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Liberation was founded in 1954 as the Movement for Colonial Freedom (MCF), under the leadership of (Archibald) Fenner Brockway. Its aim was to campaign in Britain for the freedom of colonial subjects from political and economic domination, and to unify the activities of smaller organisations that were concerned with these issues. It was an amalgamation of the British Branch of the Congress Against Imperialism, the Central Africa Committee, the Kenya Committee and the Seretse Khama Defence Committee. The organisation operated from a succession of offices in central London including 318 Regents Park Road, then at 374 Grays Inn Road, and 313-315 Caledonian Road.

Funds were provided through affiliations and membership, cultural events and appeals totalling approximately £2-3,000 per annum. This allowed for a staff of two or three, the publication of a bi-monthly journal, information sheets and campaign material, and the holding of private and public meetings. It had an individual membership of around 1000, and regional, national and international affiliates, which brought the total number involved to about 3 million. Affiliated organisations included trades unions, constituency Labour parties, trades councils, co-operative societies, peace societies and student organisations.

The MCF was largely associated with the left-wing of the Labour Party and other radical groups. It established Area Councils in different parts of Britain. Standing Committees were established for every sphere of the world where colonial and neo-colonialist issues were dominant, including the Mediterranean, the Middle East, South East Asia, East Africa, Rhodesia, South Africa, West Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. The MCF also established a Standing Committee to address racial discrimination in Britain, and a Trade Union Committee to assist trades unions in developing countries. Each Standing Committee was chaired by an MP, and met at the House of Commons. The MCF was sponsored by up to 100 MPs. The Committees were composed of MPs and experts on the different territories, whose role it was to stimulate questions and debates in Parliament, and recommend activities to the Council of the MCF, which was representative of all the nationally affiliated organisations and Area Councils.

MCF helped to bring into being a large number of political pressure groups and charities including the Anti-Apartheid Movement, the Chile Solidarity Campaign Committee, the Committee for Peace in Vietnam, War on Want and the World Development Movement.

MCF was renamed Liberation in 1970 to address the changing perception of colonialism. In the 1960s it began to appear that political independence for colonies had been achieved. However, there appeared an ongoing need to campaign against neo-colonialism in the form of economic dependence of developing countries.

An elected Council in turn elected an Executive Council, which met jointly with the London Area Council. Annual General Meetings were also held. Liberation pursued its aims through various means including the dissemination of information via the general press and various publications, including the journal Liberation; sponsoring the establishment of the publishers New World Books; organising conferences; lobbying governments at home and abroad; hosting delegations from overseas and making reciprocal visits. Funds were raised through annual membership subscriptions and the sale of the journal, as well as appeals for particular projects. In 1984 a grant from the Greater London Council allowed Liberation to participate in the GLC's London Against Racism campaign. Lord Brockway remained President of Liberation until his death in 1988.

The Melanesian Mission was founded in 1849 by the then Bishop of New Zealand, George Augustus Selwyn (1809-1878), to evangelise the Melanesian islands of the South West Pacific Ocean (i.e. the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz and Northern New Hebrides Islands), which formed part of his diocese. In 1850 the Australian Board of Missions was formed and the Australian and New Zealand Colonies formally adopted the Melanesian Mission. In January 1854, Bishop Selwyn used a visit to England to plead the cause of the Mission. He obtained the gift of a mission ship, which was named the 'Southern Cross'. The ship and its successors were to become the visible link between the remote parts of the diocese, carrying the Bishop on his biannual circuits and transporting missionaries, trainees, stores and medical supplies to their destinations.

From its foundation, Selwyn intended the work of the Melanesian Mission to be conducted by native teachers and a native ministry. In his own words, the 'white corks are only to float the black net'. The work was threefold: evangelistic, educational and medical. Trained 'Native Brothers' undertook pioneer evangelistic work. Under vows renewed yearly, they volunteered to visit unexplored areas and win a footing for teachers to follow. European clergy and lay-workers also engaged in the first stages of work in certain areas. Education was the key to evangelisation. In addition to village and district schools there was a system of 'Central Schools' for native children who reached the required standard. These were run by European missionaries and assisted by native teachers. After training and testing, these children were set apart for the teaching of religion in their local communities or on other islands. The Mission also had a college at Siota, Solomon Islands, for training ordination candidates. Medical work in Melanesia truly began in 1888 with the addition of a missionary doctor, Dr. H. P. Welchman. The main medical centre of the Mission was the Hospital of the Epiphany at Fauabu, on the Island of Mala, with a series of smaller hospitals in the districts and village dispensaries run by local women. Care was also provided for lepers and, with the help of the Mother's Union in England, centres were established to give classes on health and hygiene to Melanesian women.

Initially the Melanesian Mission was funded with special grants and by private donors. Subsequent sources of funding included an endowment bequeathed by Bishop Patteson; proceeds from Miss Charlotte Yonge's book 'the Daisy Chain'; contributions from England in the form of donations, legacies, subscriptions, special appeal funds and the sale of the mission magazine, the Southern Cross Log; and contributions from New Zealand and Australia.

In 1855, John Coleridge Patteson (1827-1871) joined the Melanesian Mission. He was consecrated as Bishop of the newly formed diocese of Melanesia in 1861. Patteson's efforts were concentrated on the Northern New Hebrides, Banks and Solomon Groups, including Santa Cruz and Swallow Isles. In 1867 he secured the transfer of the training college and headquarters of the mission from New Zealand to St. Barnabas, Norfolk Island. He also reduced to writing several of the Melanesian languages, preparing grammatical studies and translations of parts of the New Testament. In 1869 Patteson began the native ministry with the ordination of George Sarawia. In 1871, Patteson was killed by natives at Nukapu, Santa Cruz Group, probably in response to the recent forced removal of islanders by labour traffickers. His death encouraged the regulation of the labour trade in the South Pacific.

On the death of Patteson, Rev. R. H. Codrington declined the bishopric but continued the Mission with the support of the Bishops of New Zealand and Australia. Subsequent Bishops of Melanesia included the son of the founder, John Richardson Selwyn (1877-1892); Cecil Wilson (1894-1911); Cecil J. Wood (1912-1918); John Manwaring Steward (1919-1928); Frederick Molyneux (1928-1932); Walter Hubert Baddeley (1932-1947); S.G. Caulton (1948-1954); and Bishop A. T. Hill (1954-).

By 1899, the staff of the Mission included the Bishop, Archdeacon, 9 white priests, 2 native priests, 9 native deacons, 420 native teachers, 6 white women workers and 12,000 Christians.

In 1910 the first conference of Mission staff was held in the Islands, and the second in 1916. At this time the decision was made to adopt English as the language to be used in Mission Schools in place of Mota, a change which took effect in 1928. On 6 August 1919, for the first time, a special Synod composed of European and native clergy was called to propose a successor to Bishop Wood from its own members. They elected John Manwaring Steward. In October 1921, at St. Luke's Church, Siota, the first Synod of the Missionary Diocese of Melanesia was constituted. Bishop Steward issued his primary charge, which was printed at the Mission Press, Norfolk Island. His charge laid down that the manner of rule in a diocese is that of a Bishop and his priests together; that native clergy should have the same position in Diocesan Councils as the missionary clergy; that the Synod should not meet less than once in 7 years; and he gave definite regulations as to the powers of the synod and its relations with the Bishop.

In 1920, the Mission headquarters moved to Siota, on the Island of Florida in the Solomons. In 1925 Rev. F. M. Molyneux was consecrated as the first Assistant Bishop, and the Native Brotherhood was founded, led by Ini Kopuria. In 1929, two Sisters from the Community of the Cross were brought to Melanesia to work amongst the women and girls of the Islands. In 1926 the Diocese of Melanesia was extended to include the Mandated Territory, which included North New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the northern islands of the Solomon Group, and preliminary visits were made to discuss the possibility of opening up new work there. From 1929, New Britain in the Mandated Territory was also opened up and developed, assisted by the work of the Native Brotherhood.

The Japanese invasion in early 1942 involved the Mission in New Britain and the Solomon Island areas. The Mission experienced a great deal of damage to stations and buildings; however, the native church survived and assisted with the care of wounded Allied troops. Bishop Baddeley began the work of reconstruction after the War.

In 1963, Rev. Dudley Tuti and Rev. Leonard Alufurai became the first Melanesian priests to be consecrated as Assistant Bishops of Melanesia by the Archbishop of New Zealand. In January 1973, at the diocesan conference held in Honiara, Solomon Islands, it was agreed to set up an autonomous Province of Melanesia (formerly an Associated Missionary Diocese of the Church of the Province of New Zealand) with its own constitution. On 12 January 1975, with the permission of the General Synod of the Church of the Province of New Zealand, the Church of Melanesia was thus inaugurated as an autonomous province.

In 1999, the 150th anniversary of the Church of Melanesia was celebrated in Honiara, Solomon Islands. The Church's Archbishop, Ellison Pogo, vowed that the Church would continue to uphold the founder's vision for the Melanesian Mission. The Church of Melanesia is now widely involved in many development and social projects. It has a fleet of ships, operates a shipyard and a commercial printing press.

Further reading: D Hilliard, God's Gentlemen. A History of the Melanesian Mission, 1849-1942 (University of Queensland Press, 1978); E S Armstrong, History of the Melanesian Mission (London, 1900); S W Artless, The Story of the Melanesian Mission (Church Army Press, Oxford, revised 1965).

Born at Otley, Yorkshire, of devout Methodist parents, 1864; educated at Otley Collegiate School; entered the Primitive Methodist ministry, 1887; minister at Barrowford, 1887-1888; Halifax, 1888-1889; sent by the Primitive Methodist Missionary Committee on a pioneering mission to northern Rhodesia, 1889-1902; his time in Africa affected his health and he returned to England, 1902; minister at Halifax, 1902-1903; Brighouse, 1903-1908; Nottingham, 1908-1911; Gainsborough, 1911-1916; Leeds, 1916-1919; Financial Secretary to the Missionary Department, 1919-1924; Kingston, 1924-1925; Secretary of the Chapel Aid Association, 1925-1936; supernumerary, 1936; married firstly Elizabeth Anne (née Smith) and secondly Harriet (née Wright); died, 1937. Publication: The Rev Henry Buckenham, pioneer missionary (Joseph Johnson, London [1920]).

Born in Rockferry, Birkenhead, England, 1883; trained at Didsbury theological college; ordained as a Wesleyan Methodist minister; served the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society at Chipembi, northern Rhodesia (later Zambia), 1910-1915; chaplain to the armed forces, 1915-1917; returned as missionary to northern Rhodesia, 1917; instrumental in the development of Chipembi mission station and its circuit, although his treks in the Luano Valley did not result in permanent missionary endeavour there owing to shortages of money and manpower; served the Selukewe, Salisbury, Broken Hill, Lusaka, Nambala and Kafue circuits; reduced the language of the Bene-Mukuni to writing, translating part of the Bible and producing a vernacular hymnbook; began the first girls' secondary school in northern Rhodesia at Chipembi, 1928; supernumerary from 1951; subsequently served at Chingola; MBE; married, firstly, Louie (née Barrett) and, secondly, Dorothy Mabel Christian (née Hicks); died, 1963. Publications: articles and books on missionary subjects.

The British North Borneo (Chartered) Company was formed in 1881 and from 1882 administered the territory of North Borneo, the present-day Malaysian state of Sabah. The Company ruled the territory until the end of 1941, when the Japanese occupation ended Company rule. After the war, in 1946, the Company surrendered the territory to the British Crown and North Borneo became a British colony until 1963, when the territory became part of Malaysia. The Company was dissolved in 1953.

The territory was administered by a Governor, a nominated Legislative Council and a Civil Service, but the final seat of authority was the Court of Directors of the Company, which sat in London. The Company, under the Charter, was the Government of the territory and had to maintain a civil administration. But the Company was also mindful of its shareholders, and promoted the territory as a source of timber, forest products and mineral wealth, and publicised the territory's potential for growing plantation crops such as rubber and coconut.

Edward Peregrine Gueritz was Governor of British North Borneo, 1904-1911.

Further reading: K G Tregonning, Under Chartered Company Rule (North Borneo 1881-1946) (University of Malaya Press, 1958).

From at least 1821 the Church Missionary Society advocated the establishment of a permanent post in Jerusalem. The London Jewish Society, which aimed to convert Jews to Christianity, also took an interest in the city. The first permanent station was established in Jerusalem in 1833 and the first Bishop, Michael Solomon Alexander (a converted Jewish Rabbi), arrived in 1841 with the aim of converting Jews and Palestinians to Christianity. The Bishopric started as an Anglo-Prussian union, for Anglicans and Lutherans. In 1845, the first Anglican Church (Christ Church, Jaffa Gate) was dedicated. The second Bishop (1845-1879) was Samuel Gobat von Cremines. After the death of the third Bishop (1879-1881), Joseph Barclay, the Bishopric became a solely Anglican Bishopric, centred on the Cathedral Church of St George, which was built and dedicated in 1898 under the fourth Bishop, George Blyth (d 1914).

Khalil Sakakini (1878-1953) was a Palestinian educationalist and Arab nationalist.

Isa Daoud Al-Isa (1878-1950) was a Palestinian journalist and poet, the co-founder (in 1911) and editor of the Arabic newspaper based in Jaffa, Filastin.

Ebenezer John Mann was born in 1881, and Mabel Mann in 1883. They were second cousins, and first met in England in 1900. Each sailed independently for China with the China Inland Mission - Ebenezer in 1903, and Mabel in 1905. Both were sent to Kansu province (North West China) - Ebenezer to Tsinchow and Fukiang, Mabel to Liangchow. In October 1907 they were married at Sichuan and left to fill a gap at the Si'ning Mission (close to the Tibetan border) for six months. In May 1908 they returned to Fukiang, where they were based until their retirement in 1944. In 1921 Ebenezer Mann was appointed Chairman of the Famine Relief Committee set up after the earthquake in Kansu Province. He was awarded the Certificate of the Medal of the Sprouting Grain in 1921, the highest award given to foreigners. Ebenezer Mann died in 1957 and Mabel Mann in 1977.

The Zimbabwe-Rhodesia Constitutional Conference, held at Lancaster House, London, began on 10 September 1979. The delegates included Lord Carrington, the British Foreign Secretary; Bishop Abel Muzorewa, Prime Minister of Rhodesia since the general election in April, and other members of his Government of National Unity including the former premier, Ian Smith, Joshua Nkomo, head of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), and Robert Mugabe, head of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), both representing the Patriotic Front. Although none of the participants began the conference with any real expectations that a solution would be reached, after four months of negotiation a settlement was concluded. On 21 December 1979 the delegates signed an agreement to accept a constitution for a new independent Zimbabwe and to implement a cease-fire in the civil war.

Alice Werner was born in Trieste on 26 June 1859. In her youth she lived in New Zealand, Mexico, USA and Europe. She was educated partly in Germany, and later in England, where she attended Newnham College, Cambridge University. Her interest in Africa began with visits to Nyasaland in 1893 and Natal in 1894. In 1899 she taught Afrikaans and Zulu in London. Between 1911-1913 she toured East Africa, where she came into contact with Swahili and other languages of the region. In 1917 she joined the School of Oriental Studies as one of the original members of staff, initially as Lecturer but later as Reader and eventually Professor of Swahili and Bantu languages. She continued in this position until her retirement at the end of the 1929/1930 session. During this time, she also taught at Oxford and Cambridge, in co-operation with her sister Mary Werner. In 1928, Alice Werner received the degree of D.Litt from the University of London. After her retirement in 1930, she received the title of Emeritus Professor from the same University. In 1931 she was awarded the Silver medal of the African Society, of which she was Vice-President. She died on 9 June 1935.

Alice Werner made contributions on African subjects to the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, in addition to other journals. She also produced works on African philology and mythology. Her own publications included: The Natives of British Central Africa (1906); The Language Families of Africa (1915); A Swahili History of Pate (1915); Introductory Sketch of the Bantu Languages (1919); The Swahili Saga of Liongo Fumo (1926); Swahili Tales (1929); Structure and Relationship of African Languages (1930); The Story of Miqdad and Mayasa (1932); and Myths and Legends of the Bantu (1933). She also translated a number of works.

David McLean was born on 4 February 1833 at Scotswall Farm, near Dunfermline in Fife. At sixteen he joined the National Bank of Scotland. In 1858 he took a post in the Far East with the Oriental Bank at Hong Kong and Shanghai. In 1865 he was appointed Manager of the Shanghai Office of the newly formed Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. He remained there until 1873 when he was made Manager of the Bank's London Office, where he stayed until his retirement in 1899. McLean remained with the Bank as a Member of its London Committee for some years after his retirement. He died in June 1908.

The Nazareth Baptist Church was founded by Isaiah Shembe, the Zulu religious leader and healer, in Natal in 1910. The amaNazarites are the oldest African independent church in South Africa. For further information see A Vilakazi, Shembe: the revitalization of African Society (1986).

Wilson Herbert Geller was born on 26 December 1868 at Thaxted in Essex. He trained at Harley College. In 1897 he was appointed to Siaokan in Central China as Lay Evangelist for the London Missionary Society. On 5 January 1901 he married Mabel Love Neal, also of the London Missionary Society, at Union Church, Hong Kong. His work was mainly pastoral and evangelistic with the oversight of a large country district comprising about 25 churches. He took a large part in the production of a Chinese hymnbook, and composed many of the tunes. He also planned and built Siaokan Church. He retired in 1936, and died on 20 November 1949.

Mabel Love Neal was born on 18 December 1872 at Stoke Newington. She was appointed to Canton and sailed on 9 November 1897. Her chief work in China was building up a Bible school for women, as well as taking part in general work for women and girls at Siaokan Mission. She died on 17 December 1953.

Factors behind the Indian Mutiny (1857-1858) included the political expansion of the East India Company at the expense of native rulers, harsh land policies of successive Governor-Generals, and the rapid introduction of European civilization. The trigger was discontent among indigenous soldiers (both Hindu and Muslim), who revolted, capturing Delhi and proclaiming an emperor of India. The mutiny became a more general uprising against British rule, spreading through northern central India. Cawnpore (Kanpur) and Lucknow fell to Indian troops. With support from the Sikh Punjab, troops under generals Colin Campbell and Henry Havelock reconquered affected areas. The British government subsequently undertook reform, abolishing the East India Company and assuming direct rule by the Crown. Expropriation of land was discontinued, religious toleration decreed, and Indians were admitted to subordinate civil service positions. The proportion of British to native troops was increased as a precaution against further uprisings.

Peter Hackett was a British field researcher involved in the collection of material for the planned third volume of the Linguistic Survey of the Northern Bantu Borderland (Oxford University Press for the International African Institute, 1956).

The survey was undertaken under the auspices of the International African Institute. Support for the project was obtained from the British, French and Belgian governments, and the work was overseen by Malcolm Guthrie and Archibald Norman Tucker. The field research was carried out by four investigators, two to work on the western languages (between the Atlantic Coast and the River Oubangui) and two to work on the eastern (or central) languages (from the River Oubangui to the Great Lakes). In addition to Peter Hackett, the British members of the team included I Richardson, joined by G Van Bulck from Belgium and André Jacquot, a Frenchman. Richardson and Jacquot worked on the western languages, while Hackett and Van Bulck on those in the then Belgian Congo.

At a later date, work on the languages from the Great Lakes to the Indian Ocean (eastern or far eastern languages) was prepared by Archibald Tucker and Margaret Bryan, from documentary sources as well as their own field research. The collection of material for the first two sections of the work was undertaken from June 1949 to December 1950.

The third volume of Linguistic Survey of the Northern Bantu Borderland, which would have appeared under the heading Linguistic analyses of the central (Belgian Congo) area, never reached publication.

Emily Dora Earthy (known as Dora Earthy) worked as a missionary in Portugese East Africa (Mozambique) for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, from September 1917 to December 1930. She then obtained a grant from the Research Committee of Bantu Studies of the University of Witwatersrand, to cover six month's fieldwork among the Valenge women of that country, compiling raw material for her book Valenge Women: the social and economic life of the Valenge women of Portugese East Africa (Oxford University Press, 1933).

David Lloyd Francis was born in England but emigrated to New Zealand with his family in about 1920. He and his wife worked with the Melanesian Mission for sixteen years in the New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands and Santa Cruz Islands, including six months on the Island of New Britain in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. He was ordained in May 1937. During the Second World War he worked as a medical missionary/chaplain for the Allied armed forces in a military camp in the Solomon Islands. After the War, Francis toured New Zealand with an exhibition of 'Melanesian Curios', which he brought to Britain in 1947. He settled again in Britain, doing occasional work for the BBC. He died in the early 1990s.

Born, 1885; educated at Fordyce Academy; MA, Aberdeen University, 1906; BD, Edinburgh University, 1909; ordained in the Church of Scotland; missionary for the Church of Scotland Mission at Ichang, China, 1909-1915; served in the Royal Field Artillery, firstly as a gunner and later as commissioned officer, 1916-1919; awarded the Military Cross; returned to serve at Ichang, 1920; awarded the CBE as a result of assistance given to Captain Lalor of the Butterfield and Swire ship Siangtan, managing to negotiate Lalor's release after he was captured by pirates (1927), 1928; the events were widely reported; honorary Doctor of Divinity, Aberdeen University, 1934; held by the Japanese at Shanghai, 1940; involved in relief work among destitute Britons in Shanghai, 1941-1942; interned in Lunghwa Civilian Assembly Centre, near Shanghai, 1943-1945; returned to work at Ichang, 1945-1948; minister of the parish of Botriphnie, Banffshire, 1948-1955; died, 1973.

Robert Morrison: born near Morpeth, Northumberland, England, 1782; grew up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; following a rudimentary education, apprenticed to his father as a last and boot-tree maker; joined the Presbyterian church, 1798; decided to prepare for missionary work; studied at Hoxton Academy (later Highbury College), London, 1803; studied at the Missionary Academy, Gosport, Hampshire, 1804; appointed by the London Missionary Society (LMS) and studied medicine, astronomy and Chinese in London, 1805; ordained and sailed via Philadelphia and New York to Canton, 1807; pioneering Protestant missionary to China, though he saw few conversions himself; married Mary Morton (1791-1821), daughter of an East India Company surgeon, in Macau, 1809; became translator to the East India Company's factory in Canton, securing a legal basis for residence and a means of supporting himself, 1809; completed the translation of the New Testament into Chinese, 1813; it was printed, 1814; viewed with hostility by Chinese officials; baptised the first Protestant Chinese Christian, 1814; served as translator on Lord Amherst's abortive embassy to Peking (Beijing), 1816-1817; returned to Canton, 1817; on the completion of his Anglo-Chinese dictionary, received the degree of Doctor of Divinity, University of Glasgow, 1817; with William Milne (1785-1822) founded the Anglo-Chinese College, Malacca, for training missionaries in the Far East, 1818; with Milne, completed the translation of the Bible, 1819; visited Malacca, 1823; travelled to England, 1823-1824; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1824; helped to established the short-lived Language Institution in London; ordained the first Chinese native pastor, 1825; married Eliza Armstrong (1795-1874), 1825; left England and returned to Canton, 1826; died at Canton, 1834. Publications include: Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1815-1823); Grammar of the Chinese Language (1815); Chinese Bible and numerous Chinese tracts, translations, and works on philology. His son from his first marriage, John Robert Morrison (1814-1843), succeeded his father at the East India Company and became secretary to the Hong Kong government.

Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society missionary to the Gold Coast, west Africa, 1840-1845; worked among indigenous people in Canada in the Hudson Bay district from 1847.

Unknown.

William Walmsley: born, 1868; engineer; lived in Salford, Manchester; his firm Bousteads asked him to accompany a consignment of machinery to Zanzibar to instal in their coconut processing works, 1891; travelled from Gravesend to Zanzibar, 1891; contracted a fever and entered the French Hospital, where he died, 1891.

Although apartheid was strengthened in the period from 1948, in the preceding period black (African) and 'coloured' (other non-white) inhabitants of the Union of South Africa (established in 1910) were already disadvantaged legally and economically in comparison with white inhabitants. Initiatives to oppose their inferior treatment included the activities of the politican and writer Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje (1876-1932).

The remit of the Commission of Enquiry into the Facilities for Oriental, Slavonic, East European and African Studies (Scarborough Commission) was to research facilities available in Britain and elsewhere for Oriental, East European and African studies, surveying existing facilities using questionnaires, and discussing potential needs with individuals, companies, government departments, trade associations and other organisations, including universities in South Africa and North America. Its Chairman was the Earl of Scarborough and the Secretary was Mr R T D Lechard. Its members included Dr B Ifor Evans. The Commission was appointed on 14 December 1944, and reported in 1945.

Born, 1899; educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge (MA); BSc, London; entered the Indian Civil Service, 1922; retired, 1937; member of the Indian Legislative Assembly, 1937; Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire, 1943; Leader, European Group, Indian Central Legislature, 1946; Knight, 1947; Central Organiser, National War Front, India, and Publicity Adviser to the Government of India; KBE, 1963; Honorary Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1971; President, India, Pakistan and Burma Association; died, 1992. Publications: The British in India (1947); The British Impact on India (1952); Modern India (1957); The Changing Face of Communism (1961); The Road to Freedom (1964); History of the Indian Tea Industry (1967); Empire into Commonwealth (1969); To Guard My People: the history of the Indian Police (1971); A Licence to Trade: the History of English Chartered Companies (1975); A History of the Inchcape Group (1977); A History of the Joint Steamer Companies (1979); Vignettes of India (1986).

James Sibree was born in Hull on 14 April 1836. In his early life, Sibree served as an engineer's pupil and worked for the Hull Board of Health (1859-1863). In 1863 he sailed to Madagascar having been appointed Architect of the Memorial Churches, Tananarive, for the London Missionary Society (LMS). He worked on the churches at Ambatonakanga, Ambohipotsy, Andohalo and Manjakaray. He returned to England in 1867 to study at Spring Hill College, Moseley, near Birmingham. During his time at Spring Hill he also carried out deputation work for the London Missionary Society. James Sibree was ordained in 1870. He was also married in February of that year to Deborah Richardson. Together with his wife, he returned Madagascar as a missionary and was stationed at Ambohimanga. He worked on a revision of the Malagasy Bible, took part in a deputation and in 1876 went to work at the Theological Institution in Tananarive. In September 1877 the Sibrees returned to England, owing to problems with the local government. From 1877 to 1879, he carried out deputation work in England. In November 1879 he was appointed as Principal of the London Missionary Society High School at Vizagapatam, South India. However, due to illness the Sibrees returned to England in June 1880. From 1880 to 1883 he once more carried out deputation work in England. In 1883, he and his wife were re-appointed to Madagascar, where Sibree became Principal of the LMS College at Tananarive. The Sibrees left Madagascar, arriving back in England in November 1916. Deborah Sibree became ill, and a great deal of James Sibree's time was devoted to nursing her. She died on 21 July 1920. In the last years of his life, James Sibree continued to carry out much of the deputation work for the LMS and the Bible Society. In 1923, James Sibree completed the Register of Missionaries and Deputations of the LMS.

William Lockhart was born on 3 October 1811 in Liverpool. He trained at the Meath Hospital, Dublin, and Guy's Hospital, London. Joining the London Missionary Society, he was appointed medical missionary to Canton and sailed on 31 July 1838. In 1839 he left Canton to set up a hospital in Macao. Following an arrangement with American missionaries he left Macao for Chusan and reached Tinghae on 13 September 1840. The following year he returned to Macao and married Catherine Parkes. In 1842 he went to Hong Kong then to Chusan and in 1843 arrived at Shanghai and opened a hospital along with Dr. Medhurst. Following a trip home to England, Lockhart visited Peking and worked there from 1861 to 1864. He returned to England permanently in 1864 and retired in 1867. He was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of the London Missionary Society from 1869 to 1870. In 1892 he presented his library to the London Missionary Society. He died on 29 April 1896.

Alan P Hughes is the great-great-grandson of Lockhart.

Walter Barr Birmingham was Senior Lecturer in Economics at the University of Ghana at Legon-Achimota from 1952-1960. In 1954 he conducted possibly the first public opinion survey in tropical Africa prior to the Gold Coast General Election. In 1955 he served on the Royal Commission of Enquiry into the mining industry and advised on the Five-Year Development Plan of 1963. From 1972-1975 he was Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Coast. His main publications were Introduction to Economics (1955) and in Social and Economic Survey of Ghana edited by Omaboe and Neustadt.

Rev. Harry Parsons was born on 26 November 1878 in Barnstable and entered the Ministry of the Bible Christian Church in 1899. He served in China from 1902 to 1926. He married Edith Bryant on 24 April 1906 in Yunnanfu. In 1907 the Bible Christian Church united with other sections of Methodism to form the United Methodist Church. He died on 8 July 1952.

Edith Annie Kate Parsons was born on 13 December 1876 near Tiverton. She and Harry Parsons were engaged in 1899 and the Bible Christian Church subsequently accepted her as a lay missionary. She sailed for China in 1904. The Parsons had three children, Elsie, born in Zhaotong in 1910 and the twins, (Richard) Keith and (Philip) Kenneth, born in Zhaotong on 17 September 1916.

Both Philip Kenneth Parsons and Richard Keith Parsons became ordained ministers of the Methodist Church, who served at home and overseas. Philip Kenneth served in the Hupeh Central China District, 1940-1946, South West China District, 1946-1950, and later in Kenya, 1953-1965. Richard Keith served in Hupea District, China, 1942-1950, and later as Educational Secretary, United Christian Council, Sierra Leone District, 1953-1958.

From c.1904, Rev. and Mrs Parsons and Rev. Samuel Pollard (also a missionary in Yunnan with the United Methodist Church) went to live among the Hua Miao tribe at Shimenkan, 25 miles east of Zhaotong. They learnt the Hua Miao language and used a simple phonetic script to reduce it to writing. Philip Kenneth and Richard Keith Parsons continued this work with the Hua Miao language. In 1949, they were approached by Mr Wang Ming-ji regarding the possibility of their compiling a Hua Miao-English Dictionary. Wang Ming-ji had already done a considerable amount of work in grouping Miao words written in the Pollard script, and the Parsons translated and annotated these words and phrases.

Alexander Russell was skipper of various vessels based in Fiji including the John Hunt and the Meda. These ships helped supply missionaries in the region.

Samuel Pollard was born in Camelford on 20 April 1864, the son of Samuel Pollard snr., a preacher with the Bible Christian Church. Samuel Pollard jnr. also entered the Ministry of the Bible Christian Church. In 1907 the Bible Christian Church united with other sections of Methodism to form the United Methodist Church. Samuel Pollard went to China in 1886. He attended the Ganking Language School in 1887. In 1888 he was posted to Yunnan. From 1905 he worked in Miao Country amongst the Miao people. His work there was evangelical, but he was also responsible for developing a unique phonetic script to translate the New Testament into the Miao language (Hua Miao). He died of typhoid fever in Miao Country on 16 September 1915. Further reading: R Elliott Kendall, Eyes of the Earth: the Diary of Samuel Pollard (1954); W A Grist, Samuel Pollard: Pioneer Missionary in China (Taipei, 1971).

Born in the China Seas, 1878; spent his early years in Aberdeen; moved to England as a young man; married Harriet Gordon Fraser, 1914; three children; worked as a banker in Liverpool; Presbyterian Church of England elder; interested in China, and his Chinese friends included those from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the Chinese Consulate, and business; involved in Christian universities in China; died, 1972.

A British expedition which embarked in 1787 to start a penal colony in Australia settled at Port Jackson (later Sydney). The indigenous people were the Eora. William Dawes (1762-1836) was Lieutenant (Royal Marines) on HMS Sirius, the flagship of the 'First Fleet'. He was a pioneering student of the language of New South Wales. His interests also included astronomy and in Australia he directed the building of an observatory under the instructions of the Board of Longitude. For further information see the entry by his friend, Zachary Macaulay, in the Australian Dictionary of National Biography, volume i: 1788-1850 (1983). See also A Currer Jones, William Dawes, RM, 1762 to 1836: a sketch of his life, work, and explorations (1787) in the first expedition to New South Wales (1930), and Arthur Phillip, The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay [with] ... plans and views ... by Lieut Dawes ... (1789).

Employed in the Kenya administration; collector and editor of Swahili manuscripts; his research into Swahili was extensively based on correspondence and collaboration with other scholars, notably Sir Mbarak Ali Hinawy (Liwali of the Coast), Muhammed bin Abu Bakr Kijumwa of Lamu, and Alice Werner; his interests included the history of Swahili poetry, translation of Swahili poetry, and the history of the east African coast; of his verse translations from Swahili only a small proportion were published; his Azania Press (at Medstead, Hampshire) published Swahili literature; died in Mombasa, 1944. Publications: edited The Azanian Classics (2 volumes, Azania Press, Medstead, 1932-1934); with Alice Werner, The Advice of Mwana Kupona upon the Wifely Duty (Azania Press, Medstead, 1934); Diwani ya Muyaka bin Haji al-Ghassaniy. Pamoja na khabari za maisha yake ambazo zimehadithiwa ni W Hichens (Johannesburg, 1940). Identification of the collector of these manuscripts as the businessman William Lionel Hichens (1874-1940), suggested by some bibliographic data, is uncertain.

The series 'Plain Tales from the Raj' was produced by Michael Mason for BBC Radio 4 and first broadcast in 1974. The British interviews were largely conducted by Charles Allen, with further interviews conducted in India by Prakash Mirchandani and Mark Tully.

The radio series 'India: A People Partitioned' for the BBC World Service was compiled and presented by Andrew Whitehead and produced by Zina Rohan. It was among the programmes commissioned to mark the 50th anniversary of India and Pakistan's independence and was broadcast in 1997. The interviews were largely conducted by Whitehead, but a few were carried out by Anuradha Awasthi. The series was broadcast again in 2000 and the fifth programme, 'Unfinished Business', was re-made, including further material on India-Pakistan relations. Andrew Whitehead was based in Delhi as BBC World Service correspondent for south Asia.

The evangelical revival which produced, in England, the London Missionary Society and, in Switzerland, the Basel Mission, brought about in 1822 the foundation of the Société des Missions Evangéliques chez les peuples non-chrétiens á Paris (SMEP), a Protestant organisation known in English as the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society. Swiss and English evangelists active in France were instrumental in its foundation. Although its goal was to propagate the Gospel among non-Christians, it did not initially send missionaries overseas, but by 1829 the Society, urged by John Philip of the London Missionary Society, sent its first three missionaries to Southern Africa. Initial difficulties were followed by the foundation of a mission station in what is now Lesotho, where the missionaries Eugène Casalis and later Adolphe Mabille became advisers to the Basuto king Moeshoeshoe. Following 20 years service in Basutoland, François Coillard led an expedition north to found a new mission on the Zambezi River in the territory of the Barotse people, serving there until his death in 1904. In 1863 the SMEP started a mission in the French colony of Senegal, and later the colony of Gabon, where its missionaries replaced American Presbyterians uncomfortable under the French administration. German missions in Togo and Cameroun were taken over by the SMEP after World War One. In the Pacific, English-French rivalry resulted in France's annexation of New Caledonia, Tahiti, and the Loyalty Islands, where SMEP missionaries replaced missionaries of the London Missionary Society. In France the SMEP publicised its missionary work through speaking tours by missionaries on leave from their mission fields, pioneered by Casalis in 1850. Auxiliary committees were established and help solicited from interested parties in France and elsewhere. The SMEP founded its Bulletin in 1825 and the publication Journal des Missions Evangéliques in 1826. In addition to its evangelistic work, the Society also promoted better sanitary and agricultural techniques. The SMEP ceased to exist following the formation in 1971 of the Communauté d'Action Apostolique (CEVAA) and the Département Evangélique Français d'Action Apostolique (DEFAP).

William Evans was born on 5 September 1860. He was attached to the Chinese Protectorate Service in 1882. He held numerous positions in Singapore and Penang before becoming Protector of Chinese, Straits Settlements in 1895. He held the position of Municipal Commissioner for Singapore for a number of stretches between 1895 and 1903. In 1911 he became Resident Councillor for Penang.

William Evans's son-in-law, Alan Custance Baker, was a member of the Malayan Civil Service from 1908-1940.

Charles Granston Richards was born in 1908. He went to Kenya in 1935 as a missionary for the Church Missionary Society, with special responsibility for the encouragement of literacy and literature among East Africans. Working through the CMS Bookshop in Nairobi, he became a publisher - for example, under the imprint of the Highway Press. In 1948, following an appraisal by Elspeth Huxley, the East African Governor's Conference decided to set up an East African Literature Bureau (EALB). Charles Richards wrote the report which led to its establishment and became its first Director. The EALB published a variety of texts, in English and in the major African languages - some of which are included in this collection. Richards remained Director of the EALB for fifteen years.

In 1963 Dr. Richards moved to the Oxford University Press to build up its publishing in East Africa, but in 1964 the OUP released him to work part-time in setting up what became the Christian Literature Fund (CLF) of the World Council of Churches. Richards was full-time Director of the CLF from 1965-1970, and of its successor, the Agency for Christian Literature Development (ACLD) from 1970-1974. The offices of the CLF were in Lausanne, but Richards was constantly 'in the field', as his Tour reports indicate. In December 1974 Dr. Richards retired as Director of the ACLD, which was then replaced by the Print Media Development Unit (PMDU) of the new World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), under the Acting Director, Reverend A. D. Manuel. Richards maintained an active association with the PMDU, and with other agencies concerned with literature and literacy. He served on the British Committee on Literacy, conducted an evaluation of the South African Bureau of Literacy, investigated the progress of the East African Venture, which he had helped to start while at the ACLD, and continued to give talks on his past work.

Agence France Presse, named in 1944, is a French news agency with its headquarters in Paris, supplying world news. It is the successor of a news agency founded in 1835.

Bishwa Nath Pandey ('Bish') was born on 30 October 1929, in the village of Bhatwalia, Deoria District, Uttar Pradesh, India. He read law at the University of Benares, but in 1955 decided to leave his legal practice in order to study Indian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He joined the staff of the School as a lecturer in Modern Indian History in 1963 and became Reader in 1980.

He wrote a number of books including The Introduction of English Law into India (1964); a successful anthology, A Book of India (1964); The Break-Up of British India (1969), which established him as an authority on the Indian nationalist movement; and a biography of Jawaharlal Nehru, Nehru (published in 1976). Subsequently, he turned his attention to the post 1947 period, and produced South and South East Asia, 1945-1979 (1980). At the time of his death in 1982, Dr. Pandey was working on a major study of the history of post-independence India.

He was married twice, with one daughter by his first marriage, and two daughters by his second. He died on 21 November 1982, shortly after chairing a public discussion on the new Columbia film Gandhi.

John Mansfield Addis was born on 4 June 1914. He was the twelfth child and fifth son of Sir Charles and Lady Addis. He was educated at Rugby from 1928 to 1932 and then at Christchurch College, Oxford. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1938 and served for a while as Assistant Private Secretary to the Permanent Under-Secretary, Sir Alexander Cadogan. Between 1942 and 1944 he worked as Civilian Liaison Officer at the Allied Force Headquarters in the Mediterranean, London, Algiers and Caserta, and in 1944 as Second Secretary, HM Embassy Paris. Between 1945 and 1947 he served as Assistant Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee.

In 1947, he began his service in China, as First Secretary and Head of Chancery, HM Embassy Nanking and then in 1950, HM Embassy Peking. He remained in Peking for the next seven years and his postings included Assistant in the China and Korea Department, Foreign Office (1951-1954), Member of the UK Delegation to Geneva Conference on Korea (1954) and Counsellor and Consul General, HM Embassy Peking (1954-1957). He left China in 1957. Subsequent postings included Head of Southern Department, Foreign Office (1957-1959); HM Ambassador Vientiane, Laos (1960-1962); Fellow at the Harvard University Centre for International Affairs (1962-1963); HM Ambassador, Manila (1963-1969); and HM Ambassador, China (1970-1974). He retired in 1974.

In 1975 he was elected as Senior Research Fellow in Contemporary Chinese Studies at Wolfson College, Oxford, and held this position throughout his retirement. He was also a member of the Advisory Council of the V&A Museum, a Trustee of the British Museum, Board Member of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, Adviser to the Barclays International Bank and Great Britain China Centre. He died on 31 July 1983. He never married.

Malcolm Guthrie was born in 1903, in Hove, Sussex, the son of a Scottish father and Dutch mother. After leaving school, he gained a BSc in metallurgy at Imperial College, London, thus perpetuating the strong engineering tradition of the Guthrie family. However, shortly after graduating, he felt called to work in the Church and enrolled at Spurgeon's College to study for the Ministry in 1925. He subsequently took up a pastorate in Rochester, Kent. He married Margaret Helen Near in 1931.

In 1932, he was posted to Leopoldville as a missionary with the Baptist Missionary Society, where his interest in language work developed. By 1934 he had published his Lingala Grammar and Dictionary, the first of several books on Lingala including a translation of the New Testament. During his 1935 furlough he studied at the School of Oriental Studies (later the School of Oriental and African Studies). On returning home from the mission field in 1940 he became lecturer, and subsequently senior lecturer at SOAS in 1942. During two years study leave 1942-1944 he undertook a linguistic field-study throughout Bantu Africa, collecting much of the data he used in his comparative language work. His primary interests included tonology, which became the subject of his doctoral thesis, The Tonal Structure of Bemba, and classification, which led to the publication of The Classification of the Bantu Languages in 1948. By 1950, Malcolm Guthrie was Head of the Department of African Languages and Culture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, a post he held for 18 years. In addition to this post he was a member of several boards including the Board of Studies in Oriental and African Languages and Study (Chairman from 1960 to 1965); the Board of Studies in Anthropology, Comparative Linguistics and Theology; the Board of the Faculty of Arts (Vice-Dean from 1960 to 1967); the Advisory Boards in Colonial and Religious Studies; the Committee of Management of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies; the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the African Studies Association of the UK.

He undertook extensive study of Bemba, Lingala, Kongo, Fang, Mfinu and the Teke languages, working on over 200 Bantu languages. Through his work on classification, he developed a means of establishing the genetic relationship between languages by using his famous two-stage method. This involved firstly collecting lexical items with a common meaning, which could be related by consistent sound shifts and correspondences and symbolising them by creating (hypothetical) starred forms collectively known as Common Bantu. He then interpreted the inferences from this data in terms of pre-history, to present a hypothesis of Bantu origins from a common ancestor language. By 1960 Guthrie had finished stage one of his magnum opus Comparative Bantu, which appeared in 4 volumes published in 1967 (volume 1), 1970 (volumes 3 and 4) and 1971 (volume 2).

During 1966-1968, Guthrie suffered from ill health. His wife also died from cancer in 1968. That same year he was elected Fellow of the British Academy, the first time this honour had been bestowed upon anyone in the field of African language study. He died unexpectedly on 22 November 1972 of a heart attack, leaving his work on Bemba Grammar, General Bantu Grammar, Lingala material and planned work on Teke unfinished. Some of the preparatory material for these works can be found in this collection, in addition to much of the data he used in the compilation of Comparative Bantu.

William, sixth Lord Paget, was born on 10 February 1637, the eldest son of William, fifth Lord Paget. On 25 November 1678 he took up his seat in the House of Lords. In 1681 he signed a petition against the Parliament being held at Oxford. On the landing of the Prince of Orange, he was one of the Peers who petitioned the King to call a 'free parliament'. He subsequently voted for the vacancy of the throne and for settling the Crown on William and Mary, the Prince and Princess of Orange. On their accession, he was constituted the Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire in March 1688-1689.

In September 1690 he was appointed Ambassador at Vienna. He held this post until February 1693, when he was appointed as Ambassador-Extraordinary to Turkey. In this role he participated in the negotiations for a treaty of peace between the Imperialists, Poles and Turks, resulting in the Treaty of Carlowitz on 26 January 1699. Shortly afterwards he was instrumental in the peace between Muscovy, the State of Venice and the Turks. The Sultan and Grand Vizier of Turkey wrote to William III in March 1699, asking that Paget would not be recalled home, as Paget himself desired. Paget consented to stay, finally quitting the Turkish Court at Adrianople in May 1702. Between July and November 1702, Paget stayed in Vienna to settle the dispute that had arisen between the Emperor and the Grand Seignior concerning the limits of their respective territories in the Province of Bosnia. In December 1702, he attended the Court of Bavaria to offer England's mediation in adjusting the differences between the Prince and the Emperor. He arrived back in London in April 1703. On 24 June 1703, he was re-appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Staffordshire. Paget died on 26 February 1713.

George Gordon Hake was born in 1847. He spent thirteen years from 1891 working in southern Africa, initially with the British South Africa Company and later with the Tanganyika Telegraph Service during 1889 and 1903 in the Mashonaland area. He died in 1903 and was buried at Port Herald.

George Gordon Hake was closely connected to the Rossetti family in their later years, acting as a 'minder' to Dante Gabriel Rossetti during one of their family holidays. Christina Rossetti was also godmother to his daughter Ursula.

Unknown.

Biometrika, a journal for the statistical study of biological problems, was founded by the eugenicist (Sir) Francis Galton (1822-1911), the mathematician and biologist Karl Pearson (1857-1936), and the zoologist Walter Frank Raphael Weldon (1860-1906), in 1901. It was initially edited by Pearson and Weldon. The journal was later published by the Biometrika Trust, whose offices are accommodated in the the Department of Statistical Science at University College London (founded in 1911 as the Department of Applied Statistics). It is distributed by Oxford University Press.

Members of the Brougham family of Brougham, Westmorland, included Henry, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868), who served as Lord Chancellor, 1830-1834; James (1780-1833); John Waugh (1785-1829); and William, 2nd Baron Brougham and Vaux (1795-1886).

Born in London, 1920; educated at Highgate School, Trinity College Cambridge (Robert Styring Scholar, Classics, and Senior Scholar, Natural Sciences), and the London Hospital (Scholar); visited Buenos Aires and West Africa, 1936; refused military service in World War Two, 1939-1945; 1st Class Natural Science Tripos, Part I, 1940; 2nd Class Natural Science Tripos, 1st Division (Pathology), 1941; BA, 1943; married Ruth Muriel Harris, 1943; Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, Cambridge, 1944; Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and Licentiate, Royal College of Physicians, London, 1944; MA, Cambridge, 1945; Diploma in Child Health, London, 1945; one son, Nicholas, born, 1946; Lecturer in Physiology, London Hospital Medical College, 1948-1951; PhD in Biochemistry, London, 1949; Honorary Research Associate, Department of Zoology, University College London, 1951-1973; DSc in Gerontology, London, 1963; Director of Research in Gerontology, Zoology Department, University College London, 1966-1973; President, British Society for Research on Ageing, 1967; first marriage dissolved and married Jane Tristram Henderson (d 1991), 1973; Clinical Lecturer, Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University, 1974-1983; Professor, Department of Pathology, University of California School of Medicine, Irvine, 1976-1978; Consultant psychiatrist, Brentwood VA Hospital, Los Angeles, 1978-1981; Adjunct Professor, Neuropsychiatric Institute, University of California at Los Angeles, from 1980; Consultant, Ventura County Hospital (Medical Education), from 1981; member of the Royal Society of Medicine; member of the American Psychiatric Association; a prolific author, best known for books on sexual behaviour - in which he advocated greater sexual freedom, including the bestselling and widely translated The Joy of Sex and its sequels - but wrote on a diverse range of subjects; an anarchist, and published works on anarchy; a pacifist, and active in the movement for nuclear disarmament; died in Banbury, Oxfordshire, 2000. Publications include: Fiction: No Such Liberty (1941); The Almond Tree (1943); The Powerhouse (1944); Letters from an Outpost (1947); On This Side Nothing (1949); A Giant's Strength (1952); Come Out to Play (1961); Tetrarch (1980); Imperial Patient (1987); The Philosophers (1989). Poetry: France and Other Poems (1942); A Wreath for the Living (1943); Elegies (1944); The Song of Lazarus (USA, 1945); The Signal to Engage (1947); And All But He Departed (1951); Haste to the Wedding (1961); Poems (1979); Mikrokosmos (1994). Plays: Into Egypt (1942); Cities of the Plain (1943); Gengulphus (1948). Songs: Are You Sitting Comfortably? (1962). Non-fiction: The Silver River (1938); Art and Social Responsibility (1946); First Year Physiological Technique (1948); The Novel and Our Time (1948); Barbarism and Sexual Freedom (1948); Sexual Behaviour in Society (1950); The Pattern of the Future (1950); Authority and Delinquency in the Modern State (1950); The Biology of Senescence (1956); Darwin and the Naked Lady (1961); Sex in Society (1963); Ageing, the Biology of Senescence (1964); The Process of Ageing (1964); Nature and Human Nature (1966); The Anxiety Makers (1967); The Joy of Sex (1972); More Joy (1974); A Good Age (1977); as editor, Sexual Consequences of Disability (1978); I and That: Notes on the Biology of Religion (1979); A practice of Geriatric Psychiatry (1979); The Facts of Love (1980); What is a Doctor? (1980); Reality and Empathy (1984); with Jane T Comfort, What about Alcohol? (1983); The New Joy of Sex (1991); Against Power and Death (1994). Translation: The Koka Shastra (1964).

Peter Davison was editor of The Complete Works of George Orwell and Professor and Senior Research Fellow in English and Media, De Montfort University, Leicester. Davison was originally commissioned in 1981 to produce corrected versions of Orwell's nine separate books. He also edited the Facsimile of the Manuscript of Nineteen Eighty-Four and was commissioned in 1982 to produce a collected edition of Orwell's shorter writing which developed into the production of The Complete Works. He was President of the Bibliographical Society, 1992-1994, whose journal, The Library, he edited for 12 years. He was also a Shakespeare expert on whose plays he published a number of works.

Publications:

The Complete Works of George Orwell editor

Songs of the British Music Hall: A Critical Study

Popular Appeal in English Drama to 1850

Contemporary Drama and the Popular Dramatic Tradition

Hamlet: Text and Performance

Henry V: Masterguide

Othello: The Critical Debate

George Orwell: A Literary Life

De Beer was born on 1 November 1899 at Malden, Surrey. His early life was spent abroad and he attended the Ecole Pascale in Paris. He came to England in 1912 and attended Harrow School, followed by Magdalen College Oxford. He joined the Grenadier Guards and was called up, but the First World War ended soon afterwards. He returned to Oxford and studied zoology, achieving a first class honours in 1921. He was elected to a Prize Fellowship of Merton College in 1923, and held this until 1938. From 1926 to 1938 De Beer was Jenkinson Lecturer in Embryology at Oxford. He served in the Second World War, being involved with psychological warfare. From 1946 to 1950 he was Professor of Embryology at University College London and from 1950 to 1960 Director of the British Museum (Natural History). He then joined the publishing company Thomas Nelson, initially as a Director and later as Editorial Consultant. He was President of the Linnean Society from 1946 to 1949. He was knighted in 1954. He won many medals during his lifetime and published a many of books on a range of subjects, from embryology and genetics to travelling in Switzerland. De Beer died on 21 June 1972.