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Enoch Arnold Bennett was born in Staffordshire on 27 May 1867. In 1885 he joined his father's office in order to finish preparing for matriculation at the University of London and to study for a law degree which he never completed. In 1888 he left Staffordshire to become a clerk at a firm of London solicitors. After working as a freelance journalist and writing several novels and short stories, Bennett in 1893 became the assistant editor, later editor (1896) of the weekly journal Woman. At the end of 1902 Bennett left England for Paris. While in Paris Bennett continued to write. He remained in Paris until 1912, when he returned to England.

During World War One, 1914-1918, Bennett became a public servant, serving on the War Memorials and Wounded Allies Relief Committee and head of propaganda in France. Whilst in France Bennett wrote on the conditions at the front. After the war Bennett published several novels and contributed articles to the Evening Standard newspaper. After a trip to France, he returned to London in January 1931, ill with typhoid fever. Bennett died on 27 March 1931.

Argenta is a town in the province of Ferrara, North-East Italy, situated on the Fiume Reno. Ferrara was a signoria run by the Este family from 1240 - in this period, Duke Nicolò III. In 1598 direct Papal rule was established in Ferrara.

John Stockdale was born in Cumberland in about 1749. Though trained as a blacksmith, he later became a porter in London to the publisher John Almon. When Almon's business was taken over by John Debrett, Stockdale set up his own publishing firm (c 1783). He became a well-known and successful publisher, bookseller and mapseller, with a shop in Picadilly, opposite the Burlington Arcade. He died in 1814.

Excise are inland duties levied on articles at the time of their manufacture, notably, alcoholic drinks, but has also included salt, paper and glass. In 1643 a Board of Excise was established by the Long Parliament, to organise the collection of duties in London and the provinces. Excise duty was settled by statute in 1660. A permanent board of Excise for England and Wales was established in 1683 with separate boards for Ireland in 1682 and Scotland in 1707.

Dixon was born in Manchester on 30 June 1821. He began contributing to magazines and journals in the early 1840s. In 1846 he moved to London, where he entered the Inner Temple. Dixon never practised law and decided instead to pursue a literary career. He contributed regularly to the Athenaeum and Daily News. He also published a series of articles on prisons and a book on the prison reformer John Howard. In 1850 Dixon published, The London Prisons. In 1853 Dixon became the editor of the Athenaeum, a post held until 1869. He also travelled widely in Europe, North Africa and North America and published books and articles on the countries he had visited. Dixon also served in public office as a deputy commissioner for the Great Exhibition 1851, Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Westminster and as a member of the London School Board. He died on 26 December 1879.

Henry Arthur Jones (1851-1929), British dramatist, was born at Grandborough, Buckinghamshire, England. He began working for a draper at the age of twelve, and later earned his living as a commercial traveller. After attending the theatre in London, he was inspired to write one-act plays. His first play to be produced, Its Only Round the Corner, was staged at the Theatre Royal, Exeter, in 1878. His first London production, A Clerical Error, premiered the following year. The Silver King which opened at the Princess Theatre, London, in 1882, established Jones's name as a dramatist. During his long career he wrote numerous plays, among his most successful were The Middleman (1889), The Dancing Girl (1891), The Tempter (1893), The Triumph of the Philistines (1895), Michael and his Lost Angel (1896), The Liars (1897) and The Hypocrites (1906). Jones also wrote numerous books and essays on the function of theatre, such as The renaissance of the English drama, 1883-94 (1895). He died in 1929.

A formulary is a book or other list of stated and fixed forms.

No information was available at the time of compilation.

David Graham Drummond Ogilvy was born on 4 May 1826. He was a representative peer from 1850-1881 and Lord High Commissioner to the Church of Scotland, 1872-1873.

George Grote was born on 17 November 1794. He was educated at a school in Sevenoaks, Kent and Charterhouse, where he remained for six years. At Charterhouse Grote received an entirely classical education with mathematics introduced after he had left the school. In 1810, Grote joined his father's bank and worked there until 1843. From 1832 to 1841 he was a member of parliament for the City of London. He wrote widely on the classics and Greek history. Between 1846 and 1856 he published History of Greece, which ran to twelve volumes. During the 1820s Grote was an advocate for the establishment of the London University (now University College London). In 1860 he became the University's treasurer and then its president in 1868. From 1862 until his death in 1871 he was the Vice Chancellor of the federal University of London.

The Court of Common Council forms part of the governing body of the City of London, along with the Court of Aldermen and the Court of Common Hall, and is responsible for local government and administration. Common councillors were first appointed during the reign of Edward I, and were formed into the Court of Common Council in 1384. The Court comprises the Lord Mayor, aldermen and councilmen, the latter two being elected from each ward of the city by local government electors.

No information was discovered at the time of compilation.

Arnold Edward Trevor Bax was born in Streatham, London on 8 November 1883. He received his musical education from the Hampstead Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music. Whilst at the Academy he won the Battison Haynes prize for composition in 1902, and the MacFarren scholarship for composition, which he held until he left the Academy in 1905. He gave his first public appearance as a composer at St. James Hall in 1902. In 1910 Bax was elected an associate and in 1920 a fellow of the Academy.

Bax composed many works including, The Garden of Sand 1916, The Tale the Pine Trees Knew, 1931 and the Cello Concerto, 1932. Bax's reputation as a composer brought him many honours. He was knighted in 1937. He also received honorary degrees from Oxford University 1934, Durham 1935 and the National University of Ireland 1947. He died in Cork, Ireland on 3 October 1953.

Bridges was a wool-comber.

The Court Baron was the principal type of manorial court, and was the court of the chief tenants of the manor. It was responsible for the internal regulation of local affairs within the manor, and was attended by all those free tenants whose attendance at court was a condition of their tenure, and by customary tenants. Customary tenants held land by an agreement made at the manor court which was entered on its roll, a 'copy' of which was his regarded as proof of title.
The Manor of Westington was in the area around Hatfield in Hertfordshire.

No information available at present.

A jury is a group chosen from the citizenry of a district to try a question of fact. It is the standard jury used in civil and criminal trials.

No information was available at the time of compilation.

Kingston upon Hull (also known as Hull) is a city in Yorkshire. In 1619, the merchants of Hull erected an Exchange in High Street, on the site now occupied by the Corn Exchange. This building was abandoned by the merchants about 1780, and was solely occupied by Customs authorities until 1855, when their lease expired. It was then pulled down and the present Corn Exchange erected.

No information was discovered at the time of compilation.

The Nottingham and Lincoln line of the Midland Railway Company was opened on 8 Aug 1846.

The report relates to the enquiry into the financial administration of James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope, as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in Catalonia in 1708, in particular to the recoining of silver sent to Spain from Italy during the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714).

No information available at present.

Adriano (Tomaso) Banchieri was an Italian composer, organist, and writer on music. In 1587 he joined the order of the Olivetans, and he subsequently lived and worked at its monasteries in Lucca, Siena, Bosco, Imola, Gubbo, Venice, and Verona. In 1609 he settled at San Michele in Bosco, where he lived for the rest of his life. He was named professor in 1613 and abbot in 1618. In 1615 in Bologna he founded the Accademia dei Floridi. He was an associate of Monteverdi, and his writings are important works in early Baroque music theory. He composed Masses, Psalm settings, motets, music for Offices, madrigals, and theatre works. These last were actually books of madrigals on related texts, using stock comic characters. They were often performed together as madrigal comedies, written to his own texts for the entertainment of Bologna's brilliant social circles. His writings in these fields were often issued under the pseudonym of Camillo Scaliggeri dalla Fratta, or, in the case of his popular La nobilità dell'asino (`The Nobility of the Ass') the improbable Attabalippa dal Peru. John Payne Collier (1789-1883) was an English critic, editor, and forger. The marginal notes and signatures supposedly discovered by him on original documents, especially those concerned with Shakespeare, were later exposed as having been forged by him while in the service of the Duke of Devonshire. His authentic work included A Bibliographical and Critical Account of the Rarest Books in the English Language (1865) and the reprinting of early English tracts.

The River Medway is Kent's premier river, rising in the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex and flowing roughly in a north easterly direction for some 70 miles through Kent to its mouth in the Thames estuary at Sheerness. It is tidal up to the lock at Allington, near Maidstone, and is navigable as far as Tonbridge. The first Act Of Parliament enabling a navigation on the Medway was in 1664 and the last was in 1884, the purpose of the Navigation being to facilitate trade.

The Bank of Credit was founded by Dr. Hugh Chamberlen c. 1683, undertaking various changes of form until being recognised in 1695 alongside other Land Banks as 'The Bank of Credit and Land Rents'.

With a main line of 127.25 miles, the Leeds and Liverpool is the longest canal in Britain. It links the seaport of Liverpool with the Aire and Calder Navigation at Leeds, forming a through route between the Irish Sea and the North Sea. It was proposed in the 1760s as a joint enterprise between the merchants of Yorkshire and Lancashire, though there were some heated discussions as to the route the canal should take. The route finally chosen was up the Aire valley to Gargrave, then through Padiham, Whalley and Leyland to Liverpool, with a link to Wigan, and work started at each end simultaneously. By 1777, when the canal was open from Liverpool to Wigan and from Leeds to Gargrave, the company ran out of money. Construction ceased until 1790 when the economy improved and more finance was available, but the development of East Lancashire as an industrial area meant the proposed line of canal was altered. When it opened throughout, in 1816, it had been constructed along the route first suggested by the Liverpool merchants, through Wigan, Chorley, Blackburn and Burnley, joining the Yorkshiremen's line at Foulridge.

Ann Isabella Ritchie was the elder daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1861), a well-known Victorian novelist. Anne was a prolific novelist, essayist and writer of memoirs. By 1875, The Works of Miss Thackeray had been published in eight volumes (Smith, Elder & Company), extended to 15 volumes by 1866. Most of her critical essays appeared in The Cornhill Magazine. Her first contribution appeared in the magazine's first year, 1860, and most of her fiction appeared serially in the magazine including, The Village on the Cliff, Old Kensington, Miss Angel and Mrs. Dymond. She died in 1919.

No information was discovered at the time of compilation.

No information was available at the time of compilation.

The Court of King's Bench was formerly one of the superior courts of common law in England. King's, or Queen's, Bench was so called because it descended from the English court held coram rege ("before the monarch") and thus traveled wherever the king went. King's Bench heard cases that concerned the sovereign or cases affecting great persons privileged to be tried only before him. It could also correct the errors and defaults of all other courts, and, after the close of the civil wars of Henry III's reign (1216-72), it mainly tried criminal or quasi-criminal cases. In 1268 it obtained its own chief justice, but only very gradually did it lose its close connections with the king and become a separate court of common law. The Court of King's Bench exercised a supreme and general jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases as well as special jurisdiction over the other superior common-law courts until 1830.

No information available at present.

Mention of the Newton Family in Barbados dates back to 1654 when one Samuel Newton is recorded and who was, by the time of his death, a substantial landowner. The family estate passed through several generations of Newtons until finally being inherited by the brothers John and Thomas Lane sometime after the death of John Newton in 1783.

A militia was a military organization of citizens with limited military training, which was available for emergency service, usually local defence.

The Exchequer was responsible for receiving and dispersing the public revenue.

A Corps of Engineers of Ponts et Chauseés was set up in France in 1716. A decree issued by the Royal Council in 1747 led to the setting up of the École des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris to provide a training programme for state engineers.

John Sheffield was born on 8 September 1648. Sheffield served with the navy, rising to the rank of Vice Admiral for Yorkshire and Northumberland (1687-1689). He held several posts at the Royal Court and armed forces including Gentleman of the Bedchamber 1673-1682, Lord Chamberlain of the Household 1685-1688, Colonel of the Holland Regiment, 1673-1682 and 1684-1685. Sheffield also served as the Lord Lieutenant for the East Riding 1679-1682, North Riding 1702-1705 and 1711-1714 and Middlesex, 1711-1714. He was created Marquess of Normanby in May 1694 and Duke of the County of Buckingham and of Normanby in 1702. Sheffield died at Buckingham House in March 1721.

Richard Simon (1638-1712) was a Professor of Philosophy and a Hebrew scholar, who wrote commentaries on the language of the Bible. Isaac-Louis (Le Maistre) de Sacy (1613-1684) was a scripture translator and commentator, and director of the Port Royal Monastery. He was imprisoned for three years in the Bastille for his Jansenist opinions, and translated the Bible during his captivity (1666-1670). Nicolas le Tourneux (1640-1686) was Prior of Villiers sur Fere, and a respected theologian. Adrien Baillet (1649-1706) was a theologian and the librarian to Francois-Chrétien de Lamoignon.

A pontifical is a book of ceremonies performed by a bishop.

Thomas Wentworth was of an ancient and wealthy Yorkshire family, and was born at London, in 1593. He studied at Cambridge, married in 1611, was knighted, and travelled on the continent. He was returned to parliament as member for Yorkshire in 1614, and the next year was named custus rotulorum for the West Riding. He sat in several parliaments for Yorkshire, and without going to extremes, took part with the opponents of the court. In 1628 he went over to the side of the king, and was created Baron Wentworth, then Viscount, Lord President of the Council of the North, and in 1629 Privy-Councillor. In 1633 he was made Lord-Deputy of Ireland (1632-1640), where his harsh government led to the rebellion of 1641. In 1639 Wentworth was created Earl of Strafford, and received the title of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Strafford took his seat in the House of Lords in November 1640 and was immediately impeached of high treason for attempting to raise Irish troops to fight the King's English enemies, and committed to the Tower. In March, 1641 his trial began - Strafford defended himself admirably and, as the impeachment seemed likely to fail, a bill of attainder was proposed. Though he initially refused his assent to the attainder, King Charles I finally gave way and his minister, who had trusted in his promise of protection, was beheaded on Tower Hill, May 12, 1641.

The English Parliament is the main legislative body of the country. The House of Commons has the right to impose taxes and to vote money to various public departments and services.

Though first proposed in 1825, the Exeter and Exmouth Railway was finally completed in 1861.

Robert Clayton was born in Northamptonshire in 1629. He became an apprentice to his uncle who was a London scrivener where he became acquainted with fellow apprentice Alderman John Morris. They both went on to become successful businessmen and to establish the bank, Clayton & Morris Co. Clayton entered politics representing several wards depending on Whig favour. He was knighted in 1671 and went on to be elected Lord Mayor for 1679-80. Clayton built a considerable fortune and, as a mark of his wealth, in 1697 he lent the king 30000l to pay off the troops. He died in 1707.

Sir John Dawnay may have been the son of Sir Guy Dawnay, who died in 1552.

Francis George Newbolt was born in 1863 and educated at Clifton College and Balliol College, Oxford University. He entered the Inner Temple as a barrister in 1890. He was the Recorder of Doncaster, 1916-1920, and an Official Referee for the Supreme Court, 1920-1936. He also contested the Chertsey Division on behalf of the Liberal Party in 1910. During his career, Newbolt also showed an interest in science and the arts, delivering over 1000 lectures on experimental science to girls in Board Schools, and becoming a member of the Art Workers Guild (Master 1927) and the Clockmakers' Company (Master 1932). He was also Honorary Professor of Law in the Royal Academy and President of the Norwegian Society from 1920-1926. Newbolt was knighted in 1919 and died in 1940.

Maistre Wace (c 1112-1174) was an Anglo-Norman poet born in Jersey. His works included Chroniques des Ducs de Normandie, Vie de Saint Nicolas, Le Roman de Rou, and Vies de la Vierge Marie et de Saint George. The work in question, Le Roman de Brut was a verse-paraphrase written in 1155, which was based on the history of Britain written by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and introduced the Round Table into the legend of King Arthur.

The Exchequer was responsible for receiving and dispersing the public revenue. In time the upper Exchequer developed into the judicial system, while the lower Exchequer became the Treasury.

The Society of Friends (also known as Quakers) was a Protestant denomination that arose in England in the mid-17th century. The Society was founded by George Fox, a Nottingham shoemaker turned preacher, who emphasized inward apprehension of God, without creeds, clergy, or other ecclesiastical forms. The movement grew rapidly after 1650 but its members were often persecuted or imprisoned for rejecting the state church and refusing to pay tithes or swear oaths. Nevertheless, by 1660, there were 20,000 converts. Persecution continued, and many quakers emigrated to America, where they found toleration in Rhode Island and in the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania, which was chartered by Charles II under the sponsorship of William Penn in 1681. Marks that became characteristic of Quakerism were plain speech and dress, pacifism, and opposition to slavery.

The Conseil d'Etat is the highest court in France for issues and cases involving public administration. Its origin dates back to 1302, though it was extensively reorganized under Napoleon and was given further powers in 1872. It has long had the responsibility of deciding or advising on state issues and legislative measures submitted to it by the sovereign or, later, by the president, the cabinet, or the parliament. It is the court in which French citizens may bring claims against the administration.