast responsibilities, from planning a Son et Lumiere production at Spencer Park School to broadcasting both "Did You Write Poetry at School" in 1963 and a series of 60 broadcasts in Schools series "Over to You" for less able Secondary school pupils on the British Broadcasting Corporation's Home Service (Schools) from 1963 to 1966.

These achievements reflect the pastimes which occupied his personal life; Roy had an avid interest in theatre and the performing arts. He spent the last 40 years of his life building an extensive and diverse collection of ephemera, artefacts and printed books relating to his theatrical interests. The emphasis was initially on theatrical ephemera concerned with actors; however, it was when Roy developed an interest in material relating to Oscar Wilde that the scope of the collection expanded to include dramatists. The collection was acquired on various rationales from the narrow and specific, e.g. London theatre programmes, to the general, with material of various kinds linked by their relationship to a particular event or individual, either directly or by association.

The collection was acquired from the variety of avenues available to the private collector of theatrical material, namely ephemera fairs such as those hosted by the National Theatre, print and rare book sellers, auctions and websites such as EBay and AbeBooks.

Barking Local Board was formed in 1882, and took over many of the functions previously undertaken by the Parish Vestry, including the management of Barking Town Wharf. This local board was succeeded by Barking Urban District Council under the Local Government Act of 1894. The first meeting of the new council, consisting of twelve members was held on 8 January 1895, with Dr H. H. Mason being elected Chairman, Mr E. H. Lister becoming Clerk and Mr C. J. Dawson appointed Surveyor.

Barking Urban District Council was responsible for public services, notably public health, sanitation, lighting, electricity, tramways, highways, libraries and parks, as well as having a jurisdiction over the Barking Burial Board from 1897 and the Barking School Board from 1903. Barking Council went on to apply for a borough charter, which was granted in 1931 and led to the awarding of additional statutory powers in 1933.

Soon after incorporation the council began to plan a new town hall, but the project was delayed by the Second World War. After the war the scheme was resumed with only slight modifications to the original design by Herbert Jackson and Reginald Edmonds of Birmingham. Building work was carried out by the works department of the borough council and the new town hall was opened in 1958. The buildings, on the courtyard plan, occupy a large island site between East Street and Axe Street, and include an Assembly Hall approached from the Broadway. The old town hall, in East Street was sold to the Essex County Council for use as a magistrates' court, and became known as Barking Magistrates Court.

The London Government Act of 1963, created the London Borough of Barking in 1965. The constituent parts were almost all of the Borough of Barking and the greater part of the Borough of Dagenham. At the time of the amalgamation the combined population of Barking and Dagenham was around 180,000, the northern tip of Dagenham having been incorporated into Redbridge and a small area of Barking in Newham. The borough was renamed the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in 1980.

Lawes Chemical Company was founded by Sir John Bennet Lawes. He set up a factory for manufacture of super-phosphates at Deptford Creek, London, in 1843, and bought in 1857 100 acres at Barking Creek, Essex, on which the main factory and workmen's cottages were built. The business was purchased from Lawes by a group of businessmen in 1872 and incorporated with limited liability as Lawes Chemical Manure Co. Ltd, to manufacture artificial fertilisers, sulphuric acid and other chemical fertilisers. Branches were established in Scotland, Wales and the Channel Islands, and the company traded overseas in North and South America, India, New Zealand, Australia South Africa and the Middle East. Lawes also established several subsidiary companies as artificial fertiliser merchants. Including: Gwalia Fertilisers (Briton Ferry) Ltd., Neath, Glamorgan (inc 1934), A Nightingale and Sons Ltd, Bedford (inc 1937), Thomas Fenn. Ltd, Ipswich, Suffolk (inc 1947), Seabright Chemicals Ltd (inc 1967), Jersey Trading Co Ltd (inc 1914) and Jersey Trading Co (1948) Ltd, as fruit and vegetable traders. The company became Lawes Chemical Company Ltd in 1935 and went into liquidation in 1969, the business continuing to trade under the name of Seabright Chemicals Ltd.

Williams Hudson Group Limited is the parent holding company for a number of companies, and was incorporated on 30 September 1936, bringing together Samuel Williams and Sons Ltd and John Hudson Ltd, and their subsidiaries. This group went on to acquire more companies, covering the following aspects of trade: international transportation and wharf ownership, road transportation, property dealing, motor retail, finance, hotels and building, engineering and metalwork, fuel distribution, storage and manufacture.

Williams Hudson Group went into liquidation and was sold to an asset stripper in the 1980s, who divided up and sold off the various companies that comprised it. The majority of the companies whose archives are contained within this collection were part of the group, but some are believed to be other companies, which had been taken over by the asset stripper and whose files had become mixed with those of the Williams Hudson Group.

Allan Victor Batley (1887-1977) was born at Wramplingham, Norfolk. He was superintendent of the Parks and Cemeteries Department of the Borough of Dagenham for 24 years from 1930 to 1954. Before this he tended the gardens of a number of private houses, including Broke Hall, Ipswich and Waddesdon Manor, Aylesbury, as well as parks belonging to Southall and Norwood Urban District Council. After his retirement he returned to Norfolk. He died at his home in Attleborough at the age of 90.

William Warne and Co Ltd was established in 1837 as a private company to manufacture rubber products. The company became a joint stock company, the directors then being Edward Gerard Coles (Chairman), Ernest Harry Coles, George Frederick Spencer Warne, Oscar Edwin Coles, and James Burbridge; Ernest. F Spencer Warne acted as the Company Secretary in 1895. The company factory was in Tottenham, Middlesex, with registered offices at 29 Gresham Street in the City of London. In 1907 the company purchased land in Barking and built a new factory there, which became its headquarters, known as India Rubber Mills.

The onset of the Second World War, trading conditions became difficult because, despite military orders, there was a shortage of raw materials. In 1945, William Warne and Co. Ltd amalgamated with the St. Alban' s Rubber Company and The London and Provincial Rubber Co. Ltd. was set up as the holding company. Their range of products was broad, aimed mainly at defence, pharmaceutical and postal markets, and ranged from precision seals for pharmaceutical inhalers and refuelling hoses for military aircraft to rubber bands for the Post Office.

In June 2000, Icon Material Technologies (Holdings) Ltd purchased William Warne and the company name was changed to Icon Warne. At the time, there were 140 employees at Barking. The Barking premises were closed in 2002 when Icon Warne based its production in Retford, Nottinghamshire.

In October 2011 a small group of MA Heritage students at the University of East London began to collect oral histories from the occupiers at the London LSX Occupy Camp in the grounds of St Paul's Cathedral. ​The vast majority of the histories were recorded during the occupation in and around the camp.

Cross Arrows Cricket Club was founded in 1880 by members of MCC staff. Prior to 1880 they played away matches against other local cricket clubs, calling themselves the ‘St. John’s Wood Ramblers Cricket Club’. When they discovered another cricket club had the same name, they needed to call themselves something different. The day before they played against Northwood Cricket Club, one of the staff members asked where Northwood was and received a reply of ‘It’s cross ‘arrow way’ meaning that it was beyond the District of Harrow. J Fennell, who worked at Lord’s as an Assistant Tennis Marker, said ‘That’s it, let’s call the club the Cross Arrows’. Membership of the club was initially only for MCC employees but nowadays allows for MCC and Middlesex County Cricket Club employees past and present and also members of both clubs.

J A Murdoch, Assistant Secretary of MCC between 1878 and 1907, became the Cross Arrows’ first President. Since Murdoch, all the Presidents have also been the MCC Secretary, from Sir Francis Lacey onwards. The captain is usually Assistant Secretary of MCC. Famous players who have represented Cross Arrows during the years include Albert Trott (the only man to have ever hit a ball over the top of the Lord’s Pavilion), Gubby Allen, Denis Compton, Bill Edrich, Jim Laker, Fred Titmus, Mike Brearley, Garfield Sobers, and also non-cricketers such as Gary Lineker. The current Secretary of MCC and President of Cross Arrows, Derek Brewer, played against Cross Arrows for NatWest in 1988.

The club usually plays its fixtures in September, and regularly against teams such as Adastrians (Royal Air Force), Stage, Butterflies, Royal Navy, Stragglers of Asia, and MCC themselves. Cross Arrows fixtures have either been played on the Main Ground at Lord’s or the Nursery Ground. In 1980 Cross Arrows celebrated its centenary with a match against a combined MCC and Middlesex XI, while in 2014, to commemorate Lord's 200th anniversary, a match between a President of Cross Arrows XI and a Cross Arrows XI was played on the main ground at Lord's, made up of MCC staff.

This collection consists of minute books, files relating to fixture arrangements, scorebooks, membership and financial information. Not all records have been retained.

The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 was established in 1850 by Queen Victoria to mastermind the 'Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations'. The commissioners were appointed by Royal Charter to plan and promote the Great Exhibition, with Prince Albert as the President taking personal charge of the operation. The exhibition was held in London in 1851 in a building designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, known as the Crystal Palace. It was erected in Hyde Park, and after the exhibition closed was sold by the contractors to a syndicate for re-erection at Sydenham, where it remained until it was burnt down in 1936. The exhibition made a substantial profit of £186,000, and when its affairs were wound up the commissioners remained a permanent body under a supplemental charter to administer the surplus funds to 'increase the means of industrial education and extend the influence of science and art upon productive industry'. The profit was carefully managed, and capital assets are now of the order of £39 million with annual charitable disbursement of over £1 million. The commissioners proposed to provide a 'locality', and establish central institutions working in cooperation with regional interests to promote industrial education for the benefit of the whole country. Within two years the commissioners had bought an estate in South Kensington of eighty-seven acres. The commissioners were assisted by Parliament to complete the purchase of the estate, and elected Government representatives to the commission as ex-officio members to assist them in managing the estate. Government representatives continue to serve, although the partnership with the commission was dissolved in 1858.

The first step in the development of the system was taken by the Government in founding the Department of Science and Art in 1853. The Department was moved to land off Exhibition Road in Kensington in 1860, and other institutions were established in the same area including the School of Naval Architecture and Engineering (later moved to Greenwich), the Royal College of Science, the Royal School of Mines and the Royal College of Art. In 1858 the commissioners assigned to the Government the land east of Exhibition Road on which the South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria and Albert Museum) was built. The southern part of the main square of the estate was used for the International Exhibition of 1862, and in 1863 part of that site was sold to the Government for the Natural History Museum and other public institutions. From 1860 to 1889 the commissioners used the estate for temporary exhibitions and other activities designed to stimulate public interest in science and art. The commissioners still intended to establish permanent institutions according to their stated aims, and to this end a Museum of Art had been established and Museum of Science was being developed. The commissioners leased sites for and helped promote the foundation of the Royal Albert Hall, Royal College of Music, Royal College of Art, Royal College of Organists, Royal School of Needlework, National School of Cookery, School of Art Woodcarving and Queen Alexandra's House, a residential hostel for female students. The commissioners also enabled the Government to acquire land for developing the National Science Collections and Library and eventually to build the Science and Geological museums. Land was leased to the City and Guilds of London Institute for the building of their Central Institution (opened 1884), and for the building of the Imperial Institute (later Commonwealth Institute). The Royal Horticultural Society's gardens also occupied a large section of the estate until the 1870s. The remainder of the unoccupied estate was leased to the Imperial College of Science and Technology (now Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) which in 1907 co-ordinated its constituent colleges already established on the estate, the Royal College of Science, Royal School of Mines and City and Guild's College.

As part of their aims of 'increasing the means of industrial education and extending the influence of science and art upon productive industry' the commissioners also established fellowships and scholarships for science and engineering graduates which continue today. A scheme of postgraduate awards was launched in 1891 'for assisting the promotion of scientific education by devoting a portion of their surplus income to the establishment of technical scholarships'. Seventeen to twenty scholarships were offered each year to students from universities in Britain, Ireland and throughout the empire. The scheme was reorganised in 1922, with two schemes operating. Senior Studentships (later called Research Fellowships) were available to all British university institutions and provided funds for two years of research for scientists or engineers. Overseas Scholarships, which ran until 1988, were awarded to universities of the Empire and later the Commonwealth. They allowed selected students to devote two or three years to full time research. The schemes provided research opportunities to many outstanding scientists and engineers, including eleven Nobel Laureates, four Presidents and 130 Fellows of the Royal Society. Former 1851 award holders include Lord Ernest Rutherford, Professor Charles Barkla, Professor Robert Robinson, Professor Walter Haworth, Sir John Cockcroft, E T S Walton, Paul Dirac, Sir James Chadwick, C P Snow, Lord Alexander Todd, Professor Sir John Cornforth and Sir Aaron Klug.

A scheme of industrial bursaries was established in 1911 to give graduates financial assistance before obtaining employment in industry, ending in 1939. Post graduate scholarships in naval architecture were also awarded by the commission, and travelling scholarships tenable at the British School at Rome for the study and practice of fine arts. Currently the Commission's educational awards comprise Research Fellowships in Science or Engineering awarded to scientists or engineers to continue research for two years, Industrial Fellowships, awarded to British nationals for work in British industry, Industrial Design Studentships and Research Fellowships for research within the Built Environment.

Born in Tokyo in 1967, Mariko Mori graduated from Chelsea College of Art, London in 1992, before moving to New York to participate in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Her multimedia art comprises photographs, videos and video installations. She has had solo shows at Art and Public (Geneva, 1993), Shiseido Gallery (Tokyo, 1995), American Fine Arts (New York, 1995), the Centre National d'Art Contemporain (Grenoble, 1996) and the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (Wolfsburg, 1999).

Thomas Henry Huxley died in Eastbourne on 29 June 1895 at the age of 70. A Memorial Committee was set up in August the same year with the object of collecting money to provide a fitting tribute to this great scientist. The first Provisional Committee was replaced by a large and distinguished General Committee, which met in November under the chairmanship of the Duke of Devonshire, and decided to seek funds for a statue, a medal and a studentship. An Executive Committee of twenty was set up at this meeting, and a number of local committees took charge of fund-raising in their areas. Statue and medal sub-committees were constituted soon afterwards. Of the £3378 which was collected over the next four years, £1813 was spent on a marble statue by Edward Onslow Ford which was unveiled in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum by the Prince of Wales in April 1900. Dies for a portrait medal were commissioned from the sculptor Frank Bowcher, and the remaining money was passed to the Royal College of Science as an endowment. A student in zoology, botany or palaeontology would be awarded the Huxley Gold Medal, with the option of receiving a silver medal and a sum of money instead. The committees were wound up in 1900 once the unveiling had taken place.

A K Totton was born in Surrey on 6 January 1892, and educated at Berkhamsted School. He studied at the Royal College of Science, London, attending lectures by Adam Sedgwick and E W MacBride, among others, and joined the staff of the British Museum (Natural History) in 1914. Totton served with distinction in the 1914-1918 war, being commissioned in 1915 and awarded the Military Cross the following year. He was severely wounded in 1916 and was invalided out of the army in 1918.

On his return to the Museum, Totton was given charge of the Coelenterate Section. Although he published on a number of coelenterate groups, it was the siphonophores which became his speciality. His first major work on the group was his Barrier Reef Expedition report (1932), to be followed by his Discovery Report on the siphonophores of the Indian Ocean (1954), and, the culmination of his work, the Synopsis of the Siphonophora (1965). Totton visited the West Indies on HMS Rodney in 1932, travelled to the Canary Islands with G O Mackie in 1955, and worked at the Villefranche Marine Station for a number of summers from 1949. Totton retired from the Museum in 1953, and was employed as an Associate until 1963. He continued his coelenterate researches until just before his death on 12 January 1973.

The Godman Exploration Fund was set up in 1920 following the gift of £5000 by Dame Alice Godman, widow of Frederick Ducane Godman (1834-1919), the zoologist. In a letter dated 24 May 1919 she directed that the money should become the nucleus of a fund 'for the acquirement of specimens, chiefly by exploration', and that it should be vested in the hands of five trustees, one of whom should be the Director of the Natural History Museum and another the Speaker of the House of Commons. A deed to bring her wishes into effect was drawn up on 26 May 1920, and the first grant was made to F V Sherrin to support his zoological collecting in Queensland. From 1920 to 1932 all the grants went to zoological collecting, but from 1933 botanical, entomological and geological projects were also supported.

The Fund was augmented in 1929 when Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (1858-1929), the Curator of Mammals, died, leaving the residue of his estate to the Godman Trustees. This amounted in the end to just over £6000 together with the lease of a house in Carlyle Square, which was sold in 1959.

In the 1880s the Director's Office consisted of the Director himself, the Assistant Secretary, the Assistant in charge of the General Library, clerks and attendants. To this were added an attendant for the Index Museum (1885), a staff officer (1922), a photographer (1923), a guide lecturer (1927), an accountant (1931), superintendents and publications sales staff (1940), and an exhibitions officer (1946). In 1970 the Director's Office numbered 77, and was responsible for administration, finance, establishments and security, as well as the Exhibition, Education, Photographic and Publications sections and the General Library. A Department of Central Services was set up in 1971 under the Deputy Director, initially consisting of the biometrics, electronic data processing and electron microscopy units, but incorporating the General Library in 1973, the Photographic Section in 1974, and Publications in 1976. The Department of Public Service was set up in 1975, taking over the old Exhibition and Education sections, and finally, the Department of Administrative Services was set up under the Museum Secretary in 1976. This left a Directorate of only six members. The archives of the Director's Office are divided into four parts: The Director, Central Administration, the General Library, Exhibitions and Education sections, and Publications Section.

The position and duties of the Director of the Museum were laid down in the different editions of the Statutes and rules for the British Museum published by the Trustees over the years. From 1856 to 1883 the natural history departments were under the general control of a Superintendent, who was himself one of the subordinate officers who assisted the Principal Librarian. The 1886 edition of the Statutes, drawn up after the move to South Kensington, gave the 'Director of the Museum (Natural History)' equality with the Principal Librarian in most respects. The 1898 edition removed the power of summoning Trustees meetings from the Director of the Natural History Departments, but otherwise left matters unchanged. In 1908 however, following the stormy directorship of E Ray Lankester (1847-1929), the rules were revised to make the Director of the Natural History Departments subject to the general authority of the Principal Librarian. This clause was retained in the 1922 revision, and only disappeared in 1932 when the Director of The Natural History Museum was once again accorded equal status to the Principal Librarian.
Following the passing of the British Museum Act, 1963, the Director became responsible for the newly independent Natural History Museum to the new Board of Trustees. A Deputy Director post was created in 1971 to improve surveillance of the Museum's scientific work, and Ronald Henderson Hedley appointed.

Operating within the Director's Office was the General Library, set up by resolution of the Trustees in March 1880 to house books and periodicals which were not appropriate for one of the four departmental libraries. Bernard Barham Woodward (1853-1930) was transferred from Bloomsbury to take charge of the new Library, which was located in a corridor to the east of Central Hall. Responsibility for the General Library was initially in the hands of a committee of keepers, but was transferred to the Director in 1884. Woodward had the services of an attendant from 1884, and was given much help with acquisitions by both Charles Davies Sherborn (1861-1940), a natural history bibliographer, and Frederick Justen (1832-1906) of Dulau and Co. Although Woodward's authority was limited to the General Library, he did devise a classification scheme for books which was used in both the General and Geological libraries, and was responsible for cataloguing books across the Museum. He built up a card catalogue of books in all the libraries, which was published as 'Catalogue of the Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Drawings ...', 5 volumes 1903-1915, with supplement, 3 volumes 1922-1940. By the time that Woodward retired in 1920 the Museum libraries had an international reputation.

Woodward was followed by Basil Harrington Soulsby (1864-1933), who had worked in Printed Books at Bloomsbury, and then in the Natural History Museum Director's Office. Soulsby devoted much time to building up the Linnaeus collection, and published 'Catalogue of the Works of Linnaeus in the British Museum ...' in 1929. Soulsby had a staff of two, with George William Frederick Claxton as Clerk.

Alexander Cockburn Townsend (1905-1964), who succeeded Soulsby, presided over the wartime evacuation of the most valuable books and manuscripts, and the move of the General Library into the North Building in 1959. He tried unsuccessfully to wrest control of the departmental libraries from the keepers, but did succeed in centralising cataloguing, purchasing, bookbinding and accounts within the General Library in 1949. Townsend also started a subject catalogue and the publication of lists of accessions. He gained the services of a cataloguer in 1938, and had a staff of nine by 1964, when he was killed in a railway accident.

Maldwyn Jones Rowlands (1918-1995), who had worked in the Science Museum and the Patents Office as well as at the Museum, succeeded Townsend as Librarian in 1965. He oversaw the expansion of the General Library into the Northeast Building in 1973, and the formation of a unified library service for the Museum in the Department of Library Services in October 1975. At the end of 1975 the new department had a staff of forty two, who operated six reading rooms and received nearly 8,500 visitors a year. The Department was acquiring 25,000 items of stock each year, and operated an extensive advisory service.
The Department was renamed the Department of Library and Information Services in 1994 to reflect its wider remit.

The Department of Zoology has its origins in the Department of Natural and Artificial Productions which was set up at the founding of the British Museum in 1756. In 1806 it was renamed the Department of Natural History and Modern Curiosities and was under the keepership of George Shaw (1751-1813) and later Charles Dietrich Eberhard Konig (1774-1851). In 1836 the Department was divided into three branches, of which zoology was one, and in 1856 the branch was given the status of a department, with John Edward Gray (1800-1875) as the first Keeper, and a staff of 15. Gray made great progress in registering, cataloguing and exhibiting the growing collections, and was the first zoologist to gain and deserve scientific eminence through his work at the Museum. Although Gray pressed long and hard for a move to larger premises, he had been succeeded by Dr A Gunther (1830-1914) by the time the move to South Kensington took place in 1883. When Gunther retired in 1895 the department had a staff of 35, divided into the Vertebrate, Invertebrate and Insect Sections.

In 1913 the Insect Section became the separate Department of Entomology. In 1922 the department was divided into nine sections, including Mammals, Birds, Fishes, Mollusca and Crustacea. The number and precise designation of the sections has changed over the years, and by 1965 there were 17, each with its own head, and keeping its own records. By 1965 the department was responsible for one of the largest and most important collections of zoological material in the world, and was an international centre for research in animal taxonomy and systematics. The research was supported by a fine departmental library, rich in manuscripts and rare books. The department was also responsible, in conjunction with the exhibition staff, for displays in the zoological galleries. Staff numbered 98, who between them saw to nearly 5,000 visitors a year, coped with the acquisition of over 35,000 specimens a year, and were responsible for over 100 monographs, papers and reports.

The Society for the Bibliography of Natural History was founded in 1936 by a small number of naturalists and bibliographers based at the Natural History Museum and Royal Entomological Society, led by C Davies Sherborn, Francis Griffin and Francis Hemming. Sherborn was elected the first President, and Griffin the Honorary Secretary. The prime concern of the Society in its early years was to establish the accurate dates of publication of works of taxonomic significance as a contribution to zoological and botanical nomenclature. The purpose of the Society, as stated, was 'the study of the bibliography of all branches of natural history, and the promotion of the study by the issue of publications and the maintenance of a correspondence bureau'. Although no correspondence bureau was to materialise, the first number of the 'Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History' appeared in October 1936.
Originally concerned strictly with bibliography, the society rapidly became a focal point for those interested in the wider history of natural history. It was renamed the Society for the History of Natural History (SHNH) in 1981. The Society's journal, now entitled 'Archives of Natural History', is published in 3 parts every year, and a Newsletter, occasional facsimiles and conference proceeding are also published. The Society has always held an Annual General Meeting, and in the late 1960s evening meetings were held at University College London each winter.

A more ambitious series of conferences and other meetings began in 1974, and continues. Officers of the Society include a President, Honorary Secretary, Honorary Treasurer, Honorary Editor and (from 1979) a Meetings Secretary. There is also a Committee (Council from 1986) consisting of nine members, with coopted Representatives in North America, Australasia, Central Europe and other areas.. In 1996 membership of the society numbered 650.

The Ticket Office, a department in the Navy Office, was established in 1674. Its principal responsibilities were redemption of 'tickets' which were often issued to seamen instead of pay, the maintenance of lists of seamen on ships' books, the adjustment of pay-books according to the muster books, and the registering of the pay and allowances of seamen, naval officers and dockyard officers and artificers. Usually there was a clerk from the office at each port who attended the payment of ships' crews and dockyard workers. The office staff grew from three established clerks in 1689 to eighteen in 1758 and remained thereafter around that size until 1829 when the office was abolished and sixteen of the clerks were transferred to a new Ticket and Wages branch of the Navy Office.

Austen, brother of Charles John Austen (q.v.) and of Jane Austen, the novelist, entered the Royal Naval Academy in 1786 and in 1788 joined the Perseverance in the East Indies He was made lieutenant in 1792, commander in 1799 and captain in 1800, while in the PETEREL. In 1805 he was Flag-Captain to Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Louis (q.v.) in the CANOPUS and was at the battle of San Domingo in 1806. Whilst on convoy to the East Indies in 1809 he successfully settled a dispute with the Chinese, which earned the approval of the Admiralty and the award of a thousand pounds by the East India Company. He was Flag-Captain to Admiral Lord Gambier (1756-1833), then commanding the Home Fleet, in 1810 and, from 1811 to 1814, was in the ELEPHANT in the North Sea and the Baltic. In 1830 Austen was promoted to rear-admiral and to vice-admiral in 1838. He was Commander-in-Chief, West Indies, 1844 to 1848, and was made Admiral of the Fleet in 1863.

Austen, younger brother of Francis William Austen (q.v.) and of Jane Austen, the novelist, entered the Navy in 1794, was promoted to lieutenant in 1797 and to captain in 1810. After service on the North American and Mediterranean Stations, he was from 1815 engaged in the suppression of piracy in the Aegean until his ship, the PHEONIX, was lost in a heavy gale off Smyrna in February 1816. He served as second-in-command of the Jamaica Station from 1826 to 1828 and his success in the suppression of the slave trade led to his nomination as Flag-Captain of the WINCHESTER, North American and West Indies Station, 1830. He was invalided after an accident in 1830 and was not re-employed until appointed to the BELLEROPHON in 1838. He served in her in the Mediterranean, where he was present at the bombardment of Acre in November 1840, until she was paid off in 1841. He was made rear-admiral in 1846 but saw no further employment until 1850 when he was appointed Commander-in-Chief, East Indies, flying his flag in the HASTINGS. He died in Burma while still in this command.

Barlow entered the Navy in 1862, serving first in the Scylla, China Station, 1863 to 1867, and then in the Pacific. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1872 and joined the Immortalite, Detached Squadron, 1874 to 1877, followed by service in the Flamingo in the East Indies, 1877 to 1880. Promoted to commander in 1884, he was appointed to the Bacchante, flagship of the East Indies Station, 1885 to 1888, and was involved in the Burma War, 1885 to 1886. After his promotion to captain in 1889, he commanded the Orlando on the Australian Station and then the Empress of India and the Jupiter, both in the Channel, until 1899. He became Admiral Superintendent of Pembroke Dockyard, 1899 to 1902, and of Devonport, 1906 to 1908.

Baynes, son of Robert Lambert Baynes (q.v.), joined the Navy in 1866 and became a lieutenant in 1877. He served in the Pembroke, 1893 to 1895, and was promoted to captain in 1897. After attending gunnery and torpedo courses, his first active service as captain was briefly in the Minerva, 1899, and then in the Mildura, Australian Station, in 1900. He retired in 1902, advancing to the rank of rear-admiral in 1907.

Founded by Thomas Holloway (1800-1883), the hospital opened in 1885 as an asylum for the middle and upper classes. It closed in 1981.

Alfred Bostock Hill (1854-1932) was Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at Birmingham University.

The Carr Family were Surgeon Apothecaries, of Gomersal, Birstall, Yorks.

Born, 1825; his father was a partner in Allen and Hanbury's, an old-established Quaker chemist and druggist, Daniel joined the family business in 1841; qualified as a pharmaceutical chemist at the Pharmaceutical Society, 1857; Daniel became devoted to the study of pharmacognosy, or the knowledge of drugs, which at that time meant a close study of their botanical and geographical origins; retired from the family business to concentrate on research, 1870; died, 1875.

Publications: Pharmacographia (1874)

The Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research was formed at the time of the passing of the Cruelty to Animals Act 'when a sudden hindrance was thrown in the way of physiological and pathological investigators' (British Medical Journal, v.2(1594); Jul 18, 1891)

Thomas Graham was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and studied medicine at Edinburgh University from 1835 (MD 1838). In 1841 he was appointed an assistant naval surgeon by the Board of Admiralty, serving initially at Melville Hospital, Chatham, then aboard HMS Warspite in home waters, in the Atlantic, American waters, and the Mediterranean between 1841 and 1846. In that year he was commissioned as assistant surgeon of HMS Madagascar, serving mainly in the west of Ireland, where he took a prominent part in assisting the relief of distress during the Famine. In 1849 he was commissioned with the same rank to HMS Hastings, based in Hong Kong, travelling out to meet her aboard the troopship Apollo. In March 1850 he was promoted surgeon, to serve on HMS Phlegethon at Whampoa (now Huangpu), but died a few weeks later on 13 July 1850 from malaria. He is buried on Dane's Island, near Canton (Guangzhou).

Florence Nightingale was born to a wealthy family in 1820. She entered into cottage visiting and nursing early, and from 1844 to 1855 visited hospitals in London and abroad. Returning from an 1849-1850 tour of Egypt she visited the Kaiserswerth Institute for deaconesses and nurses and trained here as a nurse in 1851. In 1853 she became Superintendent of the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen in London. In 1855 at the invitation of Sidney Herbert she took a party of nurses to the Crimean War, serving at the hospital in Scutari Barracks and also visiting Balaclava. On her return to the United Kingdom she engaged in a campaign for the sanitary reforms that she had instituted in the Crimea to be accepted as general practice. Her campaigning led to the foundation of the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses at St. Thomas's Hospital, London. She was also involved in campaigning for humanitarian aid during the Franco-Prussian War, for improved sanitation in India, and for cottage hospitals in the United Kingdom. She died in 1910.

Born, 1905; educated, Clare College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London; Lawrence Scholarship and Gold Medal, St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1933 and 1934; Temple Cross Research Fellow, Johns Hopkins Hospital, 1934-1935; Honorary Consulting Physician, Department of Child Health, St Bartholomew's Hospital; Honorary Consulting Paediatrician, Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital, London; co-founder, The Osler Club, London; President, British Society for Medical History, 1974-1976; President, International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, 1981-1982; died, 20 September 1984.

Manor House Asylum was a private lunatic asylum (metropolitan licensed house) founded by Edward Francis Tuke (c 1776-1846) and continued by the Tuke family. The Asylum moved to Chiswick House in 1893 and was later known as Chiswick House Asylum.

Thomas Baker was Surgeon at St Thomas' Hospital, London.

William Gelder was a chemist and druggist he was a dispensing and visiting assistant to [R Lucie] Reed, surgeon, at Whitechapel Road, London, Mar-Nov 1832, and in the employ of Mr Cope, a wholesale, retail and manufacturing chemist and druggist in Edinburgh, Mar-Aug 1834.

John Temperley Gray was ship's surgeon to the P and O Company.

Roy Lee Moodie was palaeopathologist to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum.

John Frederick William Silk (1858-1943) was an anaesthetist.

Henry Piers was assistant surgeon on board HMS CLEOPATRA, May 1844-January 1847 and surgeon on board HMS SATELLITE, 1856-1857.

Henry VII founded the Savoy Hospital for poor, needy people, in 1505 on the south side of the Strand. It was opened in 1512. It closed in 1702 and in the 19th century the old hospital buildings were demolished.

William Hoffman was in the service of Henry Morton Stanley 1884-1888 (including on the Emin Pasha relief expedition during 1887) and worked as an interpreter for the Congo Free State from 1891. See Hoffman's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for full biographical details.

Camberwell House Asylum was founded in 1846 by John Hayball Paul (1816-1899), who was also medical superintendent, 1846-1899. Paul entered into partnership with F.G. Aubin and Alfred Richards as Aubin and Co., this firm being the official owner of the asylum at one period. During the span of these case books the asylum admitted mainly pauper patients. It closed in 1955.

James Ormiston McWilliam was medical officer to the Niger expedition, 1841, and medical superintendent to the Custom House, 1847-1862.

Charles Tilstone Beke was an explorer in Abyssinia.

Born, Edinburgh, 1714; graduated MA, St Andrews University, 1730; studied medicine in Edinburgh; studied of anatomy under Monro; moved to London, 1734, studied under Cheselden, visited the wards of the London hospitals; attended the lectures of Winslow in Paris, Boerhaave and Albinus, Leyden; M D, Rheims, 1736; licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 1737; Fellow, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 1738, and commenced practice as a physician; Professor of the Theory of Medicine in Edinburgh University, 1747; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1752; lectured on chemistry, 1756; first physician to the King in Scotland, 1761; President, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, 1763-1766; died, 1766.

Publications include: An Essay on the vital and other involuntary motions of animals (Edinburgh, 1751); An Essay on the virtues of Lime-Water in the cure of the Stone (Edinburgh, 1752); Physiological Essays (Hamilton, Balfour and Neill, Edinburgh, 1755); Observations on the Nature, Causes, and Cure of those Disorders which have been commonly called Nervous Hypochondriac, or Hysteric, to which are prefixed some remarks on the sympathy of the nerves (T Becket and P du Hondt, London, J Balfour, Edinburgh, 1765); Observations on the dropsy in the brain, by R W (Edinburgh, 1768); The Works of R. W. ... Published by his son [R Whytt] (Edinburgh, 1768).