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Mr Henry Chester of Putney who died in 1900 left about eighty thousand pounds in his will to endow a hospital if a general hospital was built in the parish of Putney within 20 years of his death. If no such hospital was built, the money was to go to Guy's. He appointed the Haberdashers' Company as trustees of his will with the responsibility of approving any site proposed for a hospital.

The doctors of Putney and the Putney Municipal Alliance were in favour of building a hospital in Putney and a committee was formed. A freehold site on Lower Common formerly occupied by two houses, The Elms and West Lodge, was purchased by Sir William Lancaster and was subsequently given by him to the Hospital Trustees. In 1905 a public meeting of the inhabitants of Putney elected a Building Committee to raise twenty thousand pounds to erect and equip the first block of the hospital which would provide 20 beds for inpatients.

In January 1906 a joint meeting of the Richmond, Chelsea and Wandsworth Divisions of the British Medical Association decided to oppose the building of a large general hospital in Putney. The South West London Medical Hospital Committee was established to negotiate with the Putney Hospital Committee on the basis that a small general hospital on cottage hospital lines would meet the needs of Putney, there should be no treatment of out-patients, the number of non-paying beds should not be greater than the needs of the district or the resources of the endowment, and there should be directly elected representatives of the medical profession on the hospital's committee. Until agreement was reached, no medical man should have anything to do with the hospital.

Protracted and heated negotiations followed, with the two medical members of the Putney Hospital Committee, Dr John Guy and Mr E.F. White, defending the need for a hospital, protesting the initial support of the doctors of Putney as opposed to the wider area as represented by the British Medical Association, and affirming that there was no intention to establish a large general hospital or to treat out-patients. Eventually agreement was reached which allowed for a quarter of the Board of management of Putney Hospital to consist of medical men elected by and from the medical practitioners residing in and practising in Putney. However, a judgement by Mr Justice Joyce insisted that Putney hospital had to establish an out-patients department if it was to be a general hospital. The hospital finally admitted its first inpatients and out-patients in 1912.

Between 1926 and 1939 the hospital was enlarged with new wings to the north and south of the original building containing male and female wards, rooms for paying patients, a new out-patients department and a new operating theatre. A nurses' home was built in 1934 and extended a few years later. Further extensions and improvements were prevented by the outbreak of war. On 14 August 1944 the nurses' home was struck by a flying bomb. Fortunately no-one was injured, but the whole of the 2nd floor of the new wing and part of the 2nd floor of the original building had to be demolished, and a temporary roof erected.

In 1948 Putney Hospital became part of the National Health Service as one of the Battersea and Putney Group of Hospitals of the South West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board. Visitors from King Edward's Hospital Fund for London reported in 1953 that Putney Hospital had 106 beds, including 14 private beds which were constantly full, and 7 amenity beds, which were less in demand. They commented on the beds in the wards being very close together, "The last extension to this hospital was made in 1933. Since then the population round had grown enormously and is still growing fast." There was an immediate need for extending the out-patients department "which must be one of the smallest in any general hospital". By 1956 a scheme was in hand to extend Putney hospital to provide a new out-patients department and increase the number of beds to 178. Despite the problems of overcrowding King's Fund Visitors in that year described Putney as a first class hospital.

Between 1959 and 1961 existing buildings were upgraded and the hospital was extended with two new wards, Mackenzie Morris Ward and Sydney Turner Ward, opening in 1961 and 1962. A new casualty department opened in 1960 and a new out-patients department was opened in November 1961. Stage II of the development of Putney Hospital had been planned, but it was first deferred then abandoned. A new hospital plan envisaged the closure of Putney Hospital by 1971 as well as Battersea General Hospital, and the redevelopment of Saint John's Hospital in Battersea. In 1998 it was planned that Putney Hospital, part of Richmond, Twickenham and Roehampton Healthcare NHS Trust, be closed and its services transferred to Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. By 2001 the hospital was part of South West London Community NHS Trust specialising in care of the elderly. The hospital was finally closed early in 2002.

According to the Kelly's Directory for Acton, an Albert Putnam, butcher, worked at 86A Church Street, Acton, W3.

Aleksei Semenovich Musin-Pushkin was Russian ambassador in London 1769-1778.

Purvis served as able seaman and midshipman in the ARROGANT on the coast of Spain from 1761 to 1763. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1778, serving in the INVINCIBLE on the North American Station. In 1779 he was appointed to the BRITANNIC in the Channel. From 1781 to 1783 he commanded the DUC DE CHANTRES on the North American Station and in 1782 captured the French ship L'AIGLE, for which he was promoted to captain. After being on half-pay during the years of peace, Purvis was given command in 1793 of the AMPHITRITE and then of the PRINCESS ROYAL in the Mediterranean, where he remained until 1796. From 1797 to 1801 he commanded the LONDON in the Channel, followed by the ROYAL GEORGE, 1801 to 1802, and the DREADNOUGHT, 1803 to 1804, on the same station. He was promoted to rear-admiral in 1804. In 1806 he was sent out to the blockade of CADIZ and remained in command there until 1810. He was promoted to vice-admiral in 1809 and admiral in 1819.

Margaret Purkis trained as a nurse at King's College Hospital, 1927-1930, gaining General Nursing Council registration, Nov 1930.

Purdon was born in London on 15 October 1883. From 1919 to 1928 he was Finance Director at Welwyn Garden City Ltd. Between 1928 and 1935 he edited a succession of journals: Everyman, 1928-1932, New Britain, 1933-1934 and Theatregoer, 1935. During World War Two, Purdon served with the Ministry of Food 1941-1943, Ministry of Supply, 1943 and Ministry of Information 1944. Purdon was also involved with the Garden City movement and town planning. He was the General Secretary of Equity, 1939-1940 and Joint Secretary of the London Theatre. After the war Purdon produced two plays by William Shakespeare, As You like It, 1949 and Macbeth in 1951. He also wrote widely on drama and on town planning. Purdon died on 8 July 1965.

Born 1894; educated privately and at Trinity College of Music and King's College London; research work on the literary ballad in English, Somerville College, Oxford University, 1916-1917; Lecturer in German, University of Liverpool, 1917-1921; Independent Lecturer in German and Teutonic Philology, University College of North Wales, Bangor, 1921-1933; served on the Court of the University of Wales, 1926-1929; Member of the Council, University College of North Wales, 1928; Professor of German Language and Literature, Bedford College, University of London, 1933-1962; Member of Senate of University of London, 1950-1962; President of the Music Society, Bedford College; Fellow of Trinity College of Music, 1951; Chairman of Committee of Management, Warburg Institute, University of London, 1945-1965; Chairman, 1950-1953, and Director, 1953-1956, Institute of Germanic Languages and Literature; Emeritus Professor, 1962; retired 1962; died 1968.

Publications: editor of Von deutscher art und kunst (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1924); editor of Herodes und Mariamne (Oxford, 1943); Poems. Selected and edited by Edna Purdie (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1953); Friedrich Hebbel, etc (Oxford University Press, London, 1932); Studies in German literature of the eighteenth century: some aspects of literary affiliation (Athlone Press, London, 1965); The story of Judith in German and English literature (Honoré Champion, Paris, 1927); editor of Henry Handel Richardson: some personal impressions (Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1957); A history of German literature (Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1959); editor of Essays and addresses in literature (Routledge and Sons, London, 1935); editor of Lessing's dramatic theory. Being an introduction to and commentary on his 'Hamburgische Dramaturgie' (Cambridge University Press, 1939).

The Pupil's Physical Society of Guy's Hospital was originally started in 1830 as a student's society for the discussion of subjects of medical and surgical importance, showing of interesting cases and reading papers. It was managed by a Committee of Presidents, elected by the society from the senior students and house officers. The ordinary meetings were attended by students only, and intended as a forum for discussing medical problems.

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At the inclosure of 1803 the lord of the manor of Sunbury held about 175 acres of inclosed land and received about 186 acres of allotments. His old inclosures included fields on which Manor Farm (at the junction of Green Street and Manor Lane) and the house now called the Manor House were built before 1865. The early-19th-century Old Manor Farm, which also belonged to him, is in Church Street.

From: 'Sunbury: Manors', 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), pp. 53-57 (available online).

Launched in 1979 by founders Fred Newman (Born Manfred Neumann in Austria in 1932. Was editor of the student newspaper 'Cherwell' at Oxford, where he met co-founder Labovitch. His first job was with the Daily Sketch. He went on to work at University of Sussex and Phoebus Partworks, part of the British Printing Corporation, where he was Managing Director. He left in 1979 to form Publishing News) and Clive Labovitch (Born 1932 in Leeds. Attended Oxford where he also worked on 'Cherwell'. He went into business with Michael Heseltine in the 1960s, winning the contract to publish the British Institute of Management magazine and forming Cornmarket Press (later Haymarket Publishing. He split from Heseltine and co-founded Publishing News in 1979 after a failed independent venture. He died in 1994.)

Newman and Labovitch’s first venture was Skateboard Weekly, formed in 'Harry’s Bar' in Park Lane Hotel’s vacant basement. It was also here that Publishing News was established, and the location lent its name to the paper’s long-standing diarist, 'Harry Barr' (a fictional character who many believed to be real). Publishing News focused on the people of the book trade. Many thought the venture would be short-lived: The Bookseller only ever referred in print to its competitor as 'Skateboard Weekly'.

Publishing News was a fornightly (later weekly) magazine reporting on all aspects of the book trade. It was commended for giving coverage to the independent sector and self-publishers, and innovations such as daily issues for the London Book Fair, and later the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 1983 the company moved to offices in Museum Street, and in 1990 they launched the first British Book Awards, also known as the 'Nibbies'. The first awards ceremony, held at the Park Lane Hotel, was a sell-out, and the ceremony continued to grow year on year and attract press and television coverage. In 2001 Publishing News launched a website covering news and features relevant to the book trade as a companion to its print magazine, and bought research agency BML (Book Marketing) in 2003.

The 25th July 2008 of Publishing News was the last. Fred Newman died in November 2008.

The Museum has been a publisher throughout its history, producing scholarly monographs and catalogues, expedition reports, periodicals, study guides, popular guidebooks, notes for collectors, posters, wallcharts and postcards. A bookshop opened for the sale of guidebooks and postcards in 1921, and was opened on Sundays after consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Principal Trustee. From the 1930s editing was the responsibility of the Keepers, permission to publish was recommended by the Trustees' Publications Sub-Committee, and arrangements for printing and the preparation of illustrations was in the hands of the Museum Accountant. When Richard J Drumm (1889-1965) retired as Accountant in 1954 he was retained as a part-time Publications Officer.

At the same time a review of publications policy led to preparation of a series of popular handbooks in addition to the Museum's scholarly output. Arthur E Baker (b 1910) was appointed the first full-time Publications Officer in 1962, and was responsible for liaison between the science departments and the Director on one hand, and printers and illustrators on the other. By 1967 there was a publications staff of ten, who included clerical officers, printers and retail sales staff. The Section was incorporated into the newly formed Department of Public Services in 1975.

Founded in 1989, the Public Utilities Access Forum (PUAF) is an informal association of organisations which helps to develop policy on the regulation of the public utilities providing electricity, gas, communications and water services in England and Wales. PUAF facilitates the exchange of information and opinions between bodies concerned with the provision of those utilities to consumers with low incomes or special service needs, such as the elderly and people with mental and physical disabilities. It draws the particular problems of such consumers to the attention of the industries, the regulators and other relevant bodies, promoting the adoption of policies and practices which cater for their needs, exchanging information about service provision and promoting research.

Born, 1913; Education: Royal Grammar School, Guildford; Trinity College, Cambridge (1930-1935); Career: Commonwealth Fund Fellow, Princeton University (1935-1937); Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge (1937-1939, 1945-1946); Faculty Assistant Lecturer, Cambridge University (1937-1939); University Lecturer in Mathematics, Cambridge University (1945-1946); Reader in Theoretical Physics, Liverpool University (1939-1945); worked on radar with Admiralty Signal Establishment (1941) and on Joint Atomic Energy Project, Montreal (1944); Wykeham Professor of Physics, Oxford University, included a sabbatical as Visiting Professor at Princeton (1946-1954); appointed part time head of the theoretical physics division of the the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell (1950); Henry Overton Wills Professor of Physics, Bristol University (1954-1964); Professor of Physics, University of Southern California (1964-1968); Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of British Columbia (1968-1978); Fellow of the Royal Society (1951); died, 2003.

Part of the Prudential Group, The Prudential Assurance Company Limited provides life insurance and pensions to approximately seven million customers. Prudential was founded 30 May 1848, offering loans and life assurance to the middle classes. Upon acquiring its main rivals The British Industry Life Assurance Company and The Consolidated Life Assurance Company in the 1860s, the business changed its name to The Prudential Assurance Company in 1866. Overseas agencies for general and life insurance were established during the 1920s and 1930s, and the Group now provides financial services in Asia, the US and the UK.

Information available at http://www.prudential.co.uk/prudential-plc/aboutpru/ourhistory and [http://www. pru.co.uk/about_us](http://www. pru.co.uk/about_us) (accessed October 2010).

The Prudential Staff Pension Scheme comprises company contributions and optional employee contributions which are then matched by the company. The Scheme is contracted into the State Second Pension, and includes benefits such as the ability to take part of the pension as a tax-free lump sum.

Information available at http://www.prudentialstaffps.co.uk (accessed October 2010).

The Prudential Assurance Company was established in 1848 as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association, providing loans to professionals secured through life assurance. An Industrial Department was opened in 1854, selling life insurance to the working classes by means of door-to-door agents. Following acquisitions in the 1860s, the company was renamed The British Prudential and Consolidated Assurance Company. This name was shortened in 1867 to The Prudential Assurance Company. It became a limited liability company in 1881.

In 1919, the company moved into general insurance for the first time. Overseas agencies and branches were opened in the 1920s and 1930s to sell both life and general insurance. By the 1970s, the company had made further acquisitions and it was restyled the Prudential Corporation plc in 1978. The name was changed again in 1999 to Prudential plc.

The Prudential Assurance Company was based at Hatton Garden, 1848-1879 and Holborn Bars, 1879-2006. The company subsequently relocated to offices across the UK and India; the registered office is now at Laurence Pountney Hill.

The Prudential Assurance Company Limited was established as Prudential Mutual Assurance, Investment and Loan Association in 1848. It was renamed British Prudential Assurance Association in 1860, and British Prudential and Consolidated Assurance in 1865. The name Prudential Assurance Company Limited was adopted in 1867 and the company was incorporated in 1881.

Acquisitions included the British Industry Life Assurance Company (amalgamated 1860); Consolidated Assurance Company (amalgamated 1865); British Mutual Life Assurance Company (amalgamated 1868); International Life Assurance Society (amalgamated 1870) and British Widows Assurance Company Limited (amalgamated 1936).

George Robert Farrar Prowse of Winnipeg, Canada was an expert in the study of maps and among the first to use maps to study the origin and nature of place names. He made a number of studies on the cartography of John Cabot's voyages.

Founded in 1840 as the Provident Clerks' Mutual Benefit Association, its name changed in 1848 to the Provident Clerks' Mutual Life Assurance Association, in 1903 to the Provident Clerks' and General Mutual Life Assurance Association and in 1917 to the Provident Mutual Life Assurance Association.

It had offices at 12 Wormwood Street 1840, 60 King William Street 1840-5, 42 Moorgate Street 1845-54 and 15 (subsequently re-numbered as 27) Moorgate Street from 1854.

The Association specialised in the provision of assurance for office clerks, particularly through "staff schemes" negotiated with individual employers (such as the General Post Office and a number of railway companies).

The company was established in 1806 for life assurance business. Its first address was in Regent Street, but by 1851 it also had an office at 2 Royal Exchange Buildings which later moved to 14 Cornhill.

In 1906, the company merged with Alliance Assurance Company which, in turn, was acquired by Sun Insurance Company in 1959.

This company was established in 1876 as Provident Clerks and General Accident Insurance Company for accident insurance business. Its address was 61 Coleman Street. It was renamed in 1907 when it merged with its sister company (Provident Clerks and General Guarantee Association) from which date it also provided fidelity guarantee insurance. In 1917 it became a subsidiary of Northern Assurance Company and was renamed Provident Accident and Guarantee Company until 1925 when it merged with another subsidiary, White Cross Insurance Association, and was restyled Provident Accident and White Cross Insurance Company. This name was changed to White Cross Insurance Company in 1949. Northern Assurance became a subsidiary of Commercial Union Assurance in 1968.

The Women's Employment Publishing Company Ltd was established by the Central Employment Bureau for Women around 1913/14 in order to deal with its publications. The Central Bureau had been issuing the twice-monthly journal 'Women's Employment' since 1899 and other occasional publications in connection with their work and it was this that the Women's Employment Publishing Company continued from the parent organisation's offices in Russell Square. In addition to the main periodical, the press was also responsible for the publication of numerous editions of 'Careers [later, 'and Vocational Training']: A Guide to the Professions and Occupations of Educated Women and Girls', 'The Finger Post', 'Hints on how to find work' and 'Open Doors for Women Workers'. The directors just before the outbreak of the Second World War were H John Faulk (Chairman), Miss E R Unmack (Managing Director) and Miss A E Hignell (secretary). Despite problems cause by this disruption and a decline in the number of readers in this period, the company survived and continued publishing 'Women's Employment' until 1974.

The author obtained his MD at Edinburgh University in 1811, and then began practice in London. He was a pioneer in physiological and organic chemistry, and lectured at his residence to a small but distinguished audience including Sir Astley Paston Cooper. (See MS.4016.) He was elected FRS in 1819, and FRCP in 1829.

George Walter Prothero was born in Wiltshire, 14 October 1848, the eldest son of Rev. Canon George Prothero, Whippingham, Isle of Wight, and Emma nee Money-Kyrle, of Homme House, Herefordshire. He was educated at Eton, King's College Cambridge and the University of Bonn. He was Bell Scholar, 1869 and obtained 1st class in the Classical Tripos, 1872.

He was Assistant Master at Eton, and university lecturer in history and tutor at King's College, Cambridge 1876-1894. In 1894 he was appointed to the newly created chair of modern history at Edinburgh University, but in 1899 moved to London to take up the editorship of the Quarterly Review. He was President of the Royal Historical Society 1901-1905.

Other appointments included; Lecturer under University Extension Scheme at Nottingham, Leicester; Rede Lecturer (Cambridge), 1903; Lowell Lecturer (Boston), and Schouler Lecturer (Johns Hopkins), 1910; Chichele Lecturer (Oxford), 1920; Governor of Holloway College, 1916; Member of Royal Commission for Ecclesiastical Discipline, 1904-1906; Director of the Historical Section, Foreign Office, 1918-1919; Member of the British Peace Delegation, 1919; Pres., Royal Historical Society; Corresponding Member of Massachusetts Historical Society; Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Boston); Member of Société d'Histoire Modern (Paris); Hon. LLD Edinburgh and Harvard; Officer of the Crown of Belgium, 1919.

He married 1882, Mary Frances, daughter of late Dr Samuel Butcher, Bishop of Meath. Awarded KBE 1920; MA, LittD (Cambridge); FBA 1903. Prothero died in 1922.

Publications:
Life and Times of Simon de Montfort, 1877; edited [Histoire du] siécle de Louis XIV, Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, Pt. 1, Voltaire, 1694-1778 (Cambridge University Press 1879) and Histoire du siecle de Louis XIV. par Voltaire Pt II Voltaire. 1694-1778, edited by Gustave Masson, and G. W. Prothero, (Cambridge University Press 1879); Le Directoire considérations sur la révolution française, troisiéme et quatriéme parties with a critical notice of the author ... and notes ... by Gustave Masson and G W Prothero, Anne Louise Germaine Necker Staél-Holstein (Mme. de Staél), (Cambridge University Press 1881); translation of vol. I of Ranke's Weltgeschichte, 1883; A memoir of Henry Bradshaw, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and University Librarian, (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, 1888); Select Statutes and other constitutional documents illustrative of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I (Oxford, Clarendon Press 1898); editor of Sir J. R. Seeley's Growth of British Policy, 1895; British History Reader, 2 vols 1898;
co-editor of the Cambridge Modern History, 1901-1912; editor of the Cambridge Historical Series; School History of Great Britain and Ireland (to 1910), 1912; Commemorative addresses on Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall by G W Prothero and on Edward Henry Pember by W.J. Courthope, (London, Oxford University Press. 1912); Catalogue of war publications compiled by G W Prothero with the assistance of Alex J Philip, (London, John Murray, 1916); German policy before the war (John Murray, 1917); A lasting Peace (London, Hodder and Stoughton 1917); editor of the series of Peace Handbooks issued by the Foreign Office, 1920; contributor to Encyclopædia Britannica and the Dictionary of National Biography.

The Deputies were the elected representatives of every congregation of the Presbyterian, Independent and Baptist denominations of Protestant Dissenters, within a ten mile radius of London. They evolved as a formal body to press for the repeal of the Test and Corporations Acts and "to take care of the civil affairs of Dissenters".

The Deputies appear to have originated at a general meeting of Protestant Dissenters held on 9 November 1732 at which a committee was appointed to consider an appeal to Parliament for the repeal of the Test and Corporations Acts. A meeting on 29 November 1732 recommended that every congregation of the three denominations appoint two deputies to form an assembly, and in January 1736 it was proposed that the deputies should be elected annually. This resolution became fully effective in January 1737, when 21 of these elected representatives were chosen to form a committee to deal with the main business of the year.

The school was established in October 1717 by voluntary subscription for children (boys and girls) of protestant dissenters of all denominations, in Bartholomew Court in the parish of St Bartholomew the Great. By 1834 it had moved to Jewin Street, also in the City of London.

The Bishop of London was held to exercise responsibility for Anglican churches overseas where no other bishop had been appointed. He retained responsibility for churches in northern and central Europe until 1980, but his jurisdiction in southern Europe ceased in 1842 on the creation of the diocese of Gibraltar. In 1980, the Bishop of London divested himself of all overseas jurisdiction and a new diocese of 'Gibraltar in Europe' was established.

There has been an English community and resident chaplain in Ostend since the late eighteenth century. In 1829 a chapel was handed over to Dutch and British Protestants by the Dutch government as a place of worship. In 1865 a new church was consecrated.

Alice Stern (née Reichmann) was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia 10th October 1902. In 1920 she married Peter Morel in Prague, they had one son Felix, born September 11, 1930. Peter Morel died in 1936. In 1938, anticipating the invasion of Czechoslovakia, Alice Morel took her son to an English boarding school and then returned to Prague intending to go back to England a few weeks later. However the Germans invaded sooner than she expected and she was forced to remain in Prague.

On 31 October 1941 she was transported to Lodz Ghetto on 507 transport. Doctor Felix Eckstein was on the same transport. He was born in Prague on April 18, 1887. In 1942 Dr Eckstein became seriously ill and because he was unable to work he was not entitled to receive any food. However, under the regulations peculiar to Lodz, if one member of a married couple was working he would be allowed to share the rations of his partner and would not be sent to the gas chamber. Alice Morel decided to marry him and on May 5, 1942 the ceremony took place. Dr Eckstein lived for a further eighteen months having shared the meagre rations of his wife.

Alice survived the war and was reunited with her son in Prague in 1945. In 1948 they returned to London where they made their home. In later years Alice assumed the name of Alice Stern. Stern died in London March 4, 1992.

William Prosser was born in c 1776. He was on the staff at the Monmouth Hospital in the early nineteenth century. He died in 1845. His grandson was Thomas Prosser FRCS (1820-1870), and his great grandson was Thomas Gilbert Prosser MRCS, from whom the papers came.

Battersea Bridge was built in 1771-2. It was constructed from wood to the designs of Henry Holland to replace the ferry between Chelsea and Battersea. The bridge was demolished in 1881 as boats often collided with the piers, but it had already contributed to the growth of Chelsea from a village to a small town. The present bridge with cast iron arches and designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette was erected 1886-90.

Meetings of the Proprietors took place at the Somerset Coffee House in the Strand, at the White Horse, Mrs Anderson's, or Don Saltero's Coffee House - all in Chelsea, at the Rainbow Coffee House, Cornhill, the Salopian Coffee House, Charing Cross, and frequently on the site at the Ferry House in Battersea.

Battersea Bridge was built in 1771-72. It was constructed from wood to the designs of Henry Holland to replace the ferry between Chelsea and Battersea. The bridge was demolished in 1881 as boats often collided with the piers, but had already contributed to the growth of Chelsea from a village to a small town. The present bridge with cast iron girders and designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette was erected 1886-90.

Serge Prokofiev was born in Sontsovka, in the Ukraine, in 1891. He played the piano and composed from an early age, and studied with Reinhold Gliere in the summers of 1902 and 1903. He attended the St Petersburg Conservatory from 1904 to 1914, and studied composition, conducting and piano, though his overwhelming desire to develop his own style often brought him into conflict with his teachers. He played his first public performance on 18 December 1908 in St Petersburg at one of the 'Evenings of Contemporary Music', premiered his first full compositions, and graduated in 1914, having won the coveted Anton Rubinstein Prize for the best student pianist. Following his graduation, Prokofiev travelled widely, performing his compositions in Paris, London and the USA. He composed in a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets and film music, though the modern nature of his music often led to censure on the part of the music press of the time. He moved to Paris permanently in 1923, after his marriage to Lina Codina. Tours of Soviet Russia in 1927, 1929 and 1932 contributed towards Prokofiev's decision to return to his homeland permanently in 1936, joined by his wife and two children. He developed an intense interest in writing scores for film, beginning with Lieutenant Kizhe in 1933, and for the theatrical stage - Peter and the Wolf was written in 1936 and performed by the State Children's Theatre. He also composed ballets such as Romeo and Juliet, premiered in 1938. Though Prokofiev initially conformed to Soviet ideology, the limitations imposed upon his artistic freedom proved stifling, and he was soon forbidden permission to tour outside the Soviet Union. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, all senior cultural figures were evacuated from Moscow, including Prokofiev, whose wife and children were left behind for the duration of the war. Lina Prokofiev, being Spanish by birth, was later arrested (1948) and sent to a labour camp for 8 years. In the same year her marriage to Prokofiev was annulled by the state, after which Prokofiev married Mira Mendelson. His composition remained prolific, and the works created during the War proved to be some of his most successful, notably War and Peace, Cinderella, and his Fifth Symphony. Suffering from increasing ill-health, Prokofiev died on 5 March 1953 and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Born in Paris in 1928, the second son of Serge and Lina Prokofiev, Oleg Prokofiev studied art at the Moscow School of Art from 1944 to 1947. After a first, unsuccessful marriage, Oleg met and married a young British art historian, Camilla Gray, who died tragically after a short illness. Allowed by the Soviet authorities to bring their daughter Anastasia to England, Oleg settled first in Leeds, where he was awarded a fellowship in the Fine Arts Department, and where he met his third wife Frances. Oleg made his name as an artist, exhibiting his wood sculptures and paintings in a number of countries, and his style was constantly evolving as a response to the new shapes and lights he discovered in journeys to America, Africa and India. Some of his poems were also published. He also dedicated a large part of his life to the promotion of his father's life and work, appearing on television and radio and maintaining a huge correspondence with artists, musicologists and performers involved in working on Prokofiev and Soviet music. He died in 1998.

Lina Prokofiev began life as Carolina Codina, born in Madrid on 21 October 1897. Her maternal Polish grandfather had held an important government post in Russia and spoke both Russian and Polish fluently. Lina herself became an adept linguist and so was at ease in cosmopolitan circles. Both her parents were singers, and Lina was trained by her mother to pursue the same career. When Lina was still a girl, her father brought the family from Spain to Cuba, and then to New York. Lina first met Serge Prokofiev in December 1918 following his New York symphonic concert debut at Carnegie Hall. Married in Bavaria in October 1923, they soon moved to Paris which became their main residence until the spring of 1936, when Prokofiev moved his family to Moscow. Lina's existence became particularly precarious when Prokofiev left her during the war in 1941, when he was evacuated from Moscow along with numerous artists, including Mira Mendelson, a young writer who would become his second wife in 1948. The Soviet authorities regarded their separation with a suspicion which was all the more heightened by her regular contacts with Western diplomats following World War Two. Early in 1948 she was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in labour camps. She was released in 1956 following the general amnesty after Stalin's death, though she was unable to leave the Soviet Union until 1974, when she returned to Paris. During her last years she devoted her considerable energy to promoting her husband's work.

Nuclear Weapons, Arms Control, and the Threat of Thermonuclear War, 1969-1995 is a themed microfilm compilation of sources published by University Publications of American, Inc. Original texts cover the period 1969-1995, and are drawn from a variety of originating bodies including the US Department of Defense; US Central Intelligence Agency; US Army War College; US General Accounting Office; US Department of Energy; Los Alamos National Laboratory; US Army Command and Staff College; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and non-partisan policy centres such as the RAND Corporation.

The Progressive League was formed in 1932 by H G Wells, C E M Joad and others to unite progressive organisations against fascism. It is concerned with social and economic developments, reforms consistent with human freedom, and initiatives designed to reduce poverty, ill health and intolerance. The League has given evidence before the Royal Commissions on Abortion, Divorce, and Homosexual and Prison Reform, and has campaigned for greater sexual freedom and contraception. The Progressive League is affiliated to and supports many organisations concerned with peace, asylum seekers, human rights, pensioners, civil liberties and environmental issues. There are ten groups, which hold meetings every month. These are the history group, forum (a group which discusses recent events), and the play reading, country dancing, writers, poetry, arts, religion, philosophy and psychology groups. Two residential conferences outside London are held each year.

PROGRESS Campaign for Research into Human Reproduction was launched in November 1985 to campaign for the protection of human embryo research so that IVF treatment could continue. PROGRESS was wound up after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act was passed in 1990, but in May 1992 Progress Educational Trust was established to carry on the educational work of PROGRESS. See http://www.progress.org.uk/ for further information.

The Programme for Reform in Secondary Education was established in 1975 as a pressure group campaigning for the principle of 'a fully comprehensive system of secondary education'. It held conferences, meetings and workshops, published pamphlets and a newsletter and participated in debates in the press and broadcast media. Among those influential educationists involved in the group's activities were Harry Rée, Maurice Kogan, Caroline Benn, Gabriel Chanan, Margaret Maden and Maurice Plaskow. It officially wound up its activities in 1994.

Born, 1897; Norland Place School, 1904-1908; St Paul's Girls' School, 1908–1916; unpaid research assistant British Museum (Natural History), 1917-1919; fellowship of the Zoological Society, 1917; curator, British Museum (Natural History), 1920; fellowship of the Linnean Society, 1923; honorary DSc from the Intercollegiate University, Chicago; curator of reptiles , Zoological Society, 1923-1931; involved in the design of Whipsnade Zoo; died 1931.

Ann Benson Skepper was born in 1799; married the lawyer and poet Bryan Waller Procter in 1824; settling in London, they had 2 sons and 4 daughters, including the poet Adelaide Procter (1825-1864). The legal writer and reformer Basil Montagu was Ann's stepfather and the pathologist Bryan Charles Waller (mentor of Arthur Conan Doyle) was her nephew by marriage. Proctor died in 1888.

John Proby was born in Stamford, Lincolnshire, in 1720. He was educated at Westminster School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He was elected MP for Stamford in 1747 and later served as MP for Huntingdonshire (1754-1768). Proby also held several public offices, including a position as a lord of the Admiralty (1763-1765). Alongside his English political career, he was made Baron Carysfort in the Irish peerage in 1754 and was a member of the Irish privy council. Rumours of mistresses and debts overshadowed Lord Carysfort's later years and he died in France aged 51.

In 1695 William III appointed a new Committee of the Privy Council by the name of 'the Lords Commissioners for promoting the Trade of our Kingdom and for inspecting and improving our plantations in America and elsewhere'. The main concern of these 'Lords of Trade' was the American colonies, and following the American War of Independence they were abolished (1782), their responsibilities being assumed by the Privy Council and the Secretary of State for the Home Department.

The Commission was set up under the Great Seal (Privy Council) on 1 Jul 1626, to try and reduce debts incurred by the Royal Household.