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In Jan 1975 Ross Davies, then working on The Times, began to collect material for a biography of Margaret Bondfield, and, in 1978, having written to various individuals and asked for further information in the New Statesman, he spoke on his 'search for the real Margaret Bondfield' on radio's Women's Hour.

Margaret Grace Bondfield (1873-1953) was born to William Bondfield and Anne Taylor in 1873. Her education ended with elementary school and her first job was as a pupil teacher at Chard Elementary School in 1886. She subsequently became a shop assistant in Briton in 1887 where she became acquainted with Louisa Martindale who encouraged her to continue her education. In 1894 she moved to London to live with her brother Frank and there found similar employment and soon became active in the Shoe Assistants' Union as well as the Fabian Society. There she also joined the Idealists' Club and met prominent radicals such as George Bernard Shaw and began writing articles for the publication The Shop Assistant under the name of Grace Dare. In 1896, she was asked by Clementina Black of the Women's Industrial Council to carry out an investigation into the pay and conditions of shop workers and the report was published two years later. After this work she became recognised as Britain's leading expert on shop workers, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Shops in 1902 and to the Select Committee on the Truck System in 1907. In 1908, Bondfield resigned from the National Amalgamated Union of Shop Assistants and Warehousemen and Clerks where she had been assistant secretary since 1898, to become the secretary of the Women's Labour League. In 1910 she assisted the WIC's inquiry into the pay of married women before being asked by the Liberal Government to serve on the Advisory Committee on the Health Insurance Bill. Her influence led to the inclusion of maternity benefits to be paid to the mother in the final bill of the WCG on creating legislation for a minimum wage. Between 1912 and 1915, she also worked for the Women's Trades Union League and the National Federation of Women Workers as well as with Women's Co-operative Guild in its campaign for minimum wage legislation as well as improvement in child welfare. A member of the Independent Labour Party, she was also interested in the issue of women's suffrage, but unlike many in the area refused to accept a franchise that was to be extended only to certain categories of women drawn from certain classes of society, excluding the working classes from the right to vote. Consequently, she became Chair of the Adult Suffrage Society. Due to her religious beliefs, when the First World War broke out, she was equally opposed to the pro-war stance taken by both the Women's Social and Political Union and the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. Instead, she spoke at a pacifist rally in Trafalgar Square in 1914, then joined the UDC and the Women's Peace Crusade. In 1916, she was one of the founders of the Standing Joint Committee of Industrial Women's Organisations and was a delegate at the International Labour and Socialist Conference in Berne in 1918. After the war, her activities increased once more: she became the Chair of the Women's International Council of Socialist and Labour Organisations as well as being the first female member of the TUC's Parliamentary Committee in 1918. Her involvement with the TUC was close, becoming a member of the General Council from 1918-1924 and then again from 1926 to 1929. In 1920 she was the joint representative of the Labour party and the TUC sent her to the USSR and there she met Lenin. She contested the seat of Northampton in 1920 and then again in 1922, finally being elected to the House of Commons in 1923 as Labour MP for the city. In her first year in the house, she was appointed to the Labour Government's Emergency Committee on Unemployment and the following year was appointed parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Labour. It was this seat in the cabinet that Bondfield herself took in 1929 as the MP for Wallsend, becoming the first female British minister. However, during the heart of the Depression in 1931, many in the feminist and labour movements attacked Bondfield when she supported a government policy that would deprive some married women of unemployment benefit. That same year, she lost her seat at the general election after losing support from her constituency for taking this step and though she contested it once more in 1935, she was never returned to parliament again. Her continued involvement in politics was done through work as an activist. In the late 1930's she travelled to the United States of America and Mexico to study labour conditions before returning to become the Vice President of the National Council of Social Services. During the Second World War, she was chair of the Women's Group on Public Welfare as well as undertaking a lecture tour of Canada and the USA for the British Information Services between 1941 and 1943. She was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1948, before retiring to a nursing home in Surrey where she died in 1953.

Sir Henry Walford Davies, born, Oswestry, Shropshire, 6 Sep 1869; trained in choir of St George's Chapel, Windsor, and was was pupil assistant to Walter Parratt; entered Royal College of Music under a composition scholarship, 1890; studied with Charles Parry and Charles Stanford; became teacher of counterpoint, RCM, 1895-1918; organist at St George's Kensington, St Anne's, Soho, and Christ Church, Hampstead; organist and choirmaster at the Temple Church, 1898-1919; conductor of the Bach Choir, 1903-1907; appointed director of music to the Royal Air Force, 1918; professor of music, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1919-1926; chairman of the Welsh National Council of Music; knighted, 1922; appointed Gresham Professor of Music in the University of London, 1926; made his first radio broadcast to schools, 1924; his popular radio series 'Music and the Ordinary Listener' commenced, 1926; records for His Master's Voice Melody Lectures (HMV C 1063 to 1701) and Twelve Talks on Melody (HMV C 1759 to 1767); organist, St George's Chapel, Windsor, 1927-1932; music advisor at the BBC, 1927-1939; appointed Master of the King's Musick, 1934; died, Wrington, Somerset, 11 Mar 1941. Publications and music (a selection): Rhythm in Church (London, 1913); The Pursuit of Music (London, 1935); Symphony in D, 1894; Overture in D minor, 1897; Welshmen in London, 1897; folksong cantata Three Jovial Huntsmen, 1902; oratorio Everyman, 1904; Symphony, in G, 1911; cantata Song of St Francis, 1912; anthem, `Let us Now Praise Famous Men'; Solemn Melody; RAF March Past.

John Davies was born in 1569. He became a barrister in Middle Temple, London, in 1595, and was elected as MP for Corfe Castle in 1601. Davies was appointed Solicitor General for Ireland in 1603, and served as Attorney-General from 1606-1619. During this period he was MP for County Fermanagh and Speaker of the Irish Parliament, 1613, and MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, 1614 and 1621. He was appointed Chief Justice of England in 1626, but died before he was able to take up office. Davies wrote extensively on government history and also wrote poetry.

Publications: A full list of the works of Sir John Davies may be found in the British Library catalogue.

William Henry Davies was born into a working class family in Monmouthshire, in 1871. He was brought up by his grandparents. He travelled in North America for several years as a young man, where his right leg was partly amputated after a railway accident. Subsequently, Davies lived and worked in London, writing poetry and several novels. His work was acclaimed by several of his leading contemporaries, including Arthur Symons and George Bernard Shaw; Shaw wrote the preface to Davies's autobiography.

Anna Davin (b 1940), daughter of Winnie and Dan Davin, grew up in Oxford, where her parents worked for the Oxford University Press. She married Luke Hodgkin in 1958 and had three children. From 1966 to 1969 she was a History student at Warwick University. In 1968 she and other women members of the Socialist Society at Warwick, including American exchange students, started a Women's Liberation Group. Along with non-student members from nearby Coventry the group campaigned on general issues such as equal pay, reproductive rights and better access to university education, and called for a crèche to be established for women working and studying at the university. Anna was closely involved in the History Workshop movement during the 1970s. She was a founding member of the editorial collective of History Workshop Journal, in 1976, and was to continue as an active editor for over thirty years. In 1970 she moved to London and started a History PhD at Birkbeck College. This was initially about the lives of late 19th century working-class women in London, from childhood to old age, but when eventually submitted, in 1992, its focus was on children; the book Growing Up Poor: Home, School and Street in London 1870-1914 followed in 1996. In London she joined the Stratford Women's Liberation Group (and helped produce their issue of Shrew), and also a feminist study group in Pimlico (the 'History Group'), and for a time helped in the Women's Liberation office. She was active in a pioneering community history group ('People's Autobiography of Hackney'); in the Feminist History Group; and also in 'The Public Library', a short-lived attempt to establish a library of political ephemera. Her best-known publication is an article called 'Imperialism and Motherhood', (History Workshop Journal, no 5, 1976). Anna taught women's history for many years: London evening classes in the 1980s; as a visiting lecturer at Binghamton University, New York for six weeks a year between 1979 and 2002; at Middlesex University as a part-timer and research fellow in the 1990s; and twice as maternity cover on the Women's History MA at Royal Holloway, University of London. She subsequently taught summer school students from the University of Michigan and an annual Oral History course at the Institute of Historical Research; and returned to adult education, teaching London history for the Continuing Education department at Birkbeck College.

Born, 1923; as a Roman Catholic he was educated at St Brendan's Grammar School, Bristol; St Edmund's Seminary, Ware, 1938; ordained priest, 1946; Gregorian University, Rome, licentiate in sacred theology, 1948; taught fundamental theology and apologetics, St Edmund's, 1949-1952; Professor of Dogmatic Theology, St Edmund's, 1952-1964; Heythrop College, 1964-; attended the third session of the Second Vatican Council, 1964; first Roman Catholic to present the Maurice lectures at King's College, London, 1966; announced publicly that he had resolved to break with the Roman Catholic church, 1966; Clare College, Cambridge, -1967; head of a new religious studies department at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1967-1970; Professor of Religious Studies, Concordia University, Montreal, 1970-1991; editor of the periodical Studies of Religion / Sciences Religieuses, 1977-1985; Principal of Lonergan University College in Montreal, 1987-1991; retired, 1991; returned to Britain, 1993; died, 1999.

Publications: A Question of Conscience (1967)

Theology and Political Society (1980).

Eliza Davis was educated at private school and obtained her BA at London in 1897, and her MA in 1913. She went into teaching in 1898, being appointed Assistant Mistress at Bedford High School. She then moved on to Stepney Pupil Teachers' School in 1904 until 1908. From 1908 to 1912 she was Lecturer and Vice-Principal at Moorfields London County Council Training College. Then in 1914 she was appointed as a Research Assistant in the Department of History at University College London; in 1919 becoming Lecturer in the Sources of English History. In 1921 Davis moved to the University of London to become Reader in the History and Records of London; a post she held till 1940. She was Honorary Secretary to the Editorial Board of History from 1916 to 1922, and Editor from 1922 to 1934. She was also Honorary Librarian at the Institute of Historical Research from 1921 to 1923 and Acting Secretary from 1939 to 1940. She published some historical articles. She died in October 1943.

Marjorie Blanche Honeybourne was born in Highgate in 1899. She took a BA in History at London University in 1921 and went on, under the supervision of Eliza Jeffries Davis, to gain an MA from the same institution in 1929.

With an abiding interest in London topography, she contributed articles on mediaeval London to several metropolitan periodicals. She was elected a member of the Society of Antiquaries in 1949. She acted as Honorary Editor to the London Topographical Society between 1960 and 1974 and the Ancient Monuments Society between 1967 and 1973. She died on 13 November 1974.

For a detailed resume of Miss Honeybourne's career see her obituaries in Transactions of the Ancient Monuments Society vol.xx (1975) pp.11-14 and London Topographical Record vol.xxiv (1980) pp.203-208. The latter includes a list of her publications with a note on her sketch maps and plans.

Eliza Jeffries Davis was Reader in the History and Records of London at the University of London from 1921 to 1940.

Born, 1801; in the summer of 1820, while still a student, he made a voyage to the Arctic regions in the capacity of surgeon to a whaling ship; qualified LSA, 1823; medical officer for the Stoke upon Trent district; parish medical officer in Shelton; MRCS, 1843; FSA, 1854; graduated MD at St Andrews, 1862; member of the Anthropolical Society, 1863; for many years Davis devoted himself to craniology, and gradually accumulated a huge number of skulls and skeletons of various races, most with carefully annotated histories; joint editor of the Journal of the Anthropological Institute and of Anthropologia; FRS, 1868; died, 1881.

Publications:

Crania Britannica (1865)

Thesaurus Craniorum (1867)

Davis was born on 30 April 1915. He was educated at the London School of Economics, 1946-1950. He then became a Lecturer and Reader in Economic History at the University of Hull, 1950-1954. He became Professor of Economic History at the University of Leicester in 1964, and in 1976 he was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor there. Davis was a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum from 1968 to 1975. He published articles and books, mainly on trade and the shipping industry. Davis died on 30 September 1978.

No information available at present.

born 1840; matriculated in evening classes in Divinity at King's College London, 1862; elected Associate of King's College, 1866.

Not known

George Davis established himself as a commission merchant in 1852 at 4 Railway Place, Fenchurch Street. The firm became African, Australian, middle and far eastern export merchants. In 1860 Davis went into partnership with William Garland Soper (1837-1908). From 1863-76 they traded from 14 Fenchurch Street, and from 1877-81 from 10 King's Arms Yard, before moving to 54 St Mary Axe in 1882. On William Garland Soper's death in 1908, the firm was taken over by his son, William Soper.

The firm became a limited company in 1915. It went into liquidation in 1960. It was a subsidiary of Camp Bird Limited.

John Romilly, first Baron Romilly (1802-1874), judge and politician, was born in London on 10 January 1802. On 28 March 1851, following the death of Lord Langdale, he was appointed master of the rolls, and was sworn of the privy council the following month. In addition to his judicial role, the master of the rolls had important statutory duties in the care of the public records. Romilly continued Langdale's work conscientiously, his most notable contributions being to secure the enlargement of the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, the absorption of the State Paper Office, permitting access to the records without payment for scholars, and promoting the rolls series and other publications.

Source: A. Hamilton, 'Romilly, John, first Baron Romilly (1802-1874)', rev. Patrick Polden, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Davison started his career as a merchant and shipowner in the Canadian trade. He first met Nelson (q.v.) in 1782 and remained a life-long friend as well as his prize agent. Davison flourished as a government contractor, and, eventually, after obtaining the prize agency for the Nile Fleet, as a banker. His fortunes dwindled after dabbling with politics and after Nelson's death. DAV/2 and DAV/2 we're separate lots purchased at a Sothebys sale.

Emily Wilding Davison was born in Blackheath in 1872. She attended Kensington High School and then Holloway College. However, two years into her course her father died and she was forced to leave to become a governess. She was subsequently able to pay for a course a St Hugh's College at Oxford. She sat her final examinations in 1893 when she took a first-class degree. She was subsequently employed by the Church of England School for Girls in Edgbaston from 1895-6 before moving to Seabury School in West Worthing. She then move again to Berkshire where she again became a governess until 1906, the year in which she joined the Women's Social and Political Union.

She was employed by the Women's Social and Political Union as chief steward at the Hyde Park procession in June 1908 and was one of the nine arrested in March 1909 when a deputation marching from the Caxton Hall to the Houses of Parliament was prevented from seeing the Prime Minister. She was arrested a second time in July when after interrupting a meeting in Limehouse addressed by David Lloyd George. This time the sentence was doubled to two months and Davison went on hunger strike. She was released after five days, beginning the long series of arrests, imprisonments and releases after force-feeding that would make up much of the rest of her life. In September she was arrested with Dora Marsden for throwing balls labelled 'bomb' through the window of a meeting in Manchester, received a two month sentence and was released after two and a half days having gone on hunger strike. Unable to find work, she became a paid organiser of the WSPU from April 1910. She managed to enter and hide in the House of Commons three times between 1910 and 1911, and was the first to embark on a campaign of setting fire to pillar-boxes. During her imprisonment in Holloway in 1912, she threw herself over landing railings on two separate occasions, incurring injuries which would continue to afflict her. On the 4th June 1913, she tried to seize the bridle of Anmer, the King's horse running at the Derby. She received head injuries and never recovered consciousness, dying on the 8th June. Her funeral was preceded by a large funeral cortege that became one of the iconic events of the campaign for Women's Suffrage. The service took place at St George's Church, then the coffin was taken by train to the family grave in Morpeth in Northumberland. After her death, she became an almost mythic figure in popular culture and her memory was perpetuated both within the movement and beyond.

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

The firm of Davison, Newman and Company, grocers and importers of West-Indian produce, was founded in 1650. It was sitauted "at the sign of the three sugar loaves and crown", 14 Creechurch Lane, Leadenhall Street, London EC3. It was bought up by the West-Indian Produce Association Limited, on 1 January 1911. The registered trade name of the present firm retains the name of the original business.

Born, 1909; work in the Department of Biochemistry, University College London, 1932-1933; Research in the Department of Physiology, University College, 1933-1936; Travelling Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, University of Pennsylvania Medical School, 1936-1937; Boit Memorial Fellow in Medical Sciences, Department of Physiology, University College, 1937-1939; Associate Professor of Physiology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1939-1942; Senior Experimental Officer, Ministry of Supply, 1942-1946; with James Danielli published pioneering work on the structure of cell membranes, 1943; Staff of Medical Research Council in collaboration with University College, 1946-1976; Research Fellow in the Department of Physiology, King's College London, 1976-1996; died, 1996. Publications: Co-authored with James Danielli, The permeability of natural membranes (Cambridge, 1943); The physiology of the eye (London, 1949); A textbook of general physiology (London, 1951); Physiology of the ocular and cerebrospinal fluids (London, 1956); Physiology of the cerebrospinal fluid (London, 1967); Co-authored with Malcolm Segal, Introduction to physiology (London, 1975-1980); Co-authored with Keasley Welch and Malcolm Segal, Physiology and pathophysiology of the cerebrospinal fluid (Edinburgh, 1987); An introduction to the blood-brain barrier (Basingstoke, 1993); edited The eye (New York, 1969-1977). He also published numerous articles in learned journals.

Edward Davy was born the son of Thomas Davy of Ottery St Mary, Devon, a doctor, in 1806. Davy trained as an apothecary in London, receiving his licence from the Society of Apothecaries in 1827. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1828. He began working as a dispensing chemist in London in 1830. His interests however, lay in the general sciences, particularly chemistry and electricity, and a catalogue of instruments, appended to his Experimental Guide to Chemistry, published in 1836, includes several devices invented by him in the list of goods and instruments for sale; he patented Davy's diamond cement, an adhesive for mending china and glass in 1836, from which he gained a small annual income until he sold the rights to the process. Also in 1836, Davy published Outline of a New Plan of Telegraphic Communication, and he carried out telegraphic experiments in Regent's Park in 1837. He laid down a mile of copper wire in the park and developed his 'electric renewer' or relay system, which renewed the signal with the aid of a local battery to compensate for attenuation of the original signal. He demonstrated a working model of his telegraph that year and a needle telegraph in the Exeter Hall in central London for several months in 1838. He applied for a patent for his telegraph, which was granted on 4 July 1838 after the solicitor-general asked Michael Faraday's advice as to whether it constituted a different mechanism from that of Cooke and Wheatstone, patented on 12 June 1837. Davy managed to interest two railway companies, the Birmingham Railway and the Southampton Railway, in his telegraph, but left England for Australia before developing a practical system or completing negotiations, which he left in the hands of his father and a friend, Thomas Watson, a London dentist. Eventually his patent was bought by the Electric Telegraph Company in 1847 for £600. Although his telegraph was never developed, Davy was important for popularizing to the general public the concept of telegraphy, and was the first to develop a relay system. Without Davy's demonstrations, public awareness of the telegraph would perhaps have been much slower. Moreover, his correspondence with public figures and engineers, such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, did much to hasten the adoption of the telegraph. He also devised a block system for recording train movements between stations by means of an electrically operated dial, which would advance when the train passed a milestone, but he never patented this idea. In 1883 J. J. Fahie, a historian of the telegraph, initiated a campaign to have Davy's contribution recognized, and in November 1884 the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians (later the Institution of Electrical Engineers) made him an honorary member. While in London, Davy married Mary Minshull; they had one son, George Boutflower Davy, who was born before 1837. Their marriage had irretrievably broken down, and Mary Davy tried unsuccessfully to divorce her husband by 1838. Her extravagance and Davy's lack of business sense led to mounting debts, which he settled with help from his father. To free himself from his wife Davy decided to emigrate. He left his son in the care of his family, and set sail for Australia intending to take up a smallholding in April 1839. He soon abandoned farming to settle in Adelaide, South Australia, where he engaged in various pursuits. He edited the Adelaide Examiner 1843-1845, built up a small medical practice, and for a time managed the Yatala copper-smelting works, where he developed a process for copper refining. He patented the process in Australia, and an English patent was granted in 1847 under his brother's name. He was appointed head of the government assay office in Adelaide which he ran very successfully from 1848. The following year he was invited to set up the assay office in Melbourne, Victoria, which he also ran very well until a change of government led to its abolition in 1854. Davy again took up farming near Malmsbury, Victoria, but soon settled in the town itself, where he engaged in local politics, serving for twenty years as a justice of the peace and for three terms as mayor. He developed his medical practice, and acted for twenty years as the first honorary health officer of the borough. When he retired from that position in August 1882, the Malmsbury borough council presented an address of thanks to him at a special evening conversazione. He had become a much loved figure in the Malmsbury area. Davy married twice while in Australia; it is not clear whether his first marriage had ended (by divorce or his wife's death) or whether these marriages were bigamous. He married Rebecca Soper 1845, with whom he had five sons and two daughters. After her death in 1877 he married Arabella Cecil, the daughter of Stephen Tunbridge Hardinge, postmaster-general of Tasmania. They had four children, two of whom, a son and a daughter, survived him. Davy died on 26 January 1885, aged 79, at Mollison Street East, Malmsbury, and was buried on 27 January in Malmsbury. Efforts to secure a government pension in Australia and England for his widow were unsuccessful, but the Royal Society of Victoria, which had elected Davy an honorary member in March 1883, raised £150 by a subscription among its members for her and her children.

Born, 1898; educated at Charterhouse and Royal Military Academy; commissioned, Royal Field Artillery (RFA), 1918; service on Western Front, World War One 1918; Prisoner of War, 1918; Gunnery course, School of Gunnery, Shoeburyness, 1919; service in 130 Bde, RFA, 28 Div, Anatolia, 1919-1920; service with RFA, India, 1920; transferred to 3 King's Own Hussars, India 1931; Staff College course, Camberley, 1932-1933; Bde Maj, 150 Bde, 1935-1936; Company Commander, Royal Military College Sandhurst, 1937-1938; Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, 1939; Chief Staff Officer, British Mission to French Gen Maurice Gustave Gamelin, Paris, France, led by Maj Gen Sir Richard Granville Hylton Howard-Vyse, 1939-1940; Head of War Office Mission to King Leopold, Belgium, May 1940; Second in Command, 3 Hussars, 7 Armoured Bde, Western Desert, 1940-1941; General Staff Officer Grade 1, British Troops Headquarters, Greece, for evacuation of British forces from Greece, April 1941; commanded 3 Armoured Bde, Tobruk, Libya May-Jul 1941; General Officer Commanding 7 Armoured Bde, 7 Armoured Div, Western Desert Jul-Dec, 1941; Director of Military Operations, Middle East General Headquarters, 1942-1944; commanded Land Forces Adriatic, southern Italy, 1944-1945; retired from Army, 1948; became professional painter and sculptor; recommissioned for special duties, Middle East, 1956; retired from Army again, 1959; died, 1983.

John Davy (1790-1868) was a physiologist and anatomist, and the younger brother of the chemist Sir Humphrey Davy. He spent his career as a military surgeon and became Inspector of Hospitals.

John Davy was born the son of Robert Davy, a woodcarver and Grace Millet in Penzance, Cornwall. He attended preparatory schools in Penzance as a child and later assisted his brother, Humphry Davy, in the laboratory of the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) in 1808. In 1810 John studied medicine at Edinburgh University gaining his degree in 1814. He experimented on the muriatic theories of his brother in order to help prove them. He entered the British Army Medical Department as a surgeon. He became the Inspector General of Hospitals and it was in this capacity that he travelled over much of the British Empire during his foreign service thus producing several notebooks on his observations of various countries. In 1821 he published An Account of the Interior of Ceylon. In 1830 he married Margaret Fletcher. In 1836 he wrote the Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy and he edited the collected works of his brother, producing nine volumes in 1839-1840. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1834 and published over 100 papers on observations such as the structure of the heart and circulatory system of amphibians; these are listed in the Royal Society Catalogue of Scientific Papers. He lived in the West Indies for a time and returned to the Lake District in the United Kingdom for the remainder of his life. In 1862-1863 he published his Diseases of the Army. Upon his death in 1868, he bequeathed a piece of plate to the Royal Society which had been presented to Sir Humphry Davy by the mine owners for the invention of the safety lamp. His brother had wanted the plate to provide a medal for scientific research.

Humphry Davy was born the son of Robert Davy, a wood carver, and Grace Millet in Penzance, Cornwall. He taught himself a great deal through reading, but also attended local grammar schools in Penzance and Truro. In 1795 he was apprenticed to John Bingham Borlase, surgeon of Penzance, where he was introduced to the rudiments of science by Robert Dunkin, a saddler. In 1798 he joined the Pneumatic Institution at Bristol as an assistant to Thomas Beddoes. There he began researches into heat and light which he later published. In 1799 he published the first volume of West Country Collections and Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly Nitrous Oxide and its Respiration. He experimented with nitrous oxide and suggested that it could be used for surgery due to its anaesthetic properties, however this was ignored and not used until much later in the century. In 1801 he gave his first lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (RI) and became Director of the Chemistry Laboratory. In 1802 he became Professor of Chemistry at the RI which he held until 1812. In 1803 he gave his first lecture to the Royal Society, of which he was elected a Fellow and received its Copley medal in 1805. In 1804 he entered Jesus College Cambridge perhaps to finish his medical studies, but he never attended. As Assistant Lecturer at the RI, he undertook research for the Managers, and he also became Chemistry Professor to the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement (a non-government organisation). In particular he researched into the problems of using oak bark for the tanning of leather and discovered that catechu from mimosa of India was much better. In 1805-1806, he toured Ireland and Cornwall with Thomas Bernard to research into mineralogy. After this he was released from investigations for the RI and in 1807 he won the Napoleonic Prize from the Institute of France for his discoveries of the constitution of oxymuratic acid and for demonstrating the existence of potassium, sodium and chlorine by agency of a galvanic battery, thus developing the theory of electrochemical action. In 1812 he was knighted by the Prince Regent and also married a wealthy widow, Mrs Jane Apreece. He then retired from the RI and was made Honorary Professor. In 1813 he visited laboratories in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany with his wife and Michael Faraday (1791-1867) as his assistant, secretary and reluctant valet. He experimented with pigments and combustion of diamonds as well as iodine which he discovered at the same time as the French chemist, Joseph Louis Gay-Lusaac (who called it iode). On his return to London in 1815, Humphry was asked to look into the problem of explosions in mines. He discovered that gas and the flames used to give light to miners caused the explosions, so he designed the miners safety lamp. He toured the continent again in the late 1810s. In 1820 he became President of the Royal Society which he held until 1827. During the 1820s, he discovered that by applying zinc or iron to the copper bottoms of ships, corrosion could be prevented. However, it was deemed a failure as plant life in the sea would adhere to the ships thus causing dragging. In 1826 he travelled to Europe again where he continued to work until his death in 1829. He was buried in the cemetery of Plain-Palais, Geneva and there is a tablet in his memory at Westminster Abbey.

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).

Dawkins entered the Navy in 1841. After becoming a lieutenant in 1848 he served in the RATTLER and was given charge of two Brazilian slavers as prizes in 1849. He then served in the MODESTE and in the GLATTON, a floating battery which went to the Crimea, 1855 to 1856. After this he was in the ESK commanded by Sir Robert McClure (q.v.) in a cruise to the Far East, and was present in the BITTERN at the attack on Canton in 1857. He returned home in the COMUS. He was commander in the MARS, Channel Squadron, in 1859, was promoted to Captain in 1863 and in 1866 went to the Pacific in command of the ZEALOUS. In 1873 he was appointed to the VANGUARD, which in September 1875 sank after colliding with the IRON DUKE. At the subsequent court martial Dawkins was held responsible for the accident. After 1875 Dawkins made several unsuccessful applications to the Admiralty for employment and for a reconsideration of his case. He was promoted to rear-admiral in 1878 on the retired list but the finding of the court martial was never reversed.

George Jesse Dawson established himself as an antiquarian clock case maker and restorer in 1901 at 1 Warren Mews, London, W1. The firm later moved to 15 Warren Mews, and Dawson's son Percy George Dawson took over, himself an authority on the history of clocks and their cases. The firm ceased to operate c 1975.

Born 1919; joined RAF Volunteer Reserves, 1939; navigator, No 78 Squadron and No 79 Squadron, 1940-1941; Pilot Officer, 1941; navigation instructor, 1942; Navigation Leader, 196 Squadron, 1943; Pathfinder Squadron, Sept 1944; Flight Lieutenant, 1946; RAF Transport Command, 1946-1948; Air Ministry, 1948-1950; Staff College, 1950; Exchange Officer, Washington DC, USA, 1953; Wing Commander (Operations), 1957; Singapore, 1960; staff appointments, Ministry of Defence; Group Captain, 1969; commander, RAF Gaydon, Warwickshire and RAF Finningley, Yorkshire, 1969-1971; chairman, Tactical Air Group, Mutual Balanced Force Reduction talks, NATO, Brussels, 1971-1974; retired, 1974; worked for British Aerospace, Lancashire, 1974-1986; died 2003.

Paul R. Dawson worked within the Pension Technical Information Service at Noble Lowndes and Partners Limited during the late 1980s and early 1990s providing information to staff, consultants, technicians and administrators on subjects including the 1989/1990 Social Security Bill, 1989 Finance Act, equalisation of pension ages and National Association of Pension Funds' annual surveys.

Noble Lowndes set up his own brokerage firm in 1934, which would later became Noble Lowndes and Partners, initially specialising in Estate Duty. Lowndes' first pension scheme was set up in April 1936 and was based on individual endowment contracts. In 1949 Noble Lowndes and Partners became a limited company.

Lowndes was particularly active in assessing suitable areas for international expansion and overseas development began in 1947 when the Irish Pensions Trust Limited was set up in Dublin. Noble Lowndes and Partners continued to expand, becoming an international business specialising in the design of company pension schemes, insurance broking, and life assurance with established subsidary companies in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as a network of branches throughout the United Kingdom. By 1960 Noble Lowndes had expanded into Europe, the Far East and the United States and had become one of the largest pension consultant firms in the world with a quarter of British companies having a pension scheme devised by Noble Lowndes.

Noble Lowndes retired in 1966 and the firm was later acquired in 1969 by the merchant bankers Hill Samuel.

Registered office address: Sackville House, 143-149 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 6BP.

The majority of the correspondence and papers is formed of letters addressed to William Dawson (1779-1844), a merchant from Tarbert, Argyllshire, from his two sons, Dugald and William. Dugald Dawson (1805-1841) was an overseer of a sugar plantation in Trinidad, during which time he witnessed poor harvests due to bad weather and changes brought about by the efforts of Missionaries to free the slaves: he died at sea in Mar 1841, aged 36 years. William Dawson Jnr (1810-1858) was an Argyllshire merchant sea captain who sailed all over the world, including California, New Zealand, Africa and Madras, in the barque "Cornwall": he died in Singapore on 27 Jul 1858, aged 48.

William Harbutt Dawson was an authority on Germany, especially on the social reforms in that country; the Liberal government employed him as an investigator at the Board of Trade, 1906, and he contributed to the Labour Exchange Act and the National Insurance Act in that capacity; his book The Evolution of Modern Germany was published in 1908 and reprinted five times before the First World War; he was a member of the British peace delegation at Versailles and argued unsuccessfully that Germany be able to keep its colonies.

Born 1869; District Commissioner, Ikom, Eastern Province, Nigeria; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1909-1918; died, 1917.

Colham manor was in 1086 assessed at 8 hides, 6 of which were in demesne. Part of the manor lands was probably granted away in the mid-13th century to form the basis of the sub-manor later known as Cowley Hall. At some time before 1594, however, Hillingdon manor was incorporated in that of Colham. Insulated within the lands of Colham lay the 'three little manors' of Cowley Hall, Colham Garden, and Cowley Peachey, and freehold estates belonging to a number of manors in other parishes, including Swakeleys in Ickenham.

The manor passed through several owners before, in 1787, John Dodd sold the whole manor to Fysh de Burgh, lord of the manor of West Drayton. Fysh de Burgh died in 1800 leaving Colham, subject to the life interest of his widow Easter (d. 1823), in trust for his daughter Catherine (d. 1809), wife of James G. Lill who assumed the name of De Burgh, with remainder to their son Hubert. The manor passed to Hubert de Burgh in 1832 and he immediately mortgaged the estate. Hubert retained actual possession of the property, which was seldom if ever during this period unencumbered by mortgages, until his death in 1872.

In the 12th century the dean and chapter claimed that ten manse at West Drayton had been given by Athelstan to the cathedral church of Saint Paul, and the date 939 has been given for this grant. Though both the transcribed grant and the date are suspect, Saint Paul's appears to have been in possession by about 1000. Various tenants farmed the estate on behalf of Saint Paul's until the lease was acquired in 1537 by William Paget (c. 1506-63), secretary to Jane Seymour. In 1546 Henry VIII, having 'by the diligence and industry' of Paget acquired the manor with all appurtenances, granted it to him in fee, and the interest of the chapter ceased.

From 1546 to 1786 the manor descended with the other Paget honors and estates, apart from a brief period at the end of the 16th century. In 1786 Henry Paget (1744-1812), 1st Earl of Uxbridge, sold the manor and estate to Fysh Coppinger, a London merchant, who assumed his wife's name de Burgh. His widow, Easter de Burgh, owned the manor in 1800. She died in 1823 and it passed to her grandson Hubert de Burgh, who died in 1872. The next heir, Francis (d. 1874), devised it jointly to his daughters, Minna Edith Elizabeth, and Eva Elizabeth, who was sole owner when she died unmarried in 1939.

From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962) and A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 4: Harmondsworth, Hayes, Norwood with Southall, Hillingdon with Uxbridge, Ickenham, Northolt, Perivale, Ruislip, Edgware, Harrow with Pinner (1971) (available online).

Colham manor was in 1086 assessed at 8 hides, 6 of which were in demesne. Part of the manor lands was probably granted away in the mid-13th century to form the basis of the sub-manor later known as Cowley Hall. At some time before 1594, however, Hillingdon manor was incorporated in that of Colham. Insulated within the lands of Colham lay the 'three little manors' of Cowley Hall, Colham Garden, and Cowley Peachey, and freehold estates belonging to a number of manors in other parishes, including Swakeleys in Ickenham.

The manor passed through several owners before, in 1787, John Dodd sold the whole manor to Fysh de Burgh, lord of the manor of West Drayton. Fysh de Burgh died in 1800 leaving Colham, subject to the life interest of his widow Easter (d. 1823), in trust for his daughter Catherine (d 1809), wife of James G Lill who assumed the name of De Burgh, with remainder to their son Hubert. The manor passed to Hubert de Burgh in 1832 and he immediately mortgaged the estate. Hubert retained actual possession of the property, which was seldom if ever during this period unencumbered by mortgages, until his death in 1872.

In the 12th century the dean and chapter claimed that ten manse at West Drayton had been given by Athelstan to the cathedral church of Saint Paul, and the date 939 has been given for this grant. Though both the transcribed grant and the date are suspect, Saint Paul's appears to have been in possession by about 1000. Various tenants farmed the estate on behalf of Saint Paul's until the lease was acquired in 1537 by William Paget (c. 1506-63), secretary to Jane Seymour. In 1546 Henry VIII, having 'by the diligence and industry' of Paget acquired the manor with all appurtenances, granted it to him in fee, and the interest of the chapter ceased.

From 1546 to 1786 the manor descended with the other Paget honors and estates, apart from a brief period at the end of the 16th century. In 1786 Henry Paget (1744-1812), 1st Earl of Uxbridge, sold the manor and estate to Fysh Coppinger, a London merchant, who assumed his wife's name de Burgh. His widow, Easter de Burgh, owned the manor in 1800. She died in 1823 and it passed to her grandson Hubert de Burgh, who died in 1872. The next heir, Francis (d. 1874), devised it jointly to his daughters, Minna Edith Elizabeth, and Eva Elizabeth, who was sole owner when she died unmarried in 1939.

From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 3: Shepperton, Staines, Stanwell, Sunbury, Teddington, Heston and Isleworth, Twickenham, Cowley, Cranford, West Drayton, Greenford, Hanwell, Harefield and Harlington (1962) and A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 4: Harmondsworth, Hayes, Norwood with Southall, Hillingdon with Uxbridge, Ickenham, Northolt, Perivale, Ruislip, Edgware, Harrow with Pinner (1971) (available online).

The De Burgh family were connected with West Drayton and Hillingdon for over 150 years. In 1786 Fysh Burgh, formerly of Lincoln's Inn, purchased the manor and rectory of West Drayton from Henry Earl of Uxbridge. The following year the heir and mortgagees of the late John Dodd of Swallowfield Place, Berkshire, sold the manor of Colham with Philpotts Bridge and Colham Farms in Hillingdon to Fysh Burgh for the sum of £15,000.

Fysh Burgh was born Fysh Coppinger, the elder son of John Coppinger of Lincoln's Inn and Katherine, daughter of Timothy Fysh of Scarborough, Yorkshire. On the death of his mother in 1763 Fysh Coppinger inherited her estates in Yorkshire, Berkshire and Wiltshire. He took the name of Burgh some time after 1773, proving descent from Thomas Lord Burgh of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, and, in December 1790, adopted the form De Burgh, which was used thereafter by his family.

Fysh De Burgh died in Bath in January 1800 and was buried in the family vault in West Drayton church. The notice in The Gentleman's Magazine described him as 'formerly eminent in the law.' His only son Fysh, a captain in the First Regiment of Guards, had died in January 1793, so he devised his estates in trust for his only daughter Catherine, wife of James Godfrey Lill of Gaulstown, Co Westmeath, Ireland, who assumed the name of De Burgh. Easter De Burgh, the widow of Fysh, held a life interest in the estates until her death in 1823. The inheritance passed to Catherine's son, Hubert, who immediately mortgaged the estates. Although Hubert retained actual possession of the property it was seldom, if ever, unencumbered by mortgages until his death in 1872.

In 1827 Hubert married Marianne, daughter of Admiral John Richard Delap Tollemache, and sister of John 1st Baron Tollemache. By this marriage Hubert became brother-in-law to the 7th Earl of Cardigan, and was left a legacy of £7,000 in the earl's will. The marriage ended in separation in 1856, Hubert remaining at Drayton Hall, while Marianne and her three youngest children moved to No. 61 Eccleston Square, Pimlico. Of their children only three survived into adulthood. Francis, who served in the 11th Hussars, became lord of the manors on his father's death. Francis died without issue in 1874 at the age of 35, and the De Burgh estates passed jointly to his two sisters, Minna Edith Elizabeth, wife of her cousin Rafe Oswald Leycester of Toft Hall, Cheshire, and Eva Elizabeth. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the estates were sold off gradually, mainly for building purposes. On the death in 1939 of the last lady of the manors, Miss Eva Elizabeth De Burgh, the family's connection with West Drayton and Hillingdon came to an end.

John Paul de Castro wrote The Gordon Riots (1926) and The law and practice of hall-marking gold and silver wares (1935).

Details of the creator were unknown at the time of the compilation of this finding aid.

Alphonse-Marie-Louis de Prat de Lamartine was born in Mâcon, France in 1790. He worked for the French embassy in Italy (1825-1828) before being elected a député (MP) in 1833. As a politician during the Second Republic, Lamartine was instrumental in achieving the abolition of slavery and the death penalty in France. He served briefly as Foreign Minister in 1848, but retired from public life the same year after an unsuccessful campaign for the presidency. Lamartine is also renowned as one of the earliest romantic poets writing in French. He was a member of the Académie française for 40 years, from 1829 until his death in 1869.

Augustus de Morgan was born at Madura, India in 1806. In February 1823 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1827. In 1828 he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at University College London. With a short break from 1831-1836, he retained this post until his retirement in 1861. He was married in 1837 to Sophia Elizabeth Frend. During his lifetime de Morgan wrote thousands of books and articles on mathematics, logic, philosophy and many other subjects, though his outstanding contributions were made in the field of logic. He died in 1877. His son, William Frend de Morgan, was born in London in 1839. He made his name initially in the arts and crafts movement, designing pottery tiles using medieval or art nouveau designs. Later he became a novelist with such success that he eventually abandoned his artistic career. Collections of de Morgan's designs are held in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the William Morris Gallery. He died in 1917.

The author was educated at the École Polytechnique in Paris, and obtained his M.D. in 1804 after having served in the armies of Napoleon as Medical Assistant. He is said to have practised in Galway, and certainly had some knowledge of English. He later settled in his native town of Saulieu (Côte d'Or) where he became Chief Physician, and was in charge of the hospital. He wrote many articles for medical journals as exemplified in this collection. A Recueil des oeuvres posthumes was published in Paris in 1828.

Bernard Deacon was born, 1903, in Nicolaiev, south Russia, where his father was the representative of a shipping firm; came to England, 1916; education: Nottingham high school, Trinity College, Cambridge, 1921-1925; conducted antropological fieldwork on the island of Malekula in the south Pacific archipelago of the New Hebrides (later Vanuatu) where he gained a working command of at least three Malekulan languages, 1926-1927; he also spent six weeks on the neighbouring island of Ambrym, 1927; died of malaria, 1927.

An ESRC funded project drawing together two key contemporary political debates: on the one hand, the democratic implications of the expansion in non-elective government in recent years, and on the other the media's growing centrality in the political system. Apart from providing unique data on the hitherto neglected relationship between these areas, the project aimed to contribute to current debates regarding democratic accountability, information flows, news management and state-media relations. The research programme combines several empirical strands various facets of the relationship between the appointive, Quasi-non governmental organisations ('Quangos') and the British news media.

Mr H G Deacon studied at Woolwich Polytechnic, and later went on to teach drawing and physics at the Polytechnic.

Olive Marjorie Deacon (1891-1950) was born in Scotland. During World War One she went to work at the Scottish Womens' Hospital in Belgrade, Serbia. After the hospital was closed Olive Deacon and three other aid workers under the auspices of the American Relief Administration Childrens' Fund went to Pec Montenegro to establish two orphanages. They left in 1920 after this had been accomplished.

The Balham Estate of the Dean and Chapter of Ely comprised 1-65 (odd) Charville Terrace, 2-34 (even) Panmure Terrace, and a shop and premises on the corner of Alderbrook Road and Balham Hill. After street re-naming and re-numbering, 20 October 1891, these became 134-70 (even) and 99-67 (odd) Alderbrook Road and 38 Balham Hill, respectively.

Dean Gooderham Acheson, 11 Apr 1893- 12 Oct 1971, was a lawyer, author, diplomat and member of the Yale Corporation. He served for twelve years at the US Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State, 1941-1945, Under Secretary of State, 1945-1947, and Secretary of State, 1949-1953. During these years Acheson helped to forge the Truman Doctrine, 1947, the Economic Recovery Program (Marshall Plan), 1947, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1949, and assisted in the development of a post-war US foreign policy towards Germany, the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. Official Conversations and Meetings of Dean Acheson, 1949-1953 are microfilmed copies of official transcripts and minutes of meetings and conversations of Acheson as Secretary of State during the Truman administration.

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 Maudsley Hospital Medical School was opened in 1923. It was associated to the Maudsley Hospital, which was established in 1914 to treat the mentally ill. It was officially recognised by the University of London in [1933]. In 1948 it became a founder member of the newly formed British Postgraduate Medical Federation and changed its name to the Institute of Psychiatry. Maudsley Hospital amalgamated with the Bethlem Royal Hospital to form a joint teaching hospital in 1948. The Institute of Psychiatry became a school of King's College London in 1997.

The Dean of the Institute of Psychiatry provides academic and strategic leadership and is supported by the Institute Secretary, who is responsible for the day to day management of the Institute.

The certificates were framed for display purposes, probably in the 1980s and probably before arrival at the Institute.