Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840–1922) by Elliott & Fry © National Portrait Gallery, London
Article
Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen (1840–1922), hedonist, poet, and breeder of Arab horses, was born at Petworth House, Sussex, on 17 August 1840, the second son of the three children of Francis Scawen Blunt (1790–1842) of Crabbet Park, Poundhill, and Newbuildings Place, Southwater, Sussex, and his wife, ...
Article
Margot Johnson
Boruwlaski, Joseph [formerly Józef Boruslawski], styled Count Boruwlaski (1739–1837), travelling performer and memoirist, was born in November 1739 near Halicz, Galicia, Poland, the third son of a lower gentry family. The principal source for his life is his own memoirs, published in several editions between 1788 and 1820. When he was nine his father died, leaving a widow with five sons and one daughter. Three sons were very tall, but three children suffered from achondroplasia, an inherited condition in which the cartilage in the bones fails to grow. ...
Article
Howard Erskine-Hill
Caryll, John, Jacobite second Baron Caryll of Durford (1667–1736), friend of Alexander Pope, was the son of Richard Caryll (1635–1701), of West Grinstead, Sussex, and Frances (c.1644–1704), daughter of Sir Henry Bedingfield, and nephew and heir of John Caryll, Jacobite first Baron Caryll...
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Robertson Davies
Summers, (Augustus) Montague [name in religion Alphonsus Joseph-Mary] (1880–1948), literary scholar, occultist, and eccentric, was born in Pembroke Lodge, Clifton, near Bristol, on 10 April 1880, the youngest of the seven children of Augustus William Summers, a wealthy banker, and his wife, ...
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Maker: Howard Coster
(John) Douglas Woodruff (1897–1978) by Howard Coster, 1936 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Article
Woodruff, (John) Douglas (1897–1978), journalist and wit, was born at Wimbledon on 8 May 1897, the second of three children and the younger son of Cumberland Woodruff, a barrister employed in the Public Record Office, and his wife, Emily Louisa, daughter of William Hewett...
