The Real Expedición Botánica was launched by the Spanish crown in the late 18th century to investigate the indigenous flora of New Spain. The expedition was led by until his return to Spain in 1803 and thereafter by Vicente de Cervantes.
Melchior Antonio de la Cadena y Sotomayor was born in 1539. He was an important figure in the ecclesiastical establishment of Mexico, serving as Canon and Dean of Tlaxcala, Maestrescuelas and Dean of Mexico cathedral and Chancellor of the University of Mexico (Rector for the term 1573/4). At the time of his death in 1607 he was Bishop-elect of Chiapas.
Born Liverpool, 25 September 1889. He was educated at Ushaw and at the Venerable English College, where he was ordained in 1916 during the First World War. He gained his Doctorate the following year. He then taught Classics, Philosophy and Theology at Ushaw for 12 years.
In 1930 he was appointed Rector of the College where during the next 8 years he watched Mussolini's rise to power. He was known affectionately to his students despite his strictness as 'Uncle Bill'.
In 1938 he became the first Apostolic Delegate to Great Britain, Gibraltar and Malta and he served in this post with such discretion that in 1953, long after the war, he became Archbishop of Liverpool and Archbishop of Westminster 1956-1962. He was created Cardinal Priest of Santi Nereo e Achilleo on 15 December 1958. He died in London on 22 January 1963 aged 73.
Born 25th August 1865, at Carlton near Selby, Yorkshire. Son of a local carpenter and an Irish mother. His Parish Priest, who assisted at Carlton Towers, a nearby residence of the Norfolk Family, sponsored his education and at the age of 11 he set off for Ushaw. Whilst a student there he secured his BA degree from London University. He then came to the Venerable English College as a student to take further degrees and was ordained in 1893, aged 28. He then returned to Ushaw to teach there for 4 years, but in 1900 he founded a Laity-sponsored School, St. Bede's Grammar School, in Bradford and became its first Headmaster. The school prospered but led to differences between Hinsley and his Bishop. Consequently Hinsley moved to Southwark Diocese. After 13 years combining parish work with lecturing at Wonersh, he was made Rector of the VEC and worked in Rome, 1917-1928. He bought Palazzola and had its swimming pool built. Created Bishop of Sardis, 1927 and sent as Apostolic Visitor to Africa where after 7 years, ill-health caused him to retire. He became a Canon of St Peter's and there expected to end his days. To the surprise of many he was called out of retirement on the death of Cardinal Bourne to become the fifth Archbishop of Westminster on 25th March 1935. He was created Cardinal Priest of Santa Susanna on 16 December 1937. He denounced the Hitler Regime, founded the Sword of the Spirit as an ecumenical venture to rally the churches against totalitarianism and became famous in all homes for his wartime radio chats and stirring encouragement when Britain stood alone. He died on 17 March 1943, at the age of 78.
Priest's registers: Before the restoration of the hierarchy many individual priests, as opposed to parishes, often kept registers covering diverse geographical areas.
During the Second World War the Wellcome Foundation laboratories at Frant, East Sussex, were engaged in work for the Ministry of Supply, producing scrub typhus vaccine for the armed forces. The project was given the wartime codename of 'Tyburn' after Tyburn Farm, the farm at the Wellcome Veterinary Research Station there. The project was organised by the bacteriologist Marinus van den Ende (1912-1957), serving with the RAMC: his obituary in the Lancet states that "his greatest achievement in England was the organisation of the laboratory at Frant for the large-scale production of scrub typhus vaccine, exacting and dangerous work which he carried out with great speed and precision"
These are the main title deeds for the West Hill Estate, Wandsworth, which extended from West Hill in the north to what are now Gressenhall Road and Granville Road in the south. Later additions extended it on the west to Tibbets Corner, and on the east and south-east into South Field. Later still, a large part of the Spencers' Wimbledon Park was added to the south. The deeds end with this purchase by the second Duke of Sutherland in 1838. In the next decade the estate was purchased by John Augustus Beaumont for building development. The estate was first purchased, as part of the demesne of the manor of Downe, from the Duke of Bedford in 1759. The new owner was Mrs Penelope Pitt, wife of George Pitt (who later became Lord Rivers) and sister and heiress of Sir Richard Atkins of Clapham Bt. She sold it in 1786 to Sir Samuel Hannay, a Scottish baronet. Mrs Pitt had built a mansion house called West Hill House on the estate, but had not extended the grounds. John Anthony Rucker, a merchant originally from Hamburg, who bought the estate in 1789, and all later owners added to the lands by purchase. In 1804 Daniel Henry Rucker inherited the estate from his uncle; it was settled in trust on his marriage to Caroline Gardiner in 1805, and eventually put on sale by public auction in 1825. The main purchaser, by private contract before the auction, was George Granville Leveson-Gower, Marquess of Stafford, later 1st Duke of Sutherland. He, through his wife the Countess of Sutherland in her own right had added most of the county of Sutherland to his vast estates in the north of England.
On his death in 1833, his son the second Duke inherited.
Cecil Tudor Davis was born in 1854 at Upton St Leonards near Gloucester. After working as the senior officer at Birmingham Reference Library, he moved to Wandsworth in 1886 to take up the position of Librarian of Wandsworth, based at West Hill Public Library. He held this position for 34 years before retiring in 1920. He died following a short illness in 1922. He lived at 55 West Hill and was married twice with five children. He was very interested in local history and wrote many articles and frequently gave lectures on the subject, as well as collecting books and documents relating to Wandsworth.
Please contact the Archive for further information.
Wilson's Garage was located on Spanish Road, Wandsworth Common.
Please contact the Archive for further information.
Councillor John Garrett was Deputy Mayor of Wandsworth in 1984-1985 and in 1998-1999. He was Mayor of Wandsworth in 1988-1989 and 2000-2001.
Herbert Thomas Charles Battcock was born around 1896. He married Gladys Matthews in Wandsworth in 1921, but was widowed before any children were born. In 1939 he married Aileen O'Callaghan, and a daughter, Celia, was born in 1944.
In a deed of 1922 (D157/3/5) his occupation is given as 'printer', and in 1927 'printers machine manager'. By the time of the Second World War he was working in the Foreign Office, and belonged to the Home Guard. He retired from the Civil Service in 1962.
Herbert Battcock was initiated into the Freemasons Lodge of Affinity in 1927, and was a founder member of the Earlsfield Lodge which was consecrated on 10 October 1938. He received honorary membership of the Earlsfield Lodge in 1979. He died in 1981.
The Battersea Field Club and Literary and Scientific Society was formed on 10th January 1895 and was a development of the University Extension Society - Battersea Students Association, which had started in 1890. In 1902 the name was changed to the Battersea Field Club and the society was affiliated to the South East Union of Scientific Societies and the Photographic Survey and Record of Surrey. In 1906 it was associated with the British Association and finally disbanded in 1944.
Arthur Wellings was an auctioneer, land and estate agent in Southfields with offices at 8 Westbourne Terrace, Garratt Lane.
The Metropolitan Borough of Battersea was created by the London Government Act 1899 from the former vestry of Battersea, and included Battersea, Battersea Park, Clapham Junction and parts of Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common. In 1965 the borough was combined with the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth to become the London Borough of Wandsworth. Battersea Town Hall, which was built by the Vestry of Battersea, was the administrative headquarters of the Metropolitan Borough, and was on Lavender Hill.
The school was founded in 1819 and amalgamated with All Saints, Putney in 1928. All Saints was founded in 1858, and was on Putney Bridge Road. St Mary's School was on Charlwood Road.
Battersea Polytechnic Institute was a purpose built college which was founded in 1891 and opened in February 1894. The building was located in Battersea Park Road on the former site of the Albert Palace and was designed by the architect Edward Mountford who also designed Battersea Library and Battersea Town Hall. The Institute took on a more scientific and technical leaning from 1920, leading it to be renamed the Battersea College of Technology in 1957. In 1966 it became the University of Surrey and moved out to premises in Guildford two years later.
Spencer Park was a secondary county school for boys which opened in 1957. On opening, the intake was made up of boys from Honeywell secondary school, Wandsworth secondary technical school as well as some students from schools in Lavender Hill and Earlsfield. The school was housed in the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building in Trinity Road, Wandsworth Common, which had been sold to the London County Council in 1952. The school also occupied a new building erected in 1957 specifically to house the school. The two buildings were divided by a playground. The school moved out of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building in September 1976 and into the extended new buildings next door, as the building was falling in to disrepair and was unsafe to house the school. The school closed in 1986 when it was amalgamated with Wandsworth School and renamed John Archer School. The students moved to the premises in Sutherland Grove, Southfields in September 1986.
The Glengyle Preparatory School for Boys was founded in 1907 by Leonard Augustine Chope. It was originally in Cambalt Road before moving to 4, Carlton Drive in 1914. Walter Vivian Wallace was appointed as Assistant School Master in 1938 before purchasing the lease from Mr Chope and becoming the proprietor/headmaster of the school. He purchased the freehold of the property in Carlton Drive in 1960. His wife Winifred taught at the school and took over its running following the death of her husband in 1981. Mrs Wallace retired in 1986 and the school was sold. It is now the Merlin School.
The school was founded in 1850 and closed in 1985. It was on Green Lane, High Street, Battersea.
Berthold Auerbach was born into a Jewish family in Thorn in Western Prussia (now Torun in Poland). He attended school there, until his parents moved to Berlin in 1885. He had already begun studying Latin and in the next few years added French and Greek to his curriculum.
In December 1891 he began his working life by going into commercial training with the firm of H. Holde in Berlin. He remained with them until October 1894. Between 1895 and 1897 he trained in business and commerce with Albert Meyer (Speditions-, Commissions- und Bankgeschäft) but was most unhappy, realising that this type of career was not for him.
He joined the Literarische Gesellschaft in Leipzig, which had been founded by Carl Heine, and in March 1898 began work there as actor, Treasurer and Secretary. Out of this society grew Heine's Ibsentheater. The dramatist Frank Wedekind was also a member of the company. The Ibsentheater toured Northern Germany until the end of 1898 when it ceased to exist.
After a brief period as a reporter in Berlin, Auerbach started a career as a theatrical agent. He was to pursue this career for the next thirty-six years and became skilled in matching directors and companies with suitable actors and actresses, not only in Germany, but also in Austria and Switzerland. In this way many famous names in German theatre owed their careers to him through discovery by him and subsequent support and protection for their talent. Amongst these were Adolf Roff, Elsa Wagner, Emil Jannings and Carl Ebert. He was untiring in his travels to review productions and was enthusiastic about contemporary drama. His conduct and industry won him many lasting friendships in the profession: Helene Riechers, Carl Ebert, Elsa Wagner, and the Dumont/Lindemann Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus.
In October 1898, Auerbach went to work for the theatre agency E. Drenker & Co. In 1907 he married Anna Pergams who came to Berlin from Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad in Russia). In 1915 he was called up for military service and sent to Königsberg for training, where the director of the Stadttheater 'Neues Schauspielhaus' gave him free tickets for all performances. His old firm of Drenker managed to secure his release from the army and he remained with them until 1929, when the firm closed. At this point the State founded an official agency for stage and film, Paritätischer Stellennachweis der Deutschen Bühnen, where the Actors' Union and the Union of Theatre Directors were represented on equal terms. Auerbach remained with them until 1933, when he was dismissed after an SA (Sturmabteilung) raid, albeit with a creditable testimonial. He was called back and re-employed for short periods four times, having become indispensable to the Agency, until Goebbels personally put a stop to this.
Despite numerous letters from the acting profession and others urging his re-employment, Auerbach remained unemployed in Berlin from 1934-1939 when he and his wife, after much heart-searching, decided to leave Germany to join their daughter in England. They were not allowed to bring out their two sons. During the first few years of the Nazi regime, Auerbach was sent free tickets for performances at most of the Berlin theatres, but this largely ceased once Jews were forbidden to enter German theatres, and he could only attend performances in the few special Jewish theatres.
After his arrival in England, Auerbach was interned in a camp on the Isle of Man for a few months. In 1945 he was invited back to Germany to take up his profession again, but he decided it was too late to start afresh. In 1951 he made his first visit to Düsseldorf and Berlin. When he revisited Germany his reception was tumultuous. He wrote an address for Helene Riecher's 85th birthday in 1954, which was read out at her memorial sevice in 1957. She died one month after Auerbach's wife.
In November 1959, Auerbach celebrated his own 85th birthday and received presents and tributes from the entire German theatrical profession, including the Unions. During his exile, he never lost touch with the German theatre scene and derived immense enjoyment not only from the letters he received but from the journals which were sent to him regularly.
Auerbach also wrote poetry, examples of which are scattered through the collection and in relevant literature.
The English Goethe Society was founded on 26 February 1886, one year after the founding of the Goethe-Gesellschaft in Weimar. The idea for such a society was first put forward by the publisher Alfred Trübner Nutt (1856-1910). At an initial meeting convened in a room at the Society of Arts, the new Society was officially constituted. Its aims were '... to promote and extend the study of Goethe's work and thought, and to encourage original research upon all subjects connected with Goethe' (English Goethe Society: First Annual Report presented at a Business Meeting 1 December 1886). It proposed to do this in three ways: (a) through publications - a volume of Transactions each year, at least one translated work, and a Goethe handbook - David Nutt was appointed the Society's official publisher; (b) through meetings and lectures - ordinary meetings were held regularly and papers read before them which were published in the Transactions - the first Ordinary Meeting was held one week after the Inaugural Meeting, on 28 May 1886; (c) through pursuit of Goethe themes in the fine arts - issue of a Goethe portrait, postcards, dramatic productions.
The formal business of the Society was to be carried out by a President (Professor F. Max Müller was the first to be elected), Vice-Presidents, a Secretary and an Assistant Secretary, a Treasurer, and a Council. A subscription of one guinea per annum was payable, roughly half of which was sent to the Goethe-Gesellschaft in Weimar in return for the privileges of affiliation. However, the Society soon found itself in financial difficulties and changed its rules to create two classes of membership: one paying the full guinea as before and the other paying a half-guinea for membership of the English Goethe Society only.
In its first few years the Society flourished and its membership, which included many distinguished scholars and public figures, rose to about 300. In 1890-1891, however, it went into a steep decline, a significant number of resignations reducing the membership by almost one third. In his autobiography Dr Eugen Oswald, a founder member and Secretary (1891-1912), writes: 'In 1891 weariness had overcome some of its leading members, and the dissolution of the English Goethe Society was formally proposed by some of its officers' (Eugen Oswald: Reminiscences of a Busy Life. London, Alexander Moring, 1911). The weariness was due to the limited scope of the Society's aims. At a special business meeting called for the purpose in 1891, Dr Oswald, backed by Dr Leonard Thorne and Ernest Weiss (later Professor of German at Manchester University), vigorously opposed the dissolution and proposed extending the Society's programme to the fields of German literature, art and science, while still keeping Goethe as the central figure.
This proposal together with the fresh injection of enthusiasm carried the day and a new Council was constituted. Membership rose again and regular meetings once again took place. The presidency passed from Professor Müller to Professor Edward Dowden and thence to a succession of distinguished people including Viscount Haldane of Cloan and Professor Elizabeth Mary Wilkinson. In addition to Ordinary Meetings, soirées were held at which interesting relics and objets d'art were displayed, many lent by Mrs Ludwig (Frieda) Mond, a constant and enthusiastic supporter of the Society. Visits were arranged to Weimar in 1909 and 1910 by Dr Oswald's daughters Lina and Ella, and special celebrations of important anniversaries were organised, e.g. Goethe's centenary and bicentenary (1932 and 1949) and the Society's silver (1911) and golden (1936) jubilees. The Society was represented at several Goethe commemorations in Weimar, Strasbourg and Vienna. The papers read before the meetings of the Society were regularly published in an annual volume, first published in 1886 through to 1912. The activities of the Society were suspended during World War One, 1914-1918. Anti-German feeling ran high for an appreciable time and the Society was not reconstituted until 1923, with the first of a new series of annual volumes appearing in 1924. The aims of the Society spread further to '... the cultivation of relationships with other countries and "world citizenship"' (Leonard Thorne: In Memoriam Dr Eugen Oswald, MA) and in particular to fostering understanding between Anglo-German nations and bringing them into closer union.
Activities were again suspended in 1939 for the duration of World War Two, although the Council continued to meet. This time hostile feeling in the United Kingdom was directed against the Nazi regime and not against Germany as a whole. The then Secretary, Professor Willoughby, was able to reconstitute the Society before hostilities ceased and on 22 February 1945, Dorothy L. Sayers gave a lecture at University College London on 'The Faust Legend and the Idea of the Devil'.
University College had received a direct hit in 1940 which destroyed all the Society's records, deposited there. What records remained in the personal possession of Ella Oswald, Dr Eugen Oswald's younger daughter, were deposited by her on permanent loan in the Archive of the Institute of Germanic Studies in 1955. By agreement of the Society's Council, the Society's library of some 373 books had been deposited in the library of the Institute on permanent loan three years previously.
In the post-war period the Society continued to flourish. By 1947 its membership had reached 75% of the pre-war numbers and continued to remain steady at 150-200. There was considerable participation in the Goethe bicentenary celebrations in 1949 when Thomas Mann delivered the Society's special lecture before an audience of 700 in the Senate House building of the University of London. The Society also contributed to the planning and execution of activities by the ad hoc British Goethe Festival Society.
A decade later, Schiller was honoured by the Society during a highly successful commemoration week at Bedford College (University of London), organised by Professors Purdie and Willoughby.
Further special activities were organised for the 150th anniversary of Goethe's death in 1982 including a translation competition which attracted 160 entries from all over the world. The Society also participated in a joint conference with the Conference of University Teachers in German at Queen Mary College (University of London). An exhibition was arranged, displayed initially at the Goethe Institute in London, and then shown in cities all over the United Kingdom.
In 1986 the Society celebrated its centenary when at a special dinner and reception Professor Siegbert Prawer gave an address on 'Dichtung und Wahrheit'. The Society is still very active and holds regular meetings at the Institute of Germanic Studies.
The Exile Archive was established at the Institute in the academic year 1996-97. The Institute already holds the papers of several individuals such as Rudolf Majut, Herbert Thoma and Berthold Auerbach, who were exiled from Germany and Austria during the 1930s as a result of persecution under the National Socialist regime. However, since the setting up of the Research Centre for German and Austrian Exile Studies, the Institute has attracted archival donations from several emigrés, and the Collection now has material relating to both individuals and organisations.
George B Reese was Headmaster of Toroyn School, Merioneth, Wales.
Hugo Frederick Garten: born Hugo Friedrich Königsgarten, Brünn, Moravia, Austria, 13 Apr 1904, into a Jewish family. Educated at a Gymnasium in Berlin, and the Universites of Jena (1923), Vienna (1923-1924), Berlin (1924-1926) and Heidelberg, where he obtained his doctorate in 1930; free-lance writer in Berlin, 1928-1933; moved to Vienna, 1933 and London, 1938; teacher at New College School, Oxford, 1940-1945, and member of staff of Die Zeitung, London, 1941-1944; DPhil, Oxford, 1944; taught modern languages at Westminster School, 1946-1965; Lecturer at the Universities of Surrey and London 1965-. He was a member of the International PEN Club, the English Goethe Society and the Gerhart Hauptmann-Gesellschaft.
Married Anne Leonard Smith, 1952, no children.
Jethro Bithelll was born at Hindley near Wigan in 1878. He was educated at Wigan Technical School and Owens College, in the Victoria University of Manchester, where he graduated with a first class degree in modern languages in 1900. He then studied German and Scandinavian literature at the Universities of Munich and Copenhagen.
From 1902-1904 he lectured in modern languages at Salford Technical College, and from 1904-1910 he was a lecturer in German at Manchester University. In 1910 he married his first wife, Ethel Rose Fisher (d 1946) and was appointed head of the Department of German at Birkbeck College London. In 1921 he was elected Reader in the University of London, but never became a full professor. He remained at Birkbeck until his retirement in 1938.
During World War One he served as a Private in the Royal Sussex Regiment, Oct 1916-Jan 1919. In 1947 Bithell married again to Dr Alice Emily Eastlake, a long standing friend of himself and his first wife.
Bithell belonged to the group of British born Germanisten who sought to turn German Studies in a new direction, breaking away from the positevistic and philological approach perpetrated by their German-born teachers. He believed, in common with other Germanisten such as William Rose, that literature was a social phenomenon and this attitude is best exemplified by his book Germany, 1932, a collection of essays on all aspects of the artstic and intellectual life of Germany set against its climate and geography. He was aware of a wider need for text book support in language studies and compiled dictionaries, readers and grammars in German and French.
His studies embraced medieval and modern language and literature from not only Germany, but also France, Belgium (including Flemish) and Norway. In retirement he continued to act as an examiner for schools and universities in German. Marking for the Higher School Certificate prompted him to compile his Anthology of German Poetry, 1880-1940, (1941) and two other anthologies followed. He had an abiding love of poetry in several languages. His superlative translation of the Minnesingers in 1909 earned him an entry in Who's Who and his translations from the work of Henrik Wergeland were considered by many to be a "tour de force".
He worked with Professor Andrew Gillies, who was editor of the Germanic Section of the Modern Language Review. During World War Two, the numbers of Germanisten available for review work were greatly reduced, and Gillies asked Bithell to oblige, which he did. At this time he popularised the work of Carossa, and demonstrated that not all Germans were Nazis or Nazi sympathisers. Bithell was also a keen supporter and contributor to German Life and Letters, which honoured his 80th birthday (1958) with a Festschrift volume.
Publications: The Minnesingers: vol I translations, (London, Longmans Green & Co., 1909); Contemporary German Poetry: translations (London: Scott, 1909); Contemporary Belgian Poetry: translations (London: Scott, 1911); Contemporary French Poetry: translations (London: Scott, 1912); Pitman's commercial German grammar (London: Pitman, 1912); Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck (London: Scott, 1913); Gustav Vollmoeller, Turandot Princess of China: translation (Produced at the St James's Theatre by Sir George Alexander) (London: Fisher Unwin, 1913); Verhaeren/Stefan Zweig: translation (London: Constable,1914); Contemporary Belgian literature (London: Fisher Unwin, 1915); 'Emile Verhaeren: Helen of Sparta' translation in The Plays of Emile Verhaeren (London, Constable, 1916); Contemporary Flemish Poetry: translations (London: Scott, 1917); Byron i Vadmel - Byron in Homespun / H.M. Drachmann: translation (London: Harrap, 1920); (with A. Watson Bain) A German poetry book (London: Methuen, 1924); (with A.C. Dunstan) A German course for Science students (London: Methuen, 1925); A French reader for Science students (London: Methuen, 1926); (with J.H. Helweg) English-Danish commercial correspondence (London: Marlboroughs, 1927); (with A.C. Dunstan) A modern German course for students of History (London: Methuen, 1928); Norwegian-English commercial correspondence (London: Marlboroughs, 1928); (with G.M Gathorne-Hardy and I. Grøndal) Henrik Wergeland: poems: translation (London and Oslo, 1929); Advanced German composition (London: Methuen, 1929); (with W. Theilkuhl) Key to advanced German composition , (London: Methuen, 1929); Dutch-English commercial correspondence (London: Marlboroughs, 1929); Germany: a commpanion to German studies (London: Methuen, 1932); (with A.E Eastlake) A commercial German reader (London: Methuen, 1933); Modern German literature (London: Methuen, 1939); An anthology of German poetry, 1880-1940 (London: Methuen, 1941); Hans Carossa: eine Kindheit (Oxford: Blackwell, 1942); (with A Watson Bain) A French poetry book (London: Methuen, 1946); An anthology of German poetry, 1830-1880 (London: Methuen, 1947); Hans Carossa: Verwandlungen einer Jugend (Oxford: Blackwell, 1949); German pronunciation and phonology (London: Methuen, 1952); An anthology of German poetry, 1730-1830 (London: Methuen, 1957); German-English and English-German dictionary (London: Pitman, 1958). Numerous reviews ad articles for English, French, Belgian and other journals including German Life and Letters, Les Marges and the Modern Language Review.
Karl Hermann Breul was born in Hannover, 1860 and educated at Lyceum II Gymnasium, where the headmaster, W Weidasch was a Schiller scholar who believed in the compulsory teaching of foreign languages. Accordingly Breul was obliged to study Greek, Latin, French and English, and volunteered to take classes in Hebrew. His principal tutor was Adolf Ley, former French and German tutor to Lord Kitchener.
In 1878 Breul left school to enter Tübingen University. He continued to study during his military service, working on South German dialects, particularly Swabian. At Tübingen he attended the lectures of Christoph Sigwart (1830-1904) and Karl Reinhold von Köstlin (1819-1894) in philosophy and literature. In 1879 he left Tübingen for Strassbourg and spent a semester studying English and French philology under Ten Brink, Boehmer and Eduard Koshwitz (1851-1904). In the winter of that year he left for Berlin and the Friedrich Wilhelm Universität, where he remained until taking his doctorate in 1883, with a thesis on an Old English epic Sir Gowther', and a lengthy treatise on comparative literature connected with the legend ofRobert le Diable'. His tutors at Berlin included Julius Zupitza (1844-1895), Adolf Tobler (1835-1920), Karl Müllenhoff (1818-1884) and Wilhelm Scherer.
In 1884, after briefly teaching in German secondary schools, Breul left Berlin for Paris to further his studies of French and romance languages and literatures. He studied under Gaston Bruno Paulin Paris (1839-1903) and Paul Meyer (1840-1917). During this time he translated Tobler's book on French versification into French, with the assistance of his friend, Léopold Sudre (b 1855).
In 1884 Breul was appointed the first lecturer in Germanic language and literature at Cambridge University, five years later he was appointed a Reader. In 1886 he was elected a Fellow of King's College and in 1896 he was awarded a Litt.D. In 1897 he was one of the co-founders of the `Modern Language Quarterly'. In 1902 he was offered a Professorship at the University of London, but refused it. In 1910 he was appointed the first Schröder Professor of German at Cambridge. He was President of the English Goethe Society, and represented it at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the Wiener Goethe-Verein in 1928.
Breul's research and publications reflect the broad base of his education and interests. However, over and above that, Breul sought to promote the higher study of German philology and literature in the United Kingdom, and to develop and strengthen the knowledge and understanding of each other's language and culture between Germany and Britain. He founded the Honours School in German at Cambridge, and was largely instrumental in re-shaping the study of German in other British universities. Many of the best modern language teaching posts in Britain were held by Breul's former students. He wrote and lectures on the training and qualification of modern language teachers, which he regarded as a high priority for British secondary schools.
Publications: (Trans. with L Sudre) A Tobler Le Vers français ancien et moderne (1885); Sir Gowther. Ein Englische Romanze aus dem XV Jahrhunert (1886); A Handy Bibiographical Guide to the Study of German Language and Literature for the Use of Students and Teachers of German (1895); Die Originisation des höhren Schuhlwesens in Grossbritannien (1897); The Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages in Secondary Schools (1898); Betrachtungen und Vorschläbetreffend die Gründung eines Reichsinstituts für Lehrer des Englischen in London (1900); Cassell's New German Dictionary, (2nd ed, 1906); (Trans) Deutschland im XIX Jahrhundert (1913); Students' Life and Work in the University of Cambridge [1908]; numerous articles in European and America learned journals. He also edited seven volumes in the Cambridge University Pitt Press series: Lessing and Gellert: Fabeln und Erzählungen (1887); Benedix: Dr Wespe (1888); Hauff: Das Bild des Kaisers (1889); Schiller: Wilhelm Tell (1890); Schiller: Geschichte des dreissigjähren Buch III (1892); Schiller: Wallenstein (1894, 1896), Goethe: Iphigenie auf Tauris (1899) and Die Braut von Messina, oder, Die feindlichen Brüder: ein Trauerspiel mit Chören / Schiller (1913).
Evgenii Semenovich Mollo (1904-1985), military historian and artist was born in Ufa, Russia. He left Russia to settle in Britain in 1922, where he worked as a cinema decorator, wartime camouflage specialist and engineer.
Adolf Placzek was born in Vienna, Austria, 1913; initially studied medicine, and switched to architectural history in 1934; left Austria in 1939, and after a brief stay in Britain, moved to New York in 1940; served for 3 years in the US Army, and attended Columbia University's school of Library Service. After graduation he was appointed to the Avery Architectural Library; appointed Avery Librarian, 1960; appointed Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, 1970; after his retirement in 1980 he edited the four volume Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects. Married (1st, 1948) Jan Struther, author of Mrs Miniver (d 1953) (2nd, 1957) Beverley Robinson.
Ernst Philipp was born in Vienna in 1916, and was a cousin of Adolf Placzek; he was educated at the University of Vienna (PhD, Mathematics, 1938); he, and his two brothers were sent to Dachau in Nov 1938, but released on the strength of their British Immigration visas. His mother and sister died in the holocaust. After moving to London he enlisted in the Labour Corps, and later served in the Parachute Regiment at Arnhem in 1945, he remained in the army after the War, and served in Palestine, 1946-1947; he taught mathematics at St Bees School, Cumbria until his retirement in 1981, and died in 1996, aged 79.
Rudolf Majut was born in Vienna on 13 March 1887 into a family of Jewish origin. He received his early education there and, at the age of ten, moved with his family to Breslau (now Wroclaw) and then Berlin. In Berlin he began his studies in Germanistik, completing them at Greifswald. He obtained his doctorate in 1912 with a thesis entitled 'Farbe und Licht im Kunstgefühl Georg Büchners'. Büchner became the focal point of his research and this opened the gates for a spate of subsequent study and publication by others. However, Majut may be regarded as a pioneer of Büchner research.
Majut was promoted to 'Studienrat', a post equivalent to a teacher in a secondary school but with Civil Servant status. He began studying for the 'Habilitation' in contemporary German literature and planned to try for a chair in pedagogics. His plans foundered with the advent of the National Socialist regime. In 1933 he was dismissed from the teaching profession due to his non-Aryan descent and additionally found it increasingly difficult to publish his research.
Although he was already in his mid-forties, Majut began to study evangelical theology at the University of Basle. For the first few years he commuted daily over the Swiss/German border, being unable to get papers to stay abroad, but for his final year, 1938-39, he left German territory and and took up residence in Basle. He had been warned of the personal dangers posed by the Nazi regime in Germany by a young woman from Berlin, Käthe Genetat, who became his wife and life's companion. Their correspondence in those difficult years was preserved by a friend, Eva Hellbardt, who acted as a 'post restante', and has been published as Briefe für Käthe 1933-37. Eine Auswahl, edited by Heinz Fischer (1995).
In 1939 Majut received a personal invitation from the Bishop of Chichester, Dr George Kennedy Allen Bell, to come to England. Dr Bell operated a support organisation for Christian ministers of Jewish descent. Majut accepted and left Switzerland with Käthe, arriving in London in May 1939. For a short period he was vicar at the Sefton Internment Camp on the Isle of Man. Then he was obliged to carry out gardening work at Redbrook, which he found totally unconvivial. In 1941 he came to Leicester and accepted a post as teacher of German in a secondary school. Later he was appointed lecturer first at Vaughan and then at Loughborough Colleges. Eventually he joined the staff of Leicester University as a Lecturer, and when he retired he was an Honorary Professor. In 1970 he was awarded the 'German Bundesverdienstkreuz' First Class.
Majut belonged to the group of literary Expressionists and was later in contact with members of the Stefan George-Kreis, principally with Melchior Lechter, who became the subject of an essay by Majut. His publications ranged from standard literary history and criticism, through philological and lexicological studies to volumes of his own poetry, the product of his life-long study of the German language combined with a truly creative talent. Many of the poems, originally published in six parts and then combined in a collected edition edited by his wife in 1994, reflect his personal experiences and emotions particularly as a refugee.
Bela Ivanyi-Grunwald (1902-1965) was born the son of a well known Hungarian painter of the same name and grew up in an artists' colony. He studied history at Budapest University and completed a Ph.D thesis on the proposed economic reforms of Count Istvan Szechenyi (1791-1860). As a result he was commissioned to edit a critical text of one volume of Szechenyi's collected works. This work with its lengthy introduction by IG was ground breaking for its time and established IG as economic historian. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War IG left his post as Reader in Hungarian History at Budapest University to take up a scholarship to Britain in order to study the activities of the exiles of the 1848-1849 Hungarian War of Independence. While he was in Britain war broke out and after Hungary entered the war IG renounced his (Hungarian Government funded) scholarship in protest and applied for political asylum which was granted. He lived in Britain for the remainder of his life. He became a regular contributor to the Hungarian Service of the BBC and was lecturer in Hungarian at SSEES 1947-1965. He wrote a number of works including a monograph on Lajos Kossuth (1802-1894) and also a biography of Szechenyi which were never published. His interests went beyond Hungarian history to include various aspects of British history such as eighteenth century dissenters and Catholic recusants. IG also became a collector of books, prints, maps and pamphlets.
The Anglo-Finnish Society was formed in 1911, but went into abeyance during theWorld War One. It was revived but went into abeyance once more during the World War Two, although aid to the Finnish Red Cross during its Winter War 1939-1940 with the Soviet Union was directed through the Society. It was then re-started in 1953. It is a non political body with the objective of fostering friendship and understanding between Britain and Finland.
William Richard Mead: b 1915; educated at Aylesbury Grammar School and the London School of Economics; served RAF 1940-1946; Lecturer in Geography, University of Liverpool, 1947-1949; Lecturer, Reader and Professor of Geography, University College London, 1950-1981; Chairman of Council, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, 1978-1980; Secretary, 1953-1965 and Chairman, 1966-, Anglo-Finnish Society.
The Anglo-Russian Literary Society was founded in London in 1893 by Edward A Cazalet with its work being conducted from the Imperial Institute, London. It was one of the earliest British organisations to promote cultural relations with Russia. Membership was open to both Britons and Russians. The Society's objects were promoting the study of Russian language and literature, the formation of a library of Russian books and periodicals, the holding of monthly meetings and the promotion of friendly relations between Britain and Russia. The Society's monthly lectures were published in the Proceedings of the Society which appeared quarterly. Tsar Nicholas II became a patron of the Society in 1894 and Tsarina Alexandra in 1897. After 1917 the Society lost many of its Russian members and its imperial patronage.
At the end of 1922 the Society moved from the Imperial Institute to the School of Slavonic Studies, King's College (later SSEES), its library of some 1,500 volumes was transferred to the School and the School's Director, Sir Bernard Pares became secretary of the Society. In September 1930 the Society was renamed the Anglo-Russian Society. It is not clear when the Society was wound up. It was probably in 1934 as the last membership subscription records are from that year although the last records date to 1936.
(Charles) Neal Ascherson (1932-) was born in Edinburgh and educated at Cambridge. He is a journalist and writer who has written extensively on Eastern Europe, particularly Poland. Ascherson first visited Poland in 1957, to report for the Manchester Guardian and has returned frequently. In 1980-1981 he covered the rise of the Solidarity movement and the subsequent imposition of martial law for The Observer. Ascherson also reported on the "Prague Spring" in Czechoslovakia in 1968. His publications on Eastern European topics have included Polish August (London, 1981), The Struggles for Poland (London, 1987) and Black Sea (London, 1995).
Phyllis Auty (1911-1998) was been closely associated with Yugoslavia thoughout her professional life. During the Second World War she worked on matters connected with Yugoslavia in the BBC, the Political Warfare Department and the Political Intelligence Centre in the Middle East Department of Allied Forces Headquarters. Immediately after the war she visited Yugoslavia on behalf of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Organisation. She became reader in history of the South Slavs at SSEES and then professor of modern history and chair of the History Department at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada.
Not known
Reginald Robert Betts (1903-1961) was born in Norwich. After completing his studies at Oxford University he took up a post there as a temporary lecturer. This was followed by positions as lecturer at Liverpool and Belfast Universities. In 1934 he became a professor at Southampton University. As a medieval historian, Betts specialised in the history of Bohemia but later developed a great interest in the modern Czechoslovak state, becoming an expert in Czech affairs. This knowledge led to his appointment at the BBC, during the later years of the Second World War as editor of the broadcasting service for Czechoslovakia and later of the whole European service. After the war Betts was briefly, 1945-1946 a professor at Birmingham University before becoming Masaryk Professor of Central European history at SSEES in 1946, a position he held until his death. He was also head of the History Department at SSEES until 1957.
Lucjan Blit (?-1978) was born in Warsaw but left Poland during the Second World War and after 1943 lived in Britain. He worked as a journalist and later as a lecturer becoming lecturer in East European political institutions at SSEES 1973-1977 and the London School of Economics and Political Science 1970-1977.
J Bloch and Co, Moscow were agents for the importation of pumps, weighing machines, Otis lifts, Remington typewriters and Edison's mimeographs
Countess Brasova (1888-1952) was born Natalia Sergeevna Cheremtevskaia, the daughter of a Moscow lawyer. Before she was twenty she had married twice, to Sergei Manmontoff, with whom she had a daughter and after their divorce to Liolucha Wulfurt, an army captain. Shortly after her marriage to Wulfurt, Chermemtevskaia met and began an affair with the Colonel in Chief of her husband's regiment, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, the younger brother of Tsar Nicholas II. In 1910 their son was born, Cheremtevskaia later obtained a divorce from Wulfurt and in 1911 she married the Grand Duke. As a result of their morganatic marriage the couple were banished from Russia by the Tsar and. spent two years in exile. They lived in England and travelled around Europe before the First World War began and the couple were allowed to return to Russia.
Eventually the Tsar recognised their marriage and gave Cheremtevskaia the title of Countess Brasova. As she was not of royal blood Countess Brasova was not entitled to hold any imperial title. In March 1917 as the Russian Revolution began, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in favour of Grand Duke Michael. The Grand Duke held the throne for only two days before he too abdicated, ending imperial rule in Russia. The Grand Duke and Countess Brasova were imprisoned by the new Bolshevik Government. Countess Brasova was released and left Russia with her children in 1919. Grand Duke Michael disappeared, later it was learnt that he had been executed in June 1918. Countess Brasova settled first in England and later in Paris where she lived in increasing poverty until her death in 1952.
During late 1989 Communist rule in Czechoslovakia was ended, Civic Forum became the first legal opposition movement for 40 years and Václav Havel was elected president.
Paul Hollander was a Hungarian refugee student at the time the report in the collection was written. He was then finishing his studies at the London School of Economics. He went on to become associate professor of Sociology at Massachusetts University and published a number of works on Soviet/Western relations. Alan Dare was a British fellow student involved in the resettlement of Hungarian refugees.
John Deane (1679-1762) entered the Russian Navy in 1711 as a lieutenant and served until 1722 when he returned to Britain. In 1725 he was employed by the British Foreign Office to act officially as a commercial consul in St Petersburg and unofficially as a spy. He went on serve as commercial consul in Flanders before retiring to Britain.
The dictionary was written to commemmorate the 1000th anniversary of the conversion of Russia to Christianity in 988AD.