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In 1700 a Trust was established by Sir Walter St John for the continued provision of a school to provide free education for twenty poor boys from Battersea. By 1750 the school had nearly 90 pupils, and was the only school of significance in Battersea until a school was established there by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge in 1799. The two schools were run as one for part of the first half of the 19th century, and separated out again in 1853. In the 1870s an upper school for 250 fee-paying scholars was proposed as an addition to the elementary school. The original twenty free places were to be safeguarded at the latter.

The Upper School, shortly renamed Battersea Grammar School, opened on 12th April 1875 on St John's Hill, Battersea. The second headmaster, William Henry Brindley who originally joined the school as an assistant master, was appointed in 1881, to what was then a school of 48 pupils. In 1936 the school moved to purpose built premises in Abbotswood Road, Streatham. During the Second World War pupils were evacuated first to Worthing then to Hertford. As a result of lack of funds, the school became a controlled school in the late 1940s. It closed in 1977, and staff and pupils were amalgamated with those of the Rosa Bassett Grammar School in the new Furzedown Secondary School. In 1993 the Abbotswood Road site was taken over by Streatham Hill and Clapham High School.

Headmasters of Battersea Grammar School were Rev Edmund A Richardson, 1875-1881, William Bindley, 1881-1918, Henry Ellis, 1918-1945, Walter Langford, 1945-1965, James Cowan, 1965-1972, and John Phillips, 1973-1977.

The Old Grammarians' Association was founded on 16 July 1902, although Old Grammarians had held a variety of recreational and social functions prior to this, and it continued to provide social and recreational activities for old boys of Battersea Grammar School throughout the 20th century. It is still in existence at the time of writing, seee www.oldgrammarians.co.uk (correct at time of writing, January 2011).

The Sir Walter St John's Schools Trust was from 1875-1949 the governing body of both schools. After 1949 it existed largely to handle the funds of the Trust, to nominate a proportion of governors and help the schools by making grants.

Sir Walter St John's School continued in existence until 1986. At the time of writing the site houses the Thomas' Day School.

Spencer Park was a secondary county school for boys which opened in 1957. On opening, the intake was made up of boys from Honeywell secondary school, Wandsworth secondary technical school as well as some students from schools in Lavender Hill and Earlsfield. The school was housed in the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building in Trinity Road, Wandsworth Common, which had been sold to the London County Council in 1952. The school also occupied a new building erected in 1957 specifically to house the school. The two buildings were divided by a playground. The school moved out of the Royal Victoria Patriotic Building in September 1976 and into the extended new buildings next door, as the building was falling in to disrepair and was unsafe to house the school. The school closed in 1986 when it was amalgamated with Wandsworth School and renamed John Archer School. The students moved to the premises in Sutherland Grove, Southfields in September 1986.

The school was founded in 1850 and closed in 1985. It was on Green Lane, High Street, Battersea.

The Eileen Lecky Clinic was founded as the Putney Branch of the Mothers' Welcome, but was renamed the Putney Infant Welfare Centre by 1922. The Putney Infant Welfare Centre was based at 104 Felsham Road. There was also a Putney Park Branch Infant Welfare Centre on Merton Road. In 1931 the centre moved to new premises at 2 Clarendon Drive and was renamed the Childrens' Health Centre. The Children's Health Centre was divided into two sections: infant welfare and school treatment. During the Second World War, the buildings at Clarendon Drive were occupied by Wandsworth Borough Council for use as a gas decontamination and first aid post. The infant welfare services temporarily moved to the Putney Day Nursery, Lacy Road as well as 2 class rooms at the Putney Church School and the Girls Hall at St Mary's School. These premises suffered bomb damage in early 1944, and the Health Centre relocated again, occupying part of their own building on Clarendon Drive. After the end of the Second World War, the Health Centre once again occupied the whole building at 2 Clarendon Drive.

The organisation was initally administered by a Trust, relying on volunteers to provide services to the community. The Centre became part of the National Health Service in 1948 but continued to be administered by the Trust until 1958. The Betty Rawson Home in Whitstable was taken over by Wandsworth Council in 1947 and renamed the Peace Memorial Home, Whitstable (in memory of Betty Rawson). In 1958 the Health Centre was handed over to London County Council and inherited by Wandsworth Borough Council in 1965. The Borough Council later renamed the Health Centre in memory of the long standing (Hon) Secretary, Eileen Lecky.

The Upper Tooting Methodist Church first began meeting in a temporary structure in Upper Tooting in February 1869, and the first permanent building on that site was opening in November 1879. The Church was destroyed by a flying bomb in July 1944 and subsequently re-built, opening again in February 1857.

Cecil Tudor Davis was born in 1854 at Upton St Leonards near Gloucester. After working as the senior officer at Birmingham Reference Library, he moved to Wandsworth in 1886 to take up the position of Librarian of Wandsworth, based at West Hill Public Library. He held this position for 34 years before retiring in 1920. He died following a short illness in 1922. He lived at 55 West Hill and was married twice with five children. He was very interested in local history and wrote many articles and frequently gave lectures on the subject, as well as collecting books and documents relating to Wandsworth.

William Poel was an actor, theatre manager and dramatist, who lived in Amersham Road, Putney for a time. His surname was originally Pole, but he changed it following a misspelling on a theatre billing. In 1895 he founded the Elizabethan Stage Society, and he spent a lot of his career researching and lecturing on Elizabethan performance. He died at his home, 85 Howard's Lane, Putney, on 13 December 1934. He was cremated at Golders Green.

Please contact the Archive for further information.

The Florian Lady Singers was founded in the early 1930s. The group of singers competed in and won many local and national competitions. The choir was conducted by John Booth and then by Doctor Durrant. It became an adult edcuation class which met at the West Hill Institute. The choir had other conductors following the retirement of Doctor Durrant but closed in the 1950s. Mollie Simmonds was a member of the choir from the 1930s until its closure. Following the closure of the choir, she joined the Balham Townswomen's Guild choir. She also played the cello in the West Hill Orchestra, the Wandsworth Symphony Orchestra and the Putney Symphony Orchestra.

Councillor John Garrett was Deputy Mayor of Wandsworth in 1984-1985 and in 1998-1999. He was Mayor of Wandsworth in 1988-1989 and 2000-2001.

The Battersea Field Club and Literary and Scientific Society was formed on 10th January 1895 and was a development of the University Extension Society - Battersea Students Association, which had started in 1890. In 1902 the name was changed to the Battersea Field Club and the society was affiliated to the South East Union of Scientific Societies and the Photographic Survey and Record of Surrey. In 1906 it was associated with the British Association and finally disbanded in 1944.

Battersea Chess Club was founded in 1885 and is still in existence today.

Arthur Wellings was an auctioneer, land and estate agent in Southfields with offices at 8 Westbourne Terrace, Garratt Lane.

Wandsworth Technical Institute opened on Wandsworth High Street in 1895. New buildings were built for the Institute in the High Street in 1926. The Institute merged with the Putney College of Further Education in 1974. It is now known as South Thames College.

Battersea Men's Institute was opened in 1920. It was run by the London County Council and was housed in a former school building in Latchmere Road. The purpose of the Institute was to provide evening and weekend courses to interested men. The Institute was open to all men over the age of 18 who paid a small amount of money per term to attend classes. The classes were in practical subjects and were designed to be taken for interest rather than to further a career. Courses included cookery, music, poultry keeping, art, petrol engines, science, photographs and electricity. There were also social events and sports clubs. There were over 1100 members in 1929 and 3000 in the late 1930s. Women were admitted in the 1940s. The Institute also had further branches in Warple Way, Waldron Road and Magdalen Road, as well as making use of the facilities in local schools.

The Wandsworth District Board of Works was formed in 1855 under the Metropolis Local Government Act. The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) was the governing administrative body that the individual Districts reported to. The MBW was replaced by the London County Council in 1889. The Wandsworth District Board of Works was replaced in 1900 by the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth. Battersea was included in the Wandsworth District until 1887 when it opted out owing to the rapid increase of its population and was reconstituted as a Metropolitan Vestry. The parishes of Clapham and Streatham were also included in the Wandsworth District. The responsibilities of the Wandsworth District Board of Works were mostly focussed on the maintenance of roadways and public lighting, new buildings, public transport, efficient sewerage, the prevention of contagious diseases and public health.

Caroline Elizabeth Playne (1857-1948), pacifist and historian, born Forest Green, Avening, Gloucestershire, 2 May 1857; elected an associate member of the University Women's Club in 1908; published two novels, The Romance of a Lonely Woman (1904) and The Terror of the Macdurghotts (1907), and a paper, The evolution of international peace, read to the Anglo-Russian Literary Society, which was critical of social Darwinism and advocated internationalism. Around 1904 Playne became a founder member of Britain's National Peace Council supporting the recently founded international court at The Hague and in 1908 attended the International Peace Congress in London attended by Bertha von Suttner, whose biographer she later became; joined the Emergency Committee for the Relief of Distressed Enemy Aliens (Germans trapped in Britain); joined E. D. Morel's Union for the Democratic Control of Foreign Policy and worked for the Nailsworth Peace Association and the National Peace Council that was then arranging a postal service for personal correspondence between the belligerent countries and was also trying to trace missing persons. Playne also translated and published articles from the Berliner Tageblatt that praised Quaker relief efforts for German internees and prisoners of war, collected suppressed pacifist pamphlets and kept private notes and a diary on the British press during the war years. In the aftermath of the First World War, Playne wrote extensively on the perceived futility of the conflict; died, 1948.
Publications: Neuroses of the Nations (1925), The Pre-War Mind in Britain (1928), Society and War, 1914-16 (1931), Britain Holds on, 1917, 1918 (1933), Bertha von Suttner and the Struggle to Avert the World War(1936).

Lyon Playfair was born in Bengal, India, in 1818. He was sent from India to St Andrews to be raised by an aunt, in 1820. His mother joined him, but he did not see his father until he was 22 years old. He was educated at the parish school, a grammar school and then entered the University of St Andrews in 1832. He was sent to train as a merchant in Glasgow with an uncle, but his medical ambitions prevailed. He enrolled at Anderson's University and attended the chemistry classes of Thomas Graham. He continued his medical studies at Edinburgh University, and then University College, London. Here he became laboratory assistant to Thomas Graham. Playfair studied with the eminent organic chemist, Justus von Liebig, in 1839. His discoveries of a new fatty acid in the butter of nutmeg, and a new crystalline substance in cloves gave him an excellent reputation with Liebig. Playfair became honorary Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Manchester. He was a member of the Royal Commission on sanitation, and received a grant to study the efficiency of charcoal iron furnaces. He moved to London in 1845, becoming chemist to the Geological Survey, and worked on various research assignments for the Crown and the government, including trying to combat a series cholera epidemics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1848. He was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the new government-run School of Mines, in 1851. He was appointed Secretary for Science in the new Department of Science and Art (DSA), in 1853. He accepted the Presidency of the Chemical Society, and also took up the Professorship of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, in 1858. He chaired a Royal Commission on the restrictions on herring fishing in 1862-1863, and then the cattle plague. He lobbyed for an investigation of the outcome of the Paris Universal Exhibition, in 1867. He presided over a commission looking into the administration of the civil service, which reported in 1875. At this time he was also involved in heated parliamentary debates on vivisection. He was appointed by William Gladstone as Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways in 1880. The issue of Irish Home Rule dominated this administration. He found he had a lack of support and resigned in 1882. In 1883 he was made KCB, and spent some years on the back benches. He served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1885. He published his principal public addresses in Subjects of Social Welfare, 1889. Playfair was created Baron Playfair of St Andrews in 1892, whereupon he left the Commons and was made lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. He was appointed as GCB in 1895. He proposed the creation of a new museum at South Kensington in 1897, proposing the title 'Victorian Museum' in honour of the Queen's jubilee. He did not live to see the opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899. He died in 1898.

Born Meerut, India, 1818; educated at St Andrew's Scotland; studied chemistry under Thomas Graham at the Andersonian University of Glasgow, University College, London, Liebig's laboratory at Giessen, Germany; awarded PhD at Giessen, 1841; chemical manager of a calico printing works, 1841; honorary Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Insitution, Manchester, 1843; served on Royal Commission on Health of Towns, 1843; research with Bunsen on the chemistry of blast-furnace gases, 1844; Chemist to the Geological Survey, 1845; reported to Sir Robert Peel on the potato crop in Ireland, 1845; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1848; Special Commissioner for the Great Exhibition, 1850; lecturer on Chemistry at the Government School of Mines, 1851; CB, 1851; Joint Secretary of the Science and Art Department of the Board of Trade, 1853; Inspector General of Government Museums and Schools of Science, 1856; President of the Chemical Society, 1857-1859; Professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, 1858-1869; Commissioner for the Exhibition of 1851, 1869; Liberal MP for the Universities of Edinburgh and St Andrews, 1869; Postmaster General in Gladstone's first ministry, 1873-1874; Chairman of Ways and Means, 1880-1883; Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons, 1880-1883; awarded KCB, 1883; Honorary Secretary of the 1851 Commission, 1883-1889; MP for South Leeds, 1885; President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1885; Vice-President of the Council, 1886; Charity Commissioner, 1886; created Baron Playfair of St Andrews, 1892; Lord in Waiting to Queen Victoria, 1892; awarded GCB, 1894; member of the Aged Poor Commission, 1894; died Kensington, London, 1898.
Publications: include Collieries. Report on the gases and explosions in collieries with Sir Henry Thomas De la Beche and Warington Smyth [Shannon, Irish University Press, 1969]; Report on the State of Large Towns in Lancashire (W Clowes & Sons, London, 1845); Bunsen and Playfair's Report to the British Association at Cambridge in 1845, on the gases evolved from iron furnaces with reference to the theory of the smelting of iron, etc edited by B H Brough (London, 1903); On the Chemical Properties of Gold (1853); On Primary and Technical Education. Two lectures, etc (Edinburgh, 1870); On the Organisation of a Teaching Profession [1877]; Subjects of Social Welfare (Cassell & Co, London, 1889); The Evolution of University Extension as a part of Popular Education (1894).

In 1929 Dr Paul Plaut, a psychiatrist and child delinquency expert in Berlin, published a book, Die Psychologie der produktiven Persönlichkeit. In preparation he sent questionnaires to about 400 prominent scientists and artists in Germany and Austria asking for their views and experiences.

Sir Harry Platt was born in Thornham, Lancashire, in 1886. At the age of five he developed tuberculosis of the knee. He was educated in classics and languages by home tutors. He graduated MB BS (London) from the University of Manchester in 1909, with a distinction in medicine and the gold medal in surgery. He obtained his FRCS in 1912 and was appointed resident surgical officer in the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, London. During World War One, due to his knee disability, he was made a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps Territorial Forces, in charge of the Military Orthopaedic Centre in Manchester. He joined the staff of the Shropshire Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry in 1920. He became surgical director of the Ethel Hedley Hospital in Windermere; consultant to the Lancashire county council for education, public health, and tuberculosis; and a lecturer in orthopaedic surgery to the University of Manchester. The Manchester Royal Infirmary established an orthopaedic department away from the control of general surgery and Platt transferred there in 1932. Manchester University recognized his outstanding academic contribution to orthopaedics by creating a personal chair for him in 1939, which he held until 1951. Having helped found the British Orthopaedic Association in 1917, Platt became its President (1934-1935). He was also President of the Royal Society of Medicine orthopaedics section in 1931-1932 and British delegate (1929-1948) and later President (1948-1953) of the international committee of the Société Internationale de Chirurgie Orthopédique et de Traumatologie. He served on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (1940-1958) and was its President in 1954-1957. He was knighted in 1948 because of this work. He was consultant adviser in orthopaedic surgery to the Ministry of Health (1940-1963), organising general orthopaedics and special fracture and peripheral nerve injury centres as well as being honorary civilian consultant to the Army Medical Services (1942-1954). Platt was actively involved in setting up the National Health Service before and after 1948. In 1958 Platt was made a baronet, as was then customary for Presidents of the Royal College of Surgeons. He received six honorary degrees and held sixteen honorary memberships of various societies and eight honorary fellowships of surgical colleges. Up to 1982 he wrote prolifically on orthopaedic subjects-their history, organisation, staffing, nursing, and education. He died in 1986.

John Platt was born on 11 July 1860. He attended Harrow School and Trinity College Cambridge, where he was made a Fellow. He was Professor of Greek at University College London from 1894 till his death. He published an edition of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and various translations and papers on classical subjects. He died on 16 March 1925.

The papers start with Platt serving aboard HMS PORTO (c 1780-1782). After PORTO, Platt served on various ships, including HMS ISIS, HMS EAGLE, and HMS CENTURION, mainly in the East and West Indies. He was promoted to Lieutenant on 7 November 1793 and then served on a number of ships, such as HMS ALLIGATOR and HMS ROYAL SOVEREIGN. During his career, Platt appears to have also served in the merchant navy, notably on the KATHARINE, COUNTESS OF EFFINGHAM, which carried Thomas, Earl of Effingham, governor of Jamaica, and his wife to Jamaica (1789-1790). Platt did not enjoy his time in merchant service and the collection includes an example of a reply from the Admiralty to Platt's letter, requesting employment. He also appears to have been involved with the Folkstone Sea Fencibles, with the collection including several documents relating to impressment. Platt was superannuated commander 2 December 1828 and can be found in the retired section of the Navy Lists for the years 1828-1832.

Born 1898; educated Strand School and London School of Economics and Political Science; Gerstenberg Scholar in Economics and Political Science, 1921; previously a manager in the engineering industry; Professor of Commerce and Dean of the Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town, 1924-1930; Professor of Commerce, LSE, 1930-1965; Knight, 1947; Vice-President of the Council, Royal Economic Society; Member, Cinematograph Films Council, 1938-1969; Chairman, Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, 1955-1967; Chairman, Advertising Standards Authority, 1962-1965; Chairman, Colonial Social Science Research Council, 1955-1962; Member, Overseas Research Council, 1959-1964; Organiser for Ministry of Information, and first Director of Wartime Social Survey, 1940; Chairman, National Service Deferment Committee for the Cinematograph Industry, Ministry of Labour, 1942-1945; temporary civil servant, 1940-1946, as Adviser to Ministerial Chairman of Interdepartmental Materials Committee and Central Priority Committee under Production Council (1940), Production Executive (1941), Ministry of Production (1942-1945), and on special duties in Cabinet Office, 1945-1946; Member, Board of Trade Committee on a Central Institute of Management, 1945-1946; Member, Ministry of Works Committee on Distribution of Building Materials, 1946; Member, Ministry of Education Committee on Commercial Education, 1946; Member, Board of Trade Committee on Film Distribution, 1949 (Chairman); Member, Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission, 1953-1956; Chairman, Ministry of Agriculture Committee on Fowl Pest Policy, 1960-1962; retired 1965; died 1978.

The Planet Assurance Corporation was formed in 1866 and based at 50 Finsbury Circus; it became the Citizen Assurance Corporation in 1872 and was taken over by the Provident Clerks' Mutual Life Assurance Association in 1874 (later Provident Mutual Life Assurance Association).

This company was established in 1920 for all insurance business except life insurance. In 1927 the Sun Insurance Office took over underwriting and management of the company. Planet Assurance Company Limited became a subsidiary of Sun Alliance in 1968.

From 1920 until at least 1925, Planet Assurance Company Limited had a registered office at 118 Fenchurch Street. From ca. 1928 it shared premises with the Sun Insurance Office and traded from the following offices: 63 Threadneedle Street, 1928-65; 45 Cornhill, 1928-40 and 1949-ca. 1957; 3 Lime Street, 1929-38; 37 Lime Street, 1939-40 and 1952-c 1971; Lloyds Building, Lime Street, 1940-51 and 183 Rushey Green (a branch office of Sun Life Assurance), 1965-c 1969.

Plaistow Maternity Hospital was founded in 1889 by Miss Katherine Twining (who became its first Matron), as St Mary's District Nurses' Home, Plaistow. The aim of the Home was to provide midwifery and nursing support for the inhabitants of South West Ham in their own homes. In 1894 the charity purchased 17 and 19 Howard's Road, which formed the basis of the District Nurses' Home. In the same year a Midwifery Training School and District Nursing Training School was opened. One of the stated aims of the Charity was to specifically instruct women for nursing work in villages and cottages.

In 1895 a Committee of Management was formed, and further land was purchased in Howard's Road which allowed the premises to be extended in 1898. In 1901 branch homes were established at the Docks, Stratford and East Ham, and in 1904 a further branch home opened at Barking. The acquisition of 24 and 26 Howard's Road in 1904 allowed for 12 in-patient beds, which increased to 20 in 1911 with the acquisition of no 28. Chesterton House was purchased in 1915 as a centre for ante natal, post natal and infant welfare activities. The in-patient accommodation was replaced by a new building at Chesterton Road, Plaistow with 36 maternity and 4 general beds, opened by Queen Mary in 1923. The name of the charity was changed in 1926 to Plaistow Maternity Hospital.

In 1938 the Central Midwives Board divided the midwifery examinations into two parts, and Plaistow Maternity Hospital was one of only a few hospitals to be recognised for parts I and II. The District Nursing Branch at East Ham was transferred to East Ham District Nursing Association in 1940. During the Second World War, the In-patient Department was evacuated to Suntrap, High Beech, Loughton, Essex. During the same period the Ministry of Health Emergency Maternity Hospital at East Haddon Hall, Northampton was staffed by Plaistow Maternity Hospital. The Hospital building and its branch homes were damaged by bombing during World War II.

The Hospital became part of the National Health service in 1948, at which time the District Home at Barking transferred to the control of Essex County Council. In 1976 the City and East London Area Health Authority (Teaching), following responses to its consultative document `Towards a changed pattern of health care', agreed to close Plaistow Maternity Hospital. Its services were transferred to Forest Gate Hospital, pending the building of a new nucleus hospital for Newham. Newham General Hospital phase 2, which included maternity provision, opened in 1985 and Forest Gate Hospital closed.

This hospital originated from the West Ham Board of Guardians Smallpox Hospital, which was established in Western Road , Plaistow in 1871, the Poplar Board of Works Infectious Diseases Hospital, which opened in Samson Street in 1878 and the Smallpox Hospital established in Pragel Street by West Ham Local Board in 1884. The Pragel Street premises closed in 1894 when the Samson Street premises were purchased by West Ham Borough Council and in the following year the Council likewise purchased the Smallpox Hospital at Western Road. Through the closure of part of Western Road, a large island site was made available for the development of a new Infectious Diseases Hospital, which opened in 1901 with accommodation for 210 patients as Plaistow Fever Hospital.

The new Hospital was considered to be one of the most modern of its kind and originated the barrier method of nursing infectious cases. Training of probationer nurses had commenced in 1898. In 1906 the Hospital was recognised by several universities and the royal college for the training of medical students in infectious diseases and over the next 37 years over 3000 students received fever training at Plaistow. The Hospital was damaged by bombing during World War II and in 1947 the older Samson Street buildings were made available for Queen Mary's Hospital, Stratford, as a medical in-patient department. The name of the Hospital was changed to Plaistow Hospital in 1948 in recognition of the fact that it was available for acute medical cases as well as infectious cases. In 1982 chest medicine beds were transferred to St. Andrew's Hospital by Newham Health Authority and from 1983 the hospital began to specialise in elderly long stay patients with such patients from Newham transferring from Langthorne Hospital, Leyton to Plaistow. A dementia assessment unit was opened in 1987and in 1990 Plaistow day Hospital was upgraded and extended to provide 40 places for elderly people. Management of the hospital transferred from East London & The City Health Authority to Newham Community Health Services NHS Trust in 1995. It closed in 2006 when the patients from the Frail Elders Services were transferred to the newly opened, purpose-built East Ham Care Centre, behind the East Ham Memorial Hospital in Shrewsbury Road. The patients had occupied just half the site of the Plaistow Hospital and it was felt it was no longer economically viable to keep the remaining staff on site.

Adolf Placzek was born in Vienna, Austria, 1913; initially studied medicine, and switched to architectural history in 1934; left Austria in 1939, and after a brief stay in Britain, moved to New York in 1940; served for 3 years in the US Army, and attended Columbia University's school of Library Service. After graduation he was appointed to the Avery Architectural Library; appointed Avery Librarian, 1960; appointed Professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, 1970; after his retirement in 1980 he edited the four volume Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects. Married (1st, 1948) Jan Struther, author of Mrs Miniver (d 1953) (2nd, 1957) Beverley Robinson.

Ernst Philipp was born in Vienna in 1916, and was a cousin of Adolf Placzek; he was educated at the University of Vienna (PhD, Mathematics, 1938); he, and his two brothers were sent to Dachau in Nov 1938, but released on the strength of their British Immigration visas. His mother and sister died in the holocaust. After moving to London he enlisted in the Labour Corps, and later served in the Parachute Regiment at Arnhem in 1945, he remained in the army after the War, and served in Palestine, 1946-1947; he taught mathematics at St Bees School, Cumbria until his retirement in 1981, and died in 1996, aged 79.

The illegitimate son of the keeper of a debtors' prison, Francis Place was apprenticed aged 14 to a breeches-maker and practised the trade for many years, eventually becoming successful. From 1794 to 1797 he was a member of the radical London Corresponding Society, which had a strong influence on his political and philosophical views. In the first two decades of the 19th century he was instrumental in the successes of radical candidates for the borough of Westminster . Place wrote extensively and his papers comprise one of the largest 19th century collections in the British Library.

The illegitimate son of the keeper of a debtors' prison, Francis Place was apprenticed aged 14 to a breeches-maker and practised the trade for many years, eventually becoming successful. From 1794 to 1797 he was a member of the radical London Corresponding Society, which had a strong influence on his political and philosophical views. In the first two decades of the 19th century he was instrumental in the successes of radical candidates for the borough of Westminster. Place wrote extensively and his papers comprise one of the largest 19th century collections in the British Library.

Francis Place was born on 3 November 1771 and was educated at various schools in London. He wanted to learn a trade, so became a leather-breeches maker's apprentice. However, during the London leather-breeches makers' strike of 1793 he lost his job and so spent his time studying. He then became secretary to his trade club and also to several other trade clubs. In 1794 he joined the London Corresponding Society. In 1799 he opened his own tailor's shop in Charing Cross, which became very successful. In 1807 he took an active part in the general election, and from then on became more well known to the political thinkers and the politicians of the day. Place became friends with James Mill, Robert Owen and Jeremy Bentham. In 1817 he gave over his business to his eldest son, and went to stay with Bentham and Mill at Ford Abbey, where he studied. In about 1812 Joseph Hume was introduced to Place and afterwards Place collected many of the materials on which Hume founded his parliamentary activity. The library behind the shop in Charing Cross was a regular resort of the reformers in and out of parliament. An informal publishing business was also carried on there. Place was a practical politician, untiring in providing members of parliament and newspaper editors with materials, in drafting petitions, collecting subscriptions, organising events and managing parliamentary committees. He triumphed in various political campaigns. After the introduction of the Reform Bill in 1831, Place's political influence declined. After 1835 he withdrew almost entirely from politics. His only published book The principles of population (1822) contains his best writing. He also wrote newspaper articles and tracts. Place was married twice and had fifteen children by his first wife, five of whom died in infancy. He died on 1 January 1854.

Dorothy Foster Place (1886-1976) [née Abraham] was born in 1886 at Lancaster Avenue in Liverpool. She spent her early childhood in New Brighton, the Wirral. She was initially educated at home by governesses, until 1898 when she went to Wallasey High School, followed by Skipton Girls' High School in 1900. In 1904 she enrolled at the University of Liverpool where she studied Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics - moving on to King's College in London after her father's decision that she should take the examinations of the Institute of Chemistry there. During this period she shared her mother's interest in the women's suffrage movement and both women joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU). Dorothy was arrested and sent to Holloway Prison after taking part in a window smashing incident at Harrods, but was freed at her trial on grounds of insufficient evidence. After failing her Chemistry examination she went to Studley Agricultural College. During the First World War she worked on various farms until her father bought her her own farm in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire. Here she met and married Tom Place with whom she had four children: Ullin, Dorothy, David and Milner. She took great pleasure in extensive holidays in Europe and North Africa. Dorothy Foster Place died in 1976.

Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje was born on 9 October 1876, in the district of Boshof, Orange Free State, South Africa. His parents were Barolongs, coming originally from Thaba Ncho, and trekking eventually to Mafeking. He was educated at Pneil Mission Station (Berlin Missionary Society), near Barkly West, until he passed the fourth standard. He then worked as a student teacher, continuing his study through private lessons from the Rev. G. E. Westphal. In March 1894 he joined the Cape Government Service as a letter-carrier in the Kimberley Post Office. In his own time he studied languages and passed the Cape Civil Service examination in typewriting, Dutch and native languages. In 1898 he was transferred to Mafeking as interpreter, and during the Siege of Mafeking at the outbreak of the Boer War in 1899, he was appointed Dutch interpreter to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction.

Plaatje decided to become a journalist in order to give a voice to the Bantu people. He edited a number of Bantu language newspapers including Koranta ea Becoana (The Bechuana Gazette) 1902-1905, a weekly paper in English and Sechuana, which was financed by Chief Silas Molema. He then became Editor of Tsala ea Batho (The People's Friend) 1910-c1912.

He was elected First Secretary-General of the South African Native National Congress (forerunner of the African National Congress), 1912-1917. In 1914 and 1919 he was a member of the Congress delegation to London against the Natives' Land Act of 1913.

As a result of financial difficulties he became stranded in London for some time, but used this time to address meetings and to write Sechuana Proverbs. He returned to South Africa in 1917. Plaatje was also a delegate to the first Government Conference held under the Native Affairs Act. He travelled throughout Europe, Canada and the United States to draw attention to the plight of the black South Africans.

He was the author of numerous books including Native Life in South Africa (1915), Sechuana Proverbs and their European Equivalents (1916), and A Sechuana Reader. In 1919 he wrote Mhudi (published in 1930), which was the first published novel written in English by a Black South African.

He died on 19 June 1932.

Further reading: B Willan, Sol Plaatje: South African Nationalist 1876-1932 (Heineman, 1984).

Papal letters were initially used in the early church as a method of introducing papal laws and edicts to the entire church. As their number grew during the middle ages, they divided into several types, including general letters (constitutions) which were understood to regulate ecclesiastical conditions of a general character judicially; and ordinances issued for individual cases (rescripts), which were issued at the petition of an individual and decided a lawsuit or granted a favour.

William Pitt was born in Kent in 1759. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He entered Parliament as MP for Appleby-in-Westmoreland in 1781 and later served as MP for Cambridge University. He served as Prime Minister twice (1783-1801, 1804-1806); aged just 24 at the time of his first appointment. He remains the youngest person ever to become British Prime Minster. He was successful in controlling the financial affairs of government, but was unable to bring about Catholic emancipation, abolition of the slave trade or parliamentary reform. He was known as Pitt the Younger to distinguish him from his father (Pitt the Elder), William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.

Thomas Stanley Lane Fox-Pitt was born on 27 November 1897. From the age of 12 he attended the Royal Navy College, Osborne, and two years later the Royal Naval College, Dartford. When war was declared in 1914 he was mobilised for active service. He retired from the navy after the war and joined the Colonial Administrative Service in Northern Rhodesia in 1927. He was stationed at Balovale, then part of Barotseland, as a cadet in 1928 and appointed District Officer in 1930. In the same year he married Marjory Hope Barton.

From 1923 to 1939 he served on the Copperbelt, first as a District Officer at Ndola and then at Mpika. He was particularly concerned at the conditions of the mineworkers and represented their complaints to the Colonial Government. During the Second World War, Fox-Pitt served in the Royal Navy with a convoy escort in the North Atlantic. Afterwards he returned to the Copperbelt, this time to Kitwe. He spent two evenings a week teaching English in an African night school. In the face of great opposition from the Colonial Government he encouraged the emergent trade unions and helped them to forge links with the European miners' trade unions. As a result he was transferred from the Copperbelt to become acting Provincial Commissioner in Barotseland in 1948, and a year later to Fort Jameson in the Eastern Province. Again he became involved in a dispute over African labour, concerning the sale of flu-cured tobacco. In 1951 he was put on the retired list. He remained in Northern Rhodesia, living on a smallholding in Kitwe and working with African organisations in opposition to the growing possibility of a Central African Federation.

One of the most fervent opponents of federation was a Lithuanian, Simon Ber Zukas, who had returned to Northern Rhodesia at the beginning of 1951 but was deported the following year for 'conducting himself so as to be a danger to peace and good order in the territory'. He and Fox-Pitt worked very closely together for the same cause after Fox-Pitt's return to England in December 1952. Fox-Pitt's term as Secretary of 'Racial Unity' (1952-1953) spanned the advent and birth of the Central African Federation which received the Queen's Assent on 1 August 1953. In 1953 he became Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, co-operating closely with other anti-federation movements such as the Movement for Colonial Freedom and the nationalist Congress parties in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It was decided after the return of Harold Macmillan's Conservative Government in November 1959, which supported federation, that the work of the campaign would have to go underground. From 1960, Fox-Pitt's energies were channelled largely into the London Committee of Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party (UNIP). As a consequence he found himself embroiled in a libel case with Sir Roy Welensky. The magazine produced by the Committee had, in Fox-Pitt's absence, made an unsubstantiated claim that Welensky was involved in the death of the Secretary General of the United Nations. UNIP was fined 1000 dollars.

The Central African Federation was dissolved on 31 December 1963. Fox-Pitt attended the Zambia Independence celebrations in 1964 at which he received the Order of the Freedom of Zambia. For the next two years he served in the Local Government Department of the Independent Zambian Government and on a commission concerning civil service salaries. In 1966 he retired to England. He died in 1989.

Born 1907; Rhodes scholar from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), 1929; forester in Colonial Forest Service, Tanganyika, East Africa; returned to UK, 1939; served 22 (EA) Infantry Bde, Abyssinia, 1940-1942, as platoon commander of the 1/6 (Tanganyika) King's African Rifles; Madagascar, 1942-1943; died 1996.

Born, 1918; educated, Portsmouth Southern Grammar School; bank clerk, 1935; served in Army, Second World War; surveyor, 1946; began writing, 1954; Information Officer, Atomic Energy Authority, 1961; Historical Consultant to the BBC series 'The Great War', 1963; editor, Purnell's History of the Second World War, 1964; editor in chief, Ballantine's Illustrated History of World War Two, 1967; editor in chief, Ballantine's Illustrated History of the Violent Century, 1971; editor, Purnell's History of the First World War, 1969; editor, British History Illustrated, 1974-1978; consultant editor, The Military History of World War Two, 1986; died, 2006.

Born 1901; educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford University; played rugby for Oxford University, 1921, and for England, 1922; won Middle Weight Public Schools Boxing, 1919; Bursar, Duke of York's and King's Camp, 1933-1939; Chairman, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd, 1934-1966; served World War Two as a member of the RAF 1940-1943 (Acting Squadron Leader); Director, Bank of England, 1941-1945; Director of Organisation and Methods, HM Treasury, 1943-1945; Conservative MP for Bath, 1945-1964; KBE, 1961; Chairman, Royal Society of Teachers; Chairman of Council, Initial Teaching Alphabet Foundation and National Centre for Cued Speech (for the deaf child); Life President, UK Federation of ita Schools; Member of the Committee, National Foundation for Educational Research (which conducted comparative researches into reasons for reading failure in earliest stages of learning); Member, Committee advising Public Trustee under Will of late George Bernard Shaw in carrying out his wishes for design and publication of a proposed British alphabet; Charter Pro-Chancellor, Bath University; Honorary President, Parliamentary Group for World Government; Vice-President, Institute of Administrative Management, 1965-1969; Vice-President: British and Foreign School Society; Member, British Association for Commercial and Industrial Education; Member, National Union of Teachers; died 1985.

No information was available at the time of compilation.

Not given.

Norman Wingate (Bill) Pirie was born in Torrance, Stirlingshire, on 1 July 1907. After attending various schools in Scotland an England he completed his schooling at Rydal School, Colwyn Bay. He entered Emmanuel College Cambridge in 1925 to study for the Natural Science Tripos. Pirie specialised in biochemistry for Part II, attracted by the liveliness of the Biochemistry Department under Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, who had assembled a team of highly talented young biochemists including J B S Haldane, J Needham and D Keilin. He graduated BA in 1929 and was appointed Demonstrator in the Department of Biochemistry and recveived an Emmanuel College research fellowship. For the following five years Pirie worked on the purification of sulphur compounds, studying the chemistry and metabolism of compounds such as methionine and glutathione. In 1932 he began research with ASA (later Sir Ashley) Miles on the bacteria 'Brucella abortus' and 'Brucella mellitensis'. He retained an active interest in this research through the 1930's and 1940's.

In 1934 he began his longstanding collaborative research with the biochemist F C (later Sir Frederick) Bawden, then with the Potato Virus Research Unit in Cambridge, on viruses responsible for potato disease. Their work demonstrated conclusively that the genetic material found in all viruses is ribonucleic acie (RNA) and thus contradicted the view of Wendell Stanley, who had thought the viruses consisted entirely of protein. Bawden and Pirie realized that RNA might be the infective component of viruses but they were unable to confirm this experimentally, and it was not until 1956 that this was established by others. Bawden had moved to the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, in 1936 and in 1940 Pirie moved there himself, having been appointed Virus Physiologist. He became Head of the Biochemistry Department in 1947.

Pirie's research into plant viruses had intitiated his interest in properties and uses of leaf protein. Wartime food shortages prompted investigative work on the large-scale extraction of leaf protein for human food and tests were undertaken at Rothamsted. After the war Pirie continued this line of research, with support from the Rockefeller and Wolfson Foundations and later, under the International Biological Programme, he worked on methods of extraction. Although the potential of leaves as a human protein source had first been mooted in 1773, the full significance of it was not recognized until the twentieth century. Pirie was the first to develop a practical technology for its extraction. Pirie argued that in many climates more edible protein could be obtained by cultivation of leaf crops than any other form of cultivation. Much of his attention was given to studying suitable plants and to developing equipment for efficient small scale or household production of leaf protein, particularly in the developing world. He was also interested in marketing it as suitable for human consumption through use in recipes.

Pirie was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1949 'for his researches on plant viruses, especially as regards their isolation and their chemical and physical properties. With F C Bawden he was responsible for demonstrating that tobacco mosaic virus and several other plant viruses were nucleoproteins. These two workers were the first to isolate a plant virus in 3 dimensional crystalline form. Much of the recent work on plant viruses has been stimulate4d by these important discoverie. In addition Pirie has worked on the chemistry of antigens and has also concerned himself with the assessment of purity of large molecules of bilogical interest'. Pirie gave the Royal Society Leeuwenhoek Lecture for 1963 and was awarded its Copley Medal in 1971 'in recognition of his distinguished contributions to biochemistry and especially for his elucidation of the nature of plant viruses'. In 1976 he received the first Rank Prize for Nutrition and Agronomy.

Pirie died 29 March 1997. His wife, the opthalmologist Antoinettte Pirie with whom he had a son and a daughter, predeceased him in 1991.

Born Yeovil, Somerset, 1891; educated Yeovil School; studied civil engineering at Bristol University, graduated, 1911; articled assistant to consultant engineer; assistant engineer with the Pontypridd and Rhondda Valley Joint Water Board, 1913-1914; technical adviser to the Director of the Air Department of the Admiralty on aircraft safety, 1915-1919; partner in a firm of aeronautical engineers, 1919-1922; Professor of Engineering, University College, Cardiff, 1922-1928; Professor of Civil Engineering, Bristol University, 1928-1933, associated with the experimental testing of aircraft structures especially the R 100 and R 101 airships; Professor of Civil Engineering, and head of department, Imperial College, 1933-1956; research interests included the structure of dams; Chairman of the Thames Pollution Committee,1951-1961; elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1954; President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1958-1959; died, 1969.
Publications: Aeroplane Structures, etc with John Laurence Pritchard (Longmans & Co, London, 1919); The Stress Analysis of Bow Girders with Frank Leslie Barrow (London, 1926); Primary Stresses in Timber Roofs, with special reference to curved bracing members with William Henry Glanville (London, 1926); Strain Energy Methods of Stress Analysis, etc (Longmans & Co, London, 1928); The Analysis of Engineering Structures with John Fleetwood Baker, Baron Baker (E Arnold & Co, London, 1936); The Experimental Study of Structures (Edward Arnold & Co, London, 1947); A Study of the Voussoir Arch with Letitia Chitty (London, 1951); Studies in Elastic Structures (Edward Arnold & Co, London, 1952); Pollution of the Tidal Thames. Report of the Departmental Committee on the effects of heated and other effluents and discharges on the condition of the tidal reaches of the River Thames[Chairman, A J S Pippard] (London, 1961).

John Piper was a major figure in modern British art. He was a painter in oils and water colour, designed stained glass, ceramics and for the stage, made prints and devised ingenious firework displays. In addition to this he was also a gifted photographer of buildings and landscapes. Piper also wrote poetry, art criticism and several guidebooks on landscape and architecture.

Piper was born at Epsom, Surrey on 13 December 1903 and educated at Epsom College. He joined his father's law firm as an articled clerk in 1921 and loyally stayed there until his father died in 1926. He then gave up law and entered the Richmond School of Art (1926-7), later moving to the Royal College of Art (1927-1929) where he studied engraving, painting, drawing, lithography and stained glass and also developed his interests in music, ballet and theatre. In 1929 he married Eileen Holding a fellow student at Richmond College of Art.

In the early 1930s Piper, influenced by the work of Picasso and Braque, produced some dramatic abstract works. He was involved in the avant-garde developments in British Art, showing paintings at the exhibitions of the London Group from 1931 and in 1934 he was elected a member of the 7&5 Society. He was soon appointed secretary of the group whose membership included Ben Nicholson, Ivon Hitchens and Henry Moore. In the late 1930s he moved away from this abstract phase and looked for new ways to record the landscape and architecture of England which he loved. He created a romantic idiosyncratic style which combined rich colour, sharp lines and varied textures. Piper also went on to develop his photography and use collage and printmaking.

Piper began writing reviews from the late 1920s making a name for himself as a critic writing for periodicals like 'The Listener' and the 'Architectural Review'. From 1935-1937 he assisted Myfanwy Evans, with the production of a quarterly review of contemporary European abstract painting called 'Axis'. In 1937 Piper was commissioned by his friend John Betjeman to write the 'Shell Guide to Oxfordshire'. Piper went on to write and provide photographs for a number of the guides as well as edit the series. In the same year John Piper married the writer Myfanwy Evans. Together they had two sons and two daughters and lived at Fawley Bottom Farmhouse.

He also designed stage sets and costumes, starting with the play 'Trial of a Judge' by Stephen Spender at the Unity Theatre in 1938 and thereafter designing for many theatre, ballet and opera productions. Designing for opera led to his friendship with Benjamin Britten with whom, in 1946, Piper founded the English Opera Group which became the mainstay of the Aldeburgh Festival. He designed Britten's last opera 'Death in Venice' (1973) and Myfanwy Piper wrote the librettos for three of Britten's operas.

Although not created an Official War Artist until 1944, Piper recorded the effects of bomb-damage to buildings in works such as 'St Mary le Port, Bristol' 1940 now in the Tate Collection (N05718) and he also drew Windsor Castle. In the 1950s he was given his first commission to design stained glass windows for Oundle School Chapel. This was followed by many other commissions including the blaze of colour he designed for the great Baptistery window of the new Coventry Cathedral and the windows for the Metropolitan Cathedral of Liverpool. From the 1960s he exhibited at the Marlborough Gallery a series of landscape paintings of Britain, France and Italy. Throughout his life Piper collaborated with other artists, designers and publishers in a mass of popular art on both a large and small scale. He planned decorative panels for buildings and in his sixties took up ceramics.

Piper was also a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission for a long period, served on the Arts Council and as a Trustee of the Tate Gallery for three terms and at the National Gallery for two. He was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1972. John Piper died in 1992.