Alexander, Alexander (b. 1781/2), soldier and writer, was born in Dundonald, Ayrshire, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Scottish merchant. Almost everything known about him comes from his remarkable autobiography, published in Edinburgh in 1830. After what he recalled as an unhappy childhood marred by physical violence, at the age of eighteen he was sent to work as an overseer on slave plantations in ...
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Alexander Alexander (b. 1781/22) by Thomas Hodgetts, pubd 1830 (after Sir John Watson-Gordon) © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Baggerley, Humphrey (fl. 1648–1654), army officer and supposed biographer, was among the troops who on 9 October 1648 surrendered at Appleby, Westmorland, to superior parliamentarian forces under Colonel Assheton. The royalist soldiers were granted very generous terms and, having been allowed his freedom, ...
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John Ormsby
revised by R. L. Winstanley
Carleton, George (1651/2
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Charnock, John (1756–1807), naval biographer, was born on 28 November 1756, and baptized at Stanford-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire, on 21 March 1757, the son of John Charnock, barrister, of Stanford-on-Soar, and his wife, Frances, daughter of Thomas Boothby of Chingford, Essex. He was educated at ...
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Cholmley, Sir Hugh, first baronet (1600–1657), royalist army officer and autobiographer, was born on 22 July 1600 at Roxby Castle, Thornton on the Hill (now Thornton Dale) in the North Riding of Yorkshire, the eldest son of Sir Richard Cholmley (1580–1631) and Susannah (1578–1611)...
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![Cover Fermor, Sir Patrick Michael [Paddy] Leigh (1915–2011)](/cover/searchableMedia/odnb-9780198614128-e-1014735-graphic-1-thumbnail.jpg)
Sir Patrick Michael Leigh Fermor (1915–2011) by Joan Leigh Fermor, 1946 © Patrick Fermor Archive, Trustees of the National Library of Scotland
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John Ure
Fermor, Sir Patrick Michael [Paddy] Leigh (1915–2011), special operations officer and author, was born on 11 February 1915 at 20 Endsleigh Gardens, Bloomsbury, London, the younger child and only son of Sir Lewis Leigh Fermor (1880–1954), geologist, and his first wife, Muriel Aileen (otherwise Eileen or Æileen), ...
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Gordon, Patrick (1635–1699), army officer and diarist, was born on 31 March 1635 at Easter Auchleuchries in Aberdeenshire, where his father, John Gordon (d. c.1684), was a minor laird. His mother's name was Mary Ogilvie (d. c.1684). He wrote his diary in six thick quarto volumes, preserved in ...
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Thompson Cooper
revised by D. N. Farr
Hodgson, John (1617/18–1684
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Jones, Elias Henry (1883–1942), prisoner of war and university administrator, was born at Brynymor Road, Aberystwyth, on 21 September 1883, the eldest son of the philosopher Sir Henry Jones (1852–1922), who was then a lecturer at University College, Aberystwyth, and his wife, ...
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D. H. Weinglass
Knowles, John (1781–1841), naval surveyor and biographer, was born on 24 March 1781 at 14 Union Street, Deptford, London, the eldest of the three sons of John Knowles (d. 1814), shipwright, and his wife, Mary Posgate, and was baptized on 19 April 1781 at ...
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Paul David Nelson
Lamb, Roger (1756–1830), soldier and writer, was born on 17 January 1756 in Dublin. Little is known of his family or early life, except that he somehow received an excellent education in English composition. At the age of seventeen he entered the army, joining the ...
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Lewin, (George) Ronald (1914–1984), military historian and biographer, was born in Halifax, Yorkshire, on 11 October 1914, the eldest of four sons (there were no daughters) of Frank Lewin, patent agent, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Wingfield. He was educated at Heath grammar school...
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Eric Sutherland Lomax (1919–2012) by unknown photographer, c.1939 © Writer Pictures
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Roger T. Stearn
Lomax, Eric Sutherland (1919–2012), prisoner of war and author, was born on 30 May 1919 at 11 Bedford Terrace, Portobello, Edinburgh, the only child of John Lomax (1878–1950), post office clerk, later post office manager, formerly a Stockport pawnbroker's assistant, and his wife, ...
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Alan Frost
Nagle, Jacob (1761–1841), sailor and diarist, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, on 15 September 1761, the son of George Nagel (1735–1789), a German immigrant, and Rebecca Rogers (d. 1793). On the outbreak of the American War of Independence George Nagel assumed command of a series of ...
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Carolyn Steedman
Pearman, John (1819–1908), soldier and autobiographer, was born on 24 February 1819 at Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, the son of Robert and Elizabeth Pearman. He worked as a sawyer and woodman until 1840 when he 'thought it time to give up such hard work which brought little more than a living for myself but much for my employers. The Railway started and [I] joined the ...
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C. S. Knighton
Pepys, Samuel (1633–1703), naval official and diarist, was born at the family home, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, London, on 23 February 1633, the second son of John Pepys (1601–1680), tailor, and his wife, Margaret, née Kite (d. 1667), daughter of a Whitechapel...
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Roger T. Stearn
Sitaram Pande (supp. 1795
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