Allan, Thomas (fl. 1800–1840), lawyer and political adviser to the Wesleyan Methodists, was one of the most important laymen of his generation, but his biographical details remain unknown. When in 1799–1800 parliamentary attempts were made to exclude itinerant preaching and Sunday schools from the protection of the ...
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Frank Judd and Nicole Piché
Archer, Peter Kingsley, Baron Archer of Sandwell (1926–2012), barrister and politician, was born on 20 November 1926 in Great Western Street, Wednesbury, Staffordshire, the only child of Cyril Kingsley Archer (1897–1974), tool setter, and his wife, May, née Baker (1896–1976). His parents encouraged him to spend time in the library, instilling a lifelong love of books. He also became committed to Methodism and was later a lifelong Methodist lay preacher. At the age of sixteen he completed his schooling at ...
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Atherton, Sir William (1806–1864), lawyer and politician, was born at Glasgow in October 1806, the son of the Revd William Atherton (1775–1850), a Wesleyan minister, and Margaret, daughter of Walter Morison, a minister of the established Church of Scotland. He was educated in ...
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Stewart P. Evans
Berry, James (1852–1913), hangman, was born at Heckmondwike, Yorkshire, on 8 February 1852, one of the large family of Daniel Berry, a woolstapler, and Mary Ann Berry (née Kelley), both Wesleyan Methodists. He attended Heckmondwike day school and a boarding-school, Wrea Green Academy...
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(William) Norman Birkett, first Baron Birkett (1883–1962) by Claude Rogers, 1958 © Estate of Claude Rogers; Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
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Birkett, (William) Norman, first Baron Birkett (1883–1962), barrister and judge, was born at Ulverston, Lancashire, on 6 September 1883, the fourth of the five children of Thomas Birkett (d. 1913) and his first wife, Agnes (d. 1886), daughter of Moses Tyson...
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Carter, Henry [Harry] (1749–1829), smuggler and Methodist preacher, was born early in 1749 at Pengersick, Germoe parish, near Breage, Cornwall, the seventh of ten children of Francis Carter (bap. 1712, d. 1774), smallholder and miner, and Annice Williams (1714–1784). Henry (always known as ...
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Peter D. Fraser
Carter, Sir John Gregorio (1919–2005), lawyer and diplomatist, was born on 27 January 1919 in Cane Grove, East Coast Demerara, British Guiana, the only son and youngest of five children of Kemp R. Carter, pharmacist, and his wife, Gertrude, née Humphrys. His parents were both from ...
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William Davidson (1786–1820) by R. Cooper, pubd 1820 (after Abraham Wivell) Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
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Marika Sherwood
Davidson, William (1786–1820), conspirator, was born in Jamaica, the second son of the attorney-general of Jamaica and an unnamed black woman. Educated there until age fourteen, William was sent to England, despite his mother's protests, to complete his education. Arriving in a country seething with revolutionary fervour, ...
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John Ellis (1874–1932) by unknown photographer PA Photos
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Brian Bailey
Ellis, John (1874–1932), executioner, was born on 4 October 1874 at Buersil, Rochdale, the eldest child of Joseph James Ellis, a hairdresser, and his wife, Sarah Ann, née Dawson. He left school to work for the local Eagle Spinning Company. When he was twenty, he married ...
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Richard Davenport-Hines
Fauntleroy, Henry (1784–1824), banker and forger, was born on 12 October 1784, probably in London, the third but eldest surviving son (of five sons and two daughters) of William Fauntleroy (1749–1807), and his wife, Elizabeth (1758–1826), daughter of Revel Kerie, planter, of St Kitts, West Indies...
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Sir Dingle Mackintosh Foot (1905–1978) by Elliott & Fry, 1954 © National Portrait Gallery, London
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Foot, Sir Dingle Mackintosh (1905–1978), politician and lawyer, was born on 24 August 1905 in Plymouth, the eldest child in the family of five sons and two daughters of Isaac Foot (1880–1960), MP and solicitor, and his wife, Eva Mackintosh (1878–1946). She was a Scot of Cornish descent and he was given her father's family name. He was educated at ...
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Maker: Reginald Grenville Eves
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Herbert Hardy Cozens- Hardy, first Baron Cozens-Hardy (1838–1920) by Reginald Grenville Eves Estate of the Artist / The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. Photograph: Photographic Survey, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
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Theobald Mathew
revised by Mark Pottle
Hardy, Herbert Hardy Cozens-, first Baron Cozens-Hardy (1838–1920), judge, was born Herbert Hardy Cozens on 22 November 1838 at The Lodge, Letheringsett, Holt, Norfolk, the second son of William Hardy Cozens-Hardy (1806–1895), a former solicitor with a large practice at Norwich, and his wife, ...
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Robin P. Jenkins
Hawker [alias Collis], James (1836–1921), poacher and autobiographer, was born in Daventry, Northamptonshire, and baptized there in the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel on 29 August 1836. He was the first of the eight children of Charles Hawker and his wife, Charlotte Parbery (...
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Richard Rathbone
Hayford, Joseph Ephraim Casely- (1866–1930), lawyer and politician, was born in Cape Coast on 28 September 1866. The scion of a prominent Fante coastal family, he was called Ekra Agyiman in Fante although he later used the Europeanized forms of his names bestowed by missionaries on his family. This owed something to the fact that, like others who shared this complex if privileged background, he was not brought up with a good command of his African mother tongue, ...
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H. Montgomery Hyde
revised
Herbert, Edwin Savory, Baron Tangley (1899–1973), lawyer and public servant, was born on 29 June 1899 in Egham, Surrey, the eldest child of Henry William Herbert (1860–1933), chemist, and his wife, Harriett Lizzie Elmes (d. 1953). He was one of a closely knit family of five children (four boys and one girl), brought up in a Methodist household under the kindly but strict influence of his God-fearing parents. This influence had a lasting effect on his character throughout his life. It was initially reflected in the fact that, after finishing his schooling at ...
