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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Frank Judd and Nicole Piché
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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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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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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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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
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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 ...
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Sir Robert Yewdall Jennings (1913–2004) by Max Koot © Max Koot
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Jennings, Sir Robert Yewdall (1913–2004), jurist, international lawyer, and judge, was born on 19 October 1913 at 25 Sherborne Villas, Town Lane, Idle, near Bradford, Yorkshire, the only son of Arthur Jennings and his wife, Edith Schofield, née Brotherton. He was brought up in solid but simple circumstances. His mother was a mill worker; her father, a butcher, could neither read nor write, but was a lively character with an affectionate relationship with his grandson. His paternal grandfather was a clerk at the mill, and his father, ...
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Paul Thomas Murphy
Jones, Edward [nicknamed the Boy Jones] (b. 1824), trespasser, was born on 7 April 1824, the son of Henry Jones, an impoverished tailor living at Crown Court, Charlotte Street, Westminster. The Mary Jones listed in the census of 1841 may have been his mother or stepmother. In newspaper reports his name was sometimes given as ...
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Jones, Thomas [Tom] (1908–1990), trade unionist and Spanish republican volunteer, was born on 13 October 1908 in Ashton in Makerfield, Lancashire, the second of three children of William Jones, coalminer, and his wife, Mary Jones, a kitchen maid. His father had earlier left ...
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Hilary L. Rubinstein
Latham, Sir John Greig (1877–1964), politician and judge in Australia, was born on 26 August 1877 in Ascot Vale, then an outlying suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the eldest of five children (four sons and a daughter) of Thomas Latham, a native-born tinsmith, and his Scottish-born wife, ...
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Stephen Adrian Lawrence (1974–1993) by unknown photographer Rex Features
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Richard Davenport-Hines
Lawrence, Stephen Adrian (1974–1993), murder victim, was born on 13 September 1974 at Greenwich District Hospital, the son of Neville George Lawrence (b. 1942), a jobbing tailor, builder's labourer, plasterer, and decorator, and his wife, Doreen Delcitia Graham (b. 1952), a bank clerk, part-time care assistant, office cleaner, and guide for schoolchildren with special needs. He had one younger brother and one younger sister. His parents, who had been born in ...
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Lightwood, John Mason (1852–1947), barrister and legal writer, was born on 6 July 1852 at King's Norton, Birmingham, the second son of Edward Lightwood, a Methodist minister, and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of William Wild of Milford Haven. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath...
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Littler, Sir Ralph Daniel Makinson (1835–1908), barrister, second son of Robert Littler, and his wife, Sarah, was born on 2 October 1835 at Matlock Bath, Derbyshire, where his father was minister of the Lady Huntingdon Chapel. His mother was the daughter of Daniel Makinson...
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