Allen, William (1770–1843), philanthropist and scientist, was born on 29 August 1770 at Stewart Street, the Old Artillery Ground, Spitalfields, London, the eldest of the six sons of Job Allen (1734–1800) and his wife, Margaret Stafford (d. 1830). His father, a silk manufacturer, was a member of the ...
12
Article
Article
Bruce, William Speirs (1867–1921), polar scientist and explorer, was born at 43 Kensington Gardens Square, Paddington, London, on 1 August 1867. He was the fourth child of a family of eight children and had one younger brother and six sisters. His father, Samuel Noble Bruce MRCS...
Article
Campbell, George Douglas, eighth duke of Argyll in the peerage of Scotland, and first duke of Argyll in the peerage of the United Kingdom (1823–1900), politician and scientist, was the second son of John Douglas Edward Henry Campbell (1777–1847) and his second wife, ...
Article
David Thompson
Ellicott, John (1702/3–1772), watchmaker and scientist, was born in London, the son of John Ellicott (1674–1733), clockmaker, and his wife, Mary. John Ellicott senior, whose parents, Sampson and Elizabeth Ellicott, came from Bodmin, Cornwall, was baptized at St Anthonin's, Budge Row, on 2 September 1674. He was apprenticed in the ...
Article
Frank A. J. L. James
Faraday, Michael (1791–1867), natural philosopher, scientific adviser, and Sandemanian, was born on 22 September 1791 in Newington Butts, Surrey, the third of four children of James Faraday (1761–1810), blacksmith, and his wife, Margaret (1764–1838), daughter of Michael Hastwell, farmer of Mallestang near Kirkby Stephen, Westmorland...
Article
Faulds, Henry (1843–1930), general practitioner and developer of fingerprinting, was born on 1 June 1843 at Beith, Ayrshire, the son of William Pollock Faulds, an impoverished grocer, and his wife, Anne Cameron. Both sides of his family were of Scottish descent. After school at ...
Article
David Neave
Giffard, John Anthony Hardinge [Tony], third earl of Halsbury (1908–2000), scientist and public servant, was born on 4 June 1908 at Ennismore Gardens, London. He was the only son and elder child of Hardinge Goulborn Giffard, second earl of Halsbury (1880–1943), barrister and recorder of ...
Article
Grosseteste, Robert (c. 1170–1253), scientist, theologian, and bishop of Lincoln, combined a very humble origin with torrential energy, great ability, and a rarely paralleled breadth of intellectual interests. His career followed no ordinary pattern, and can be divided into five distinct periods.
Article
A. Spokes Symonds
revised by Katherine Prior
Herschel, Sir William James, second baronet (1833–1917), developer of fingerprinting and judge, was born on 9 January 1833, probably in Slough, the eldest child of the three sons and nine daughters of Sir John Herschel, first baronet (1792–1871), astronomer and chemist, and his wife, ...
Article
Home, David Milne [formerly David Milne] (1805–1890), advocate and scientist, was born on 22 January 1805 at Inveresk, Musselburgh, near Edinburgh, the elder son of Admiral Sir David Milne (1763–1845) and his first wife, Grace Purves (1776?–1814). The naval officer Sir Alexander Milne, ...
Article
Kropotkin, Peter [Pyotr Alekseievich] (1842–1921), anarchist and scientist, was born on 27 November 1842 os at 26 Shtatny pereulok in Moscow, the son of Prince Aleksey Petrovich Kropotkin (1805–1871), an army officer who came from an old aristocratic family, and Yekaterina Nikolayevna Sulima...
Article
Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph (1742–1799), natural scientist and author, was born on 1 July 1742 in Ober Ramstadt, near Darmstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, the youngest of the seventeen children born to Johann Conrad Lichtenberg, a Lutheran priest, and his wife, Henriette Catherine, née Eckhardt, the daughter of a Lutheran priest. He was baptized on the day of his birth for fear he would die, and curvature of the spine left him a hunchback. After tuition in the natural sciences from his father and attendance at the elementary school at ...
Article
Peter Wright
revised by Roger T. Stearn
McNaughton, Andrew George Latta (1887–1966), army officer, scientist, and public servant, was born at Moosomin, Saskatchewan, Canada, on 25 February 1887, the elder son of Robert Duncan McNaughton of Moosomin, a prosperous storekeeper of Scottish highland descent, and his wife, Christina Mary Ann...
Article
D. E. P. Hughes
Norman, Sir Richard Oswald Chandler (1932–1993), chemist, was born on 27 April 1932 in Norbury, London, the only child of Oswald George Norman (1890–1941), bank manager, and his wife, Violet Maud, née Chandler (1901–1981). He was educated at Durston House preparatory school in ...
Article
Marie Boas Hall
Oldenburg, Henry [Heinrich] (c. 1619–1677), scientific correspondent and secretary of the Royal Society, was born in the free city of Bremen, Germany, one of two children of Heinrich Oldenburg (d. 1634), a teacher at the Bremen Paedegogium and later a professor at ...
Article
Barrie Trinder
Reynolds, William (1758–1803), ironmaster and scientist, was born at Ketley, Shropshire, on 14 April 1758, the elder of the two children of Richard Reynolds (1735–1816), ironmaster of Coalbrookdale and Bristol, and his first wife, Hannah (1735–1762), daughter of Abraham Darby (1711–1763). His sister, ...
Article
Elizabeth Baigent
Scoresby, William, junior (1789–1857), Arctic scientist and Church of England clergyman, was born in Cropton, near Pickering, Yorkshire, on 5 October 1789. He was one of eleven children born to William Scoresby (1760–1829), Arctic whaler and navigator, and his wife, Lady Mary Smith (1765–1819)...
Article
Somerset, Edward, second marquess of Worcester (d. 1667), courtier and scientist, was the first son of Henry Somerset, fifth earl and first marquess of Worcester (1577–1646), and his wife, Anne (d. 1639), daughter and heir of John, Lord Russell, and Elizabeth, daughter of ...
Article
R. H. Vetch
revised by Elizabeth Baigent
Strachey, Sir Richard (1817–1908), scientist and administrator in India, was born on 24 July 1817 at Sutton Court, Pensford, Somerset, the seat of his uncle, Sir Henry Strachey, second baronet (1772–1858). He was the third of six sons born to Edward Strachey and his wife, ...
Article
T. A. B. Corley
Sutton, Martin John (1850–1913), scientific agriculturist, was born in Reading on 25 October 1850, the eldest of five sons and four daughters of Martin Hope Sutton (1815–1901), seed merchant, and his second wife, Sophia Woodhead Warwick (d. 1894), of Whitley, Berkshire. He was educated at ...
12
