Abbott, Charles, first Baron Tenterden (1762–1832), judge, was born in Canterbury on 7 October 1762, the second son of John Abbott (d. 1785), a hairdresser, with a shop opposite the western portal of the cathedral, and his wife, Alice, née Bunce (...
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À Beckett, Gilbert Abbott (1811–1856), comic writer and police magistrate, was born at The Grange, Hampstead, Middlesex, on 17 February 1811, the third son of William A'Beckett (1777–1855), a reform solicitor, and his wife, Sarah Abbott. His forebears were an ancient Wiltshire family, who traced their ancestry back to the fourteenth century and claimed descent from ...
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David Wilkinson
Adam, William (1751–1839), politician and advocate, was born on 2 August 1751, the son of John Adam (1721–1792), architect, of Blair Adam, Kinross-shire, and Jean (1721–1795), daughter of John Ramsay of Woodstone, Kincardineshire; he was the nephew of the architects Robert and James Adam...
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Aitchison, Craigie Mason, Lord Aitchison (1882–1941), judge, was born at the manse, Erskine, Falkirk, on 26 January 1882, the second son of the Revd James Aitchison, minister of the United Presbyterian church, and his wife, Elizabeth Mason Craigie. He was educated at Falkirk high school...
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Aitken, James [alias John the Painter] (1752–1777), radical and arsonist, was born in Edinburgh on 28 September 1752 to George Aitken, a blacksmith, and his wife, Magdalen. The eighth of twelve children, James qualified for admission as an impoverished student to Heriot's Hospital, Edinburgh...
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Aland, John Fortescue, first Baron Fortescue of Credan (1670–1746), judge, was born on 7 March 1670, the second son of Edmund Fortescue of Bierton, Buckinghamshire, and his wife, Sarah, daughter (and ultimately heir) of Henry Aland of Waterford. On his father's side he was a descendant of ...
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Robert Reiner
Alderson, John Cottingham (1922–2011), police officer, was born on 28 May 1922 at the municipal nursing home in Pindar Oaks, Barnsley, the eldest son of Ernest Cottingham Alderson (1886–1929), borough accountant's clerk, and his wife, Elsie Lavinia, née Rose (1894–1978). At the time of his birth registration his parents lived at ...
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David Armitage and Jennifer Pitts
Alexandrowicz, Charles Henry (1902–1975), international lawyer and historian, was born Karol Aleksandrowicz on 13 October 1902 in Lemberg (Lviv or Lwów) in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, the son of Franciszek Aleksandrowicz (1856–1927), a major-general in the Austro-Hungarian (and after ...
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Alison, Sir Archibald, first baronet (1792–1867), historian and lawyer, was born on 29 December 1792 at Kenley, Shropshire, in the parsonage of his father, Archibald Alison (1757–1839), son of Patrick Alison, lord provost of Edinburgh. The elder Archibald married in 1784 Dorothea (...
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E. T. Williams
revised by Tony Honoré
Allen, Sir Carleton Kemp (1887–1966), jurist and warden of Rhodes House, was born on 7 September 1887 in Carlton, Melbourne, the youngest of the three sons of the Revd William Allen, nonconformist minister, whose own father, a civil engineer, had emigrated from England...
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Vera Di Campli San Vito
Allen, Mary Sophia (1878–1964), police officer, was born on 12 March 1878 at 2 Marlborough Terrace, Newport Road, Roath, Glamorgan, the daughter of Thomas Isaac Allen (1841–1911), a superintendent of the Great Western Railway, and his wife, Margaret Sophia Carlyle (...
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S. V. FitzGerald
revised by Roger T. Stearn
Ameer Ali, Saiyid (1849–1928), judge and Muslim leader in India, was born on 6 April 1849 at Chinsura, Bengal, the fourth son of Saiyid Saadat Ali Khan (who died of cholera in 1856) of Mohan, Oudh, and his wife, the daughter of Shamsuddin Khan...
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Thomas S. Legg
Amos, Andrew (1791–1860), jurist, was born on 15 July 1791 in Calcutta, the youngest son of James Amos, a wealthy merchant in the service of the East India Company, and Cornelia Francina Bonté, daughter of General Bonté, a Swiss officer in the Dutch service. The ...
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David Ibbetson
Anderson, Sir Edmund (1530
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Anderson, Sir Robert (1841–1918), spymaster, detective chief, and author, was born on 29 May 1841 in Mountjoy Square, Dublin, the son of Matthew Anderson (1804–1888), crown solicitor, Dublin, and his wife, Mary. He himself described his more distant forebears as 'among the Scotch colonists who made ...
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Andrewes, Sir Thomas (d. 1659), financier and regicide, was the son of Robert Andrewes of Feltham, Middlesex, a Plymouth adventurer and subscriber to the Massachusetts Bay Company, and his wife, Margaret. He was a member of the Leathersellers' Company (and its master in 1638–9), and from 1631 ran a wholesale linen drapery business at the ...
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Arden, Richard Pepper, first Baron Alvanley (1744–1804), judge, was born on 20 May 1744 at Bredbury, in the parish of Stockport, Cheshire, the second son of John Arden of Harden Hall and his wife, Mary, daughter of Cuthbert Pepper of Pepper Hall, near ...
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Douglas Hay
Ashhurst, Sir William Henry (1725–1807), judge, was born on 25 January 1725 at Ashhurst, near Wigan, Lancashire, the third son of Thomas Henry Ashhurst (d. 1744), vice-chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and recorder of Liverpool and Wigan, who held the Lancashire...
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Asquith, Cyril, Baron Asquith of Bishopstone (1890–1954), judge, was born at Eton House in what used to be John Street, Hampstead, on 5 February 1890. He was the fourth son and the youngest of the five children of the future prime minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, later ...
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Geoffrey Lewis
Atkin, James Richard, Baron Atkin (1867–1944), judge, was born at 6 Tank Street, North Quay, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, on 28 November 1867, the eldest son of Robert Travers Atkin (1841–1872) of Fernhill, Kilgariff, co. Cork, and his wife, Mary Elizabeth (b. 1842)...