No further information available at present.
Formed c 1972, in abeyance 1998. No further information available at present.
The Conservative Group for Homosexual Equality was a voluntary organisation founded in 1976 to lobby Conservative Party opinion in favour of gay rights and to provide a political balance within the gay movement. The group was revived in 1980, and a constitution drawn up and adopted on 28 March 1981, establishing an elected Executive Committee to oversee the running of the Group. CGHE was succeeded by TORCHE (Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality), which now has upwards of 400 members within the Conservative Party.
Born 7 March 1947; lifelong Labour activist; openly gay member of the Labour party at a young age; moved to Manchester in 1970s to attend the Polytechnic; during this time became local Councillor in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. Later moved to Islington, where he was elected Councillor in 1982; represented Highview, Gillespie and Highbury wards. As Councillor fought for development of better housing and local education services; represented Islington on Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) from 1983, serving as Chair of the Equal Opportunities Committee; Mayor of Islington 1986-1987. Leader in gay community; founder and Chairman of the Islington Lesbian and Gay Committee; fought against injustice and discrimination toward gay men and lesbians; during 1980s worked as equal opportunities advisor for Education Department of Haringey Council. Member of London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, Gay Man Fighting Aids, National Aids Helpline, Food Chain, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (from 1960), Labour Movement Campaign for Palestine and National Anti-Racist Movement in Education (NAME); founder member of Gay Labour Group (later renamed the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights. Provided training for men on business and motivation; died 21 October 1996.
Henry Marion Durand was born in 1812. He went out to India in 1829, arriving in May 1830, as Second Lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers. He was involved in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, as Agent to the Governor General of central India 1857-1858. By 1870 Durand was Lieutenant General of the Punjab. His prestigious career was unfortunately ended on 1 January 1871, when he died following an accident when he fell from an elephant whilst entering the town of Tank, with the local Maharajah.
Henry Mortimer Durand was born in 1850. He was educated at Blackheath School, Eton House, Tonbridge and at the Bar, Lincoln's Inn. He entered the Indian Civil Service, arriving in India on 1 February 1873. Durand rose up through the ranks of the Indian Civil Service, and from 1884 to 1894 was Foreign Secretary to the Government of India. This was followed by a period of service as British Envoy, at the Court of the Shah of Persia. In 1900 Durand was appointed British Ambassador to Spain, a post which he held until 1903. In 1903 he became British Ambassador to the United States of America, but was recalled at the end of 1906. Durand stood as Conservative and Unionist candidate in the election of 1910 for Plymouth, with Waldorf Astor, but failed. In addition to his work as a civil servant and diplomat, Durand wrote a number of novels and other works, including a biography of his father. Durand married Ella, daughter of Teignmouth Sandys, in 1875. They had two children, a son and daughter, Amy Josephine (Jo). Josephine accompanied her father on many official duties owing to her mother's ill health. Lady Durand died in May 1913, aged 60. Sir Henry Mortimer Durand died in 1924.
James Trenchard Hardyman was born in Madagascar in 1918. He was the son of Arnold Victor Hardyman and Laura Hardyman (née Stubbs), who both worked as missionaries in Madagascar with the London Missionary Society from 1916-1938 and 1944-1950. As a child, James was sent to England to be educated under the guardianship of the Rev. and Mrs J. H. Haile. He became a missionary with the London Missionary Society in 1945. In the same year he married Marjorie Tucker.
From 1946-1974 they lived in Imerimandroso, Madagascar. In addition to his missionary work within the Antsihanaka area Hardyman became the Principal of the Imerimandroso College, training Malagasy pastors. Following his return to England, Hardyman worked as Honorary Archivist of the Council for World Mission at Livingstone House (1974-1991) and for the Conference of British Missionary Societies (1976-1988). In this capacity he oversaw the deposit of both archives at the School of Oriental and African Studies. From 1974-1983 he also worked for the Overseas Book Service of Feed the Minds.
At the age of eleven, Hardyman was given a second-hand copy of a book on Madagascar by Haile. The book, published anonymously in the 1840s, began his collection of published and unpublished material relating to Madagascar, which was to become the largest personal collection on Madagascar in existence. Hardyman used much of the material in his thesis, for which St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, awarded him a B.D. in 1952. He continued to collect information on the subject throughout his life. James Trenchard Hardyman died on 1 October 1995.
D W Arnott was Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Publications include: The nominal and verbal systems of Fula (1970); supplementary bibliography in Diedrich Hermann Westermann and Margaret Arminel Bryan's The languages of West Africa (1970).
The Restatement of African Law Project was a research initiative based at the Department of Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), active from the 1950s to the 1970s. Dr Antony N Allott (1924-2002), successively Lecturer, 1948, Reader, 1960, Professor, 1964, and Emeritus Professor, 1987, of African Law at SOAS, was involved in the project and edited the resulting series of publications (published by Sweet and Maxwell from 1968).
Towards the end of 1857 representatives of four British missionary societies working in India - the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London Missionary Society and the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society - put forward proposals for a new society, to be named the Christian Vernacular Education Society for India. The proposers did not, according to its First Annual Report, intend the new society to compete with 'existing educational establishments which employ the English language and literature and which are chiefly attractive to the higher classes of Hindu youth ... but rather to reach the village populations, and the masses of the lower orders in towns throughout the country, exclusively through the vernacular of each district'. The new society was formally instituted in May 1858 as a memorial to the Indian Mutiny. John Murdoch was appointed 'Representative and Travelling Secretary in India'. In 1891 the name of the Society was changed to the Christian Literature Society for India and in 1923 the words 'and Africa' were added when the Society extended its work to that continent. The organisation merged with the Religious Tract Society in 1935 to form the United Society for Christian Literature (USCL) For further information see G Hewitt, Let the People Read (London, 1949).
Sir Francis Arthur Aglen (1869-1932) joined the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1888. He was Acting Inspector-General in 1910 before succeeding Sir Robert Hart in 1911, serving as Inspector-General until his retirement in 1928.
Cecil Arthur Verner Bowra (1869-1947) joined the Chinese Maritime Customs and served in China from 1886 until 1923, including a period as Chief Secretary in Peking under Sir Francis Aglen, 1910-1923. He was subsequently employed in the London Office of Chinese Maritime Customs.
No information available.
No information available.
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.
Caspar von Voght was born in Hamburg. With his business partner Georg Heinrich Sieveking, he led one of the largest trading firms in that City during the late 18th century and travelled widely across Europe. Voght's greatest achievement was perhaps his reform of the welfare system in Hamburg. He was granted the title of Reichsfreiherr (usually rendered in English as 'Baron') in 1801.
Augustus de Morgan was born at Madura, India in 1806; educated at various English schools. 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. De Morgan resigned his post in 1831, on account of a disagreement with the University Council who claimed the right of dismissing a professor without assigning reasons. He resumed his chair in 1836 on assurance that the regulations had been altered so as to preserve the independence of professors, remaining Professor of Mathematics at UCL until he resigned in November 1866; he died in 1871.
Thomas Coates was appointed as Secretary of the University of London [afterwards University College London] in 1831.
Alfred John Fairbank was born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, in 1895 and brought up in Gillingham, Kent. He joined the civil service aged 15, initially working as a writer at Chatham dockyard, where a colleague introduced him to calligraphy. Whilst working at the Admiralty in London in th 1920s, Fairbank was able to study handwriting formally, becoming an acknowledged expert in both the study and practice of calligraphy and the author of several books on the subject, as well as a founder-member of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. He was awarded the CBE in 1951 and died in 1982.
Charles Pritchard was born in Shropshire and brought up in London. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in 1826, graduating BA in 1830 and MA in 1833. He was briefly (1833-1834) headmaster of Stockwell Grammar School before becoming head of the new Clapham Grammar School (1834-1862). After living on the Isle of Wight for several years, he became Savilian professor of astronomy at the University of Oxford in 1870, where he pioneered the use of stellar photography. Pritchard was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a member of several other learned societies, and received several honours from both Oxford and Cambridge universities. He was ordained in the Church of England in 1834 and lectured widely on both religious and scientific subjects.
Edward John Routh was born in Canada to a British father and French-Canadian mother. He came to Britain aged 11 and was educated at University College School, University College London (where he studied mathematics under Augustus De Morgan) and Peterhouse, Cambridge, from which he graduated as senior wrangler in 1854. From 1855 to 1888 Routh worked successfully as a mathematics coach at Peterhouse and he wrote several mathematical books. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1872.
Benjamin Thompson was born in Massachusetts in 1753. He became interested in science when young. In 1772 he married Sarah Rolfe, a well-connected heiress, and became a landowner and a major in the New Hampshire militia. He fought for the British during the American Revolution and moved to London in 1776, where he continued to serve in the British army, spending much of his time in Bavaria and taking part in the French Revolutionary Wars. He carried out scientific work throughout his army career, concentrating particularly on thermodynamics and inventing several devices relating to heat retention. Thompson was knighted in 1784 and created Count Rumford in the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire in 1792. With Sir Joseph Banks he established the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1799, and he endowed a professorship at Harvard University. In later life Sir Benjamin settled in Paris. Sarah Thompson having died in 1792, he married Antoine Lavoisier's widow, Marie-Anne, as his second wife in 1804, but they separated a few years later. He continued his scientific work until his death in 1814.
Thomas Perronet Thompson was born in Kingston upon Hull in 1783. He was educated at Hull Grammar School and Queens' College Cambridge. He joined the navy in 1803, transferring to the army three years later and rising though the ranks of officers steadily to lieutenant-colonel by the time of his retirement from active service in 1829. After retiring he received several more promotions by brevet and was made a general the year before his death. Firmly opposed to slavery and exploitation, Thompson introduced extensive reforms whilst colonial governor of Sierra Leone (1808-1810). He was also interested in economics and politics, being active in the Anti-Corn Law League, writing several books, and serving as radical MP for Hull (1835-1837) and for Bradford (1847-1852, 1857-1859). He died in Blackheath, Kent in 1869.
Arthur Young was born in London and educated at Lavenham, Suffolk. After attempts at working in commerce and in publishing, he took up farming on the family estate as Bradfield Hall, Suffolk. He became a successful farmer on several properties, was appointed to the Board of Agriculture in 1793, and wrote several books on farming and agricultural methods. He also travelled widely and the published accounts of his journeys through Britain, Ireland and France contain much social and political observation.
Matthew Arnold was born in Middlesex in 1822. He was educated at Rugby School (where his father was headmaster) and Balliol College, Oxford. As a young man he published several books of poetry and was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford. After the age of forty he wrote less poetry and turned to literary and cultural criticism; his most famous poem, Dover Beach was published in 1867 but was probably written some years earlier. From 1851 until 1886 he also worked as a school inspector.
Henry Peter Brougham was born and educated in Edinburgh and practised as a lawyer in Scotland and England. He served as Whig MP for Camelford (1810-1812), Winchelsea (1815-1830), Knaresborough (1830) and Yorkshire (1830) before receiving a peerage. He was Lord Chancellor from 1830-1834.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
John Russell was Whig MP for Tavistock from 1788 until 1802, when he succeeded his elder brother Francis as Duke of Bedford. He had little active interest in politics after becoing a peer, prefering botany and horticulture, but his country house at Woburn was fashionable among the political elite. He was married twice and had 13 children, among them Lord John Russell (1792-1878), afterwards 1st Earl Russell.
Robert Owen was born in Newtown, Wales in 1771. He was apprenticed to a draper in Stamford, Northamptonshire. In 1787 Owen moved to Manchester, where he set up a small cotton-spinning establishment, and also produced spinning mules for the textile industry. He became a manager for several large mills and factories in Manchester. In 1794 he formed the Chorlton Twist Company with several partners, and in the course of business met the Scots businessman David Dale. In 1799, Owen and his partners purchased Dale's mills in New Lanark, and Owen married Dale's daughter. At New Lanark, Owen began to act out his belief that individuals were formed by the effects of their environment by drastically improving the working conditions of the mill employees. This included preventing the employment of children and building schools and educational establishments. Owen set out his ideas for model communities in speeches and pamphlets, and attempted to spread his message by converting prominent members of British society. His detailed proposals were considered by Parliament in the framing of the Factories Act of 1819. Disillusioned with Britain, Owen purchased a settlement in Indiana in 1825, naming it New Harmony and attempting to create a society based upon his socialist ideas. Though several members of his family remained in America, the community had failed by 1828. Owen returned to England, and spent the remainder of his life and fortune helping various reform groups, most notably those attempting to form trade unions. He played a role in the establishment of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union in 1834, and the Association of All Classes and All Nations in 1835. Owen died in 1858.
No information was available at the time of compilation.
Sophia Elizabeth Frend was the eldest daughter of the nonconformist writer William Frend. She married the mathematician Augustus De Morgan in 1837 and they had 7 children, including the novelist and ceramicist William Frend De Morgan. Sophia collaborated with her husband on studies of psychical mediumship and wrote several books, including memoirs of her father and her husband.
Francis Albert Rollo Russell, 3rd son of Lord John Russell (afterwards Earl Russell), was born in Richmond, Surrey, and educated at Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford. He worked for the foreign office for more than 15 years but was more interested in meteorology and environmental science, on which he wrote several books and pamphlets. He became a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society aged 19 and served twice as its president. The philosopher Bertrand Russell was his nephew.
William Warde Fowler was born in Somerset in 1847. He was educated at Marlborough College and at New and Lincoln Colleges, Oxford. He became a fellow of Lincoln College in 1872 and continued to work and teach there until his retirement in 1910, holding at various times the positions of dean, librarian and lay sub-rector. His central academic interest was Ancient Rome during the republican period, but he also wrote published works on such diverse subjects as Mozart and bird migration. Fowler was President of the Classical Association in 1920.
Herbert George Wells was born in Bromley, Kent, and educated locally. From the age of 13 he worked unsuccesfully as a draper's assistant and chemist's assistant, before beoming a pupil teacher Midhurst Grammar School. In 1884 he began studying under Thomas Huxley at the Normal School (later the Royal College) of Science in South Kensington, but left without a degree; he finally gained a University of London BSc in 1890. Wells became a teacher and freelance journalist before branching out into novels and short stories. He was married twice and had several other ongoing liaisons with women, including the writer Rebecca West (afterwards Dame Cicily Andrews). Today he is best known for his science fiction works, including The Time Machine (1895) and The War of the Worlds (1898); during his lifetime he was also known as a non-fiction writer and a committed socialist.
John Edward Masefield was born in Ledbury, Herefordshire in 1878. He entered the Merchant Navy and deserted ship in America, where he drifted for some time. Returning to England he became a journalist. He published several volumes of poetry before the outbreak of World War One. During the war Masefield was a member of the Red Cross and witnessed the disaster at Gallipoli, which he later wrote about in his position as head of the War Propaganda Bureau. During the 1920s and 1930s Masefield wrote numerous successful volumes of poetry, as well as two novels and an autobiography. Masefield continued to write until his death in 1967.
George Chalmers was born at Fochabers, Moray, Scotland, in 1742. He received his education from the parish school at Fochabers and from King's College Aberdeen. He went on to study law in Edinburgh and then in 1773 put these skills into practice as a lawyer in Baltimore, USA in 1773. He returned in 1775 to settle in London, where he devoted his life to writing books about Ireland, affairs of America and the British monarchy. In 1786 he was appointed chief clerk of the committee of the Privy Council for trade and foreign plantations. Chalmers wrote numerous biographies and in 1807 his first volume of Caledonia, a work intended to record the history and antiquities of Scotland was published. Volumes 2 and 3 of Caledonia were published in 1820 and 1824 but Chalmers died, on 31 May 1825, before he could finish the series although he left a manuscript collection intended for its completion. Chalmers was a prolific writer on history throughout his life as well as a collector of books and manuscripts. His library was sold in three parts between September 1841 and November 1842, yielding £6189 in total. Publications: An Answer from the Electors of Bristol to the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq. on the affairs of America (T. Cadell, London, 1777); An Appeal to the Generosity of the British Nation, in a statement of facts on behalf of the afflicted widow and unoffending offspring of the unfortunate Mr. Bellingham (M. Jones, London, 1812); An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the Present and Four Preceding Reigns; and of the losses of her trade from every war since the Revolution (C. Dilly and J. Bowen, London, 1782); An Introduction to the History of the Revolt of the Colonies (Baker and Galabin, London, 1782); Another Account of the Incidents, from which the title, and a part of the story of Shakspeare's Tempest, were derived; and the true era of it ascertained (R. & A. Taylor, London, 1815); Caledonia: or, an Account, historical and topographic, of North Britain; from the most ancient to the present times: with a dictionary of places, chorographical and philological (T. Cadell, London, 1807-24); Comparative Views of the State of Great Britain and Ireland; as it was, before the war; as it is, since the peace (T. Egerton, London, 1817); Considerations on Commerce, Bullion and Coin, Circulation and Exchanges; with a view to our present circumstances (J. J. Stockdale, London, 1811); Opinions of Eminent Lawyers, on various points of English Jurisprudence, chiefly concerning the Colonies, Fisheries, and Commerce, of Great Britain (Reed and Hunter, London, 1814); Opinions on Interesting Subjects of Public Law and Commercial Policy; arising from American independence (J. Debrett, London, 1784); Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763 (J. Bowen, London, 1780); Proofs and Demonstrations, how much the projected Registry of Colonial Negroes is unfounded and uncalled for (Thomas Egerton: London, 1816); The Life of Daniel De Foe (John Stockdale, London, 1790); The Life of Mary, Queen of Scots; drawn from the State Papers(John Murray, London, 1818); The Life of Thomas Ruddiman (John Stockdale, London, 1794); Churchyard's Chips concerning Scotland: being a collection of his pieces relative to that country, with historical notices, and a life of the author (Longman & Co, London, 1817); A Collection of Treaties between Great Britain and other Powers (John Stockdale, London, 1790); Parliamentary Portraits (T. Bellamy, London, 1795); Facts and Observations relative to the coinage and circulation of counterfeit or base money; with suggestions for remedying the evil (London, 1795);The Arrangements with Ireland considered (John Stockdale, London, 1785); editor of The Poetical Works of Sir David Lyndsay (Longman, London, 1806); An Apology for the believers in the Shakspeare Papers [forged by W. H. Ireland], which were exhibited in Norfolk Street (T. Egerton, London, 1797); A short view of the proposals lately made for the final adjustment of the commercial system between Great-Britain and Ireland (John Stockdale, London, 1785); A Vindication of the privilege of the people, in respect to the constitutional right of free discussion, with a retrospect to various proceedings relative to the violations of that right (London, 1796); Thoughts on the present Crisis of our Domestic Affairs (London, 1807).
John Fisher was born at Hampton, Middlesex, in 1748. He was educated in Peterborough and London before entering Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was ordained Deacon in the Church of England in 1771 and ordained Priest in 1773. He also became a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge in 1773. From 1781-1785 Fisher became Chaplain to King George III and took charge of educating some of the royal children for several years. He became a Canon at Windsor in 1786, Bishop of Exeter in 1803, and Bishop of Salisbury in 1807. In 1819 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. After his death in 1825, Fisher was buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor.
Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was born in Durham and educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He joined the Fabian Society whilst still a student. After graduating, he joined the civil service and worked for the Board of Trade for more than 15 years; during this time he wrote many articles and reviews, and several books on philosophy. In 1930 he left the Board of Trade to become head of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London, a position he held for many years. Joad's personal life was unconventional: he left his wife after 6 years of marriage and subsequently had many short-term relationships. His left-wing political views, support for divorce, abortion and Sunday trading, and opposition to war and religion made him controversial during his lifetime, though many of his views changed during the last 5 years of his life. He became well known to the public as a regular panellist on the BBC radio programme The Brains Trust.
Gordon Bottomley was born in Yorkshire in 1874, and educated at Keighley Grammar School before becoming a bank clerk. Illness in his late teens forced him to give up work; subsequently spending long periods as an invalid, he took up writing. He was prolific and his theatrical works, including Gruach (1921), were often poetic and experimental.
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.
John Yates was born in Bolton, in 1755. He became a Unitarian minister in Liverpool and was noted for his support of radical politics and opposition to slavery. He married Elizabeth Bostock, a doctor's widow, and they had eight children. His eldest son, Joseph Brooks Yates, became a well-known businessman and antiquary, and his fourth son, James Yates, followed him into the Unitarian ministry.
James Yates was born in Liverpool and educated at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and at Manchester College in York. Like his father, John Yates, he became a Unitarian minister (though unordained), working in Glasgow, Birmingham and London. He was also known as a scholar, active in diverse fields including geology, archaeology and classical philology.
Thomas Bernard was born in Lincolnshire in 1750. He was brought up partly in North America, where his father was colonial governor of Massachusetts, and educated at school in New Jersey and at Harvard University. Returning to England as a young man, he studied law at the Middle Temple and was called to the bar in 1780. Bernard gained a fortune through his legal career and marriage to an heiress and devoted much of his life to philanthropy. He was a governor and treasurer of the London Foundling Hospital and much concerned with improving the conditions of child labourers. He was active in the debate over poor law reform and campaigned against the tax on salt. Much of his work was driven by his evangelical Christian beliefs. Bernard succeeded his brother to the baronetcy in 1810. After his death in 1818 he was buried beneath the Foundling Hospital chapel. His nephew, the Rev James Baker, was his biographer. The author Frances Elizabeth King was his sister.
Henry Peter Brougham was born and educated in Edinburgh and practised as a lawyer in Scotland and England. He served as Whig MP for Camelford (1810-1812), Winchelsea (1815-1830), Knaresborough (1830) and Yorkshire (1830) before receiving a peerage. He was Lord Chancellor from 1830-1834.
Charles Jenkinson (1727-1808) became private secretary to the 3rd Earl of Bute, favourite of George III, in 1760. In 1763, having been elected to Parliament, Jenkinson was appointed Joint Secretary of the Treasury. Chosen as Vice-Treasurer for Ireland in 1773, he became a member of the Privy Council. Later he was Master of the Royal Mint (1775-1778) and, during the American Revolution, Secretary at War (1778-1782). During the first ministry (from 1783) of the William Pitt the younger, Jenkinson proved an invaluable adviser. In 1786 he was appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and president of the Board of Trade. A member of the Cabinet from 1791, he became an invalid around 1801, ceased to attend Cabinet meetings, and by the middle of 1804 had resigned all his offices. He was created Baron Hawkesbury in 1786 and 1st Earl of Liverpool in 1796.
Thomas Clarkson was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, in 1760. He was educated locally and in London before entering St John's College Cambridge. Whilst researching for an essay competition in 1785, he was appalled to discover the cruelty involved in the Atlantic slave trade and became an abolitionist. Along with his younger brother John, he researched and campaigned vigorously on behalf of the anti-slavery movement. After the Abolition Act was passed in 1807, he continued to campaign for its enforcement and for emancipation of those already enslaved (achieved in 1833). Brought up in the Church of England, Clarkson became close to many Quaker friends that he met through the anti-slavery movement but did not join the Society of Friends himself.
Silas Kitto Hocking was born in Cornwall in 1850, and educated locally. He was ordained as a minister in the United Methodist Free Church in 1870 and subsequently held pastorates in various parts of England and Wales. Hocking's first novel was published in 1878 and he subsequently wrote several other books for children and adults, the best known being Her Benny (1880). He resigned from the ministry in 1896 to concentrate on writing and Liberal politics. His younger brother, Joseph Hocking, was also a novelist and minister.
George MacDonald was born and educated in Aberdeen, graduating MA from King's College (now part of the University of Aberdeen) in 1845. He moved to London to become a tutor and later trained as a Congregational Minister, though his only pastoral position, in Sussex, lasted less than 4 years. MacDonald had begun writing poetry during his student days. His first book was published in 1855 and he continued to write and publish both poetry and prose for more than 40 years. Between 1881 and 1901 he lived for most of the year in Bordighera, Italy, but returned to live in Britain permanently after his wife's death in 1902. Many of MacDonald's most successful works were children's fiction in the form of fairy tales and fantasy. Today, he is no longer widely read by children, but his works influenced many leading writers, including C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, W H Auden, G K Chesterton and Mark Twain.
Sarah Smith was born in Wellington, Shropshire in 1832. She was educated locally. Aged 26 she began work as a freelance journalist and short story writer. One of her stories was sent to Charles Dickens without her knowledge by her sister Elizabeth, and was published in Household Words. Her work was published under the name Hesba Stretton (taken from the initials of her siblings' names and the nearby village of All Stretton). During the 1860s-1880s, whilst living with Elizabeth in Manchester and later in London, Stretton wrote several books for children and adults. She was concerned with political and social issues and in 1884 co-founded the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (later known as the NSPCC).
John Philippart was born in London in 1784. He was educated at a military academy. In 1809 he became private secretary to John Baker Holroyd (later Earl of Sheffield) at the Board of Agriculture, and in 1911 he transferred to work at the War Office. Subsequently, he compiled many pamphlets and several reference books relating to the British Army. Philippart was actively involved in the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, serving as a chancellor of the Order for 43 years and founding the West London hospital in Hammersmith. He was a Knight of the Order of St John of Jerusalem and of two Swedish orders, and as such was sometimes called Sir John, although he was not knighted within the British honours system.
John Minter Morgan was born in Westminster in 1782. Little is known about his early life until aged 25 he inherited a fortune in land, business and investments; thereafter he devoted his life and much of his wealth to the cause of co-operativism and Christian socialism. His London salon became a leading intellectual centre and, with his diplomatic skills, he succeeded in forging working alliances with both religious-minded and secular socialists. He also campaigned for free universal education.
Samuel Romilly was born in London in 1757, the descendant of Huguenot refugees. He worked as a solicitor's clerk before studying for the bar at Gray's Inn; he was called to the bar in 1783. His abilities were recognised by the Whig pary and he was knighted and became Solicitor-General in 1806. He subsequently he served as an MP for several years. Romilly travelled in Europe as a young man and his friends included the Comte de Mirabeau. He is best known for his attempts to reform English criminal law, which met with limited success. He committed suicide in 1818, shortly after his wife's death.
Joseph Locke was born near Sheffield in 1805. He was educated in Yorkshire and County Durham. He became an engineer and later an assistant to George Stephenson, taking part in the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Locke's first major project was the survey and construction of the Grand Junction Railway, which established his reputation as a railway engineer. He subsequently oversaw the construction of many other lines, both in Britain and continental Europe; Napoleon III created him a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur for his work in France. He also served as Liberal MP for Honiton, Devon, from 1847 until his death. Locke's obituary in The Times described him, Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel as the 'triumvirate of the engineering world'.