Edward Alleyn (1566–1626) by unknown artist by permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery
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S. P. Cerasano
Alleyn, Edward (1566–1626), actor, theatre entrepreneur, and founder of Dulwich College, was born on 1 September 1566 in the London parish of St Botolph without Bishopsgate, 'near Devonshire House, where now is the sign of the Pye'. He was baptized the following day in the parish church, the son of ...
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Alan B. Cobban
Badew, Richard (d. 1361), university principal and founder of University Hall, Cambridge, was born, towards the close of the thirteenth century, into an established knightly family which took its name from Great Baddow, near Chelmsford, Essex, where it had estates dispersed among several neighbouring villages. According to ...
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Balliol, Dervorguilla de, lady of Galloway (d. 1290), noblewoman and benefactor, was a daughter of Alan, lord of Galloway (b. before 1199, d. 1234), and his second wife, Margaret, eldest daughter of David, earl of Huntingdon (d. 1219). Born some time after 1209, the date of her parents' marriage, her distinctive Gaelic name, ...
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Dorothy M. Owen
Balsham, Hugh of (d. 1286), bishop of Ely and benefactor, took his name from Balsham, Cambridgeshire, one of Ely Priory's manors. Nothing is known of his background, except that during the controversy aroused by his election as bishop it was alleged that he was of servile origins. He became a monk at ...
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Roy Martin Haines
Bateman [Norwich], William (c. 1298–1355), diplomat, founder of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and bishop of Norwich, was probably born in Norwich (from which he was sometimes named), the third son of William and Margery Bateman. His father was many times bailiff of the city, and in 1326–7 its member of ...
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R. B. Dobson
Bingham [Byngham], William (d. 1451), ecclesiastic and founder of Christ's College, Cambridge, may have been the William Byngham who was presented to the vicarages of Hutton, near Beverley, Yorkshire, and Alverstoke, Hampshire, by Henry IV in 1401–2. More probably, the future founder of ...
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James B. Bell
Blair, James (1655/6–1743), Church of England clergyman and founder of the College of William and Mary, was the son of Peter Blair (d. 1673), Church of Scotland minister of St Cuthbert's parish, Edinburgh, and his wife, Mary Hamilton (d. in or after 1696)...
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James Blair (1655/66–1743) by Charles Bridges Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William and Mary
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Blundell, Peter (c. 1520–1601), clothier and philanthropist, was born in Tiverton, Devon, of humble parentage. As a boy he saw the little community freed from the dominance of the Courtenay earls of Devon, and he lived to see it, untrammelled by either civic or industrial regulation, and somewhat encouraged by the protestant ethic, enter a period of considerable growth and prosperity based on the manufacture of kerseys, the woollen cloths in which the town and its immediate hinterland specialized. Whether the young ...
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Brome, Adam (d. 1332), administrator and first founder of Oriel College, Oxford, was probably the son of Thomas of Brome, who took his name from Brome near Eye in Suffolk; according to the inquisition held after the death of Edmund, earl of Cornwall...
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Susan L. Cohen
Brown, Dame Edith Mary (1864–1956), medical missionary and founder of the North India School of Medicine for Christian Women, was born on 24 March 1864 at Bank Buildings, 10A Coats Lane, Whitehaven, Cumberland. One of six children, she was the second of three daughters born to ...
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Campbell, Henry James (1813–1889), textile merchant and school founder, was born in Newtownards, co. Down, the youngest of four children of Henry Campbell (c.1778–1814) and his wife, Elizabeth, née Campbell (1770–1852), who may have been related before their marriage. Henry and his three older siblings (a brother and two sisters) were brought up in the ...
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J. H. Curthoys
Chaloner, Robert (1547/8–1621), Church of England clergyman and educational benefactor, was born in Goldsborough, near Knaresborough, West Riding of Yorkshire, the second son of Robert and Ann Chaloner of Llanfyllin (possibly Llanfyllin, Montgomeryshire). He was elected to a studentship at Christ Church, Oxford...
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Jennifer C. Ward
Clare, Elizabeth de [Elizabeth de Burgh; known as lady of Clare] (1294/5–1360), magnate and founder of Clare College, Cambridge, was usually known as Elizabeth de Burgh, and was described by herself and others as lady of Clare. She was the youngest daughter of ...
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V. E. Chancellor
Coleridge, Alice Mary (1846–1907), promoter of girls' schools, was born on 27 March 1846 at the Manor House, Ottery St Mary, Devon, the youngest daughter by thirteen years of Francis George Coleridge (1794–1854), a solicitor and kinsman of S. T. Coleridge, and his wife, ...
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John Colet (1467–1519) after Pietro Torrigiano, c. 1520 The Conway Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
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Colet, John (1467–1519), dean of St Paul's and founder of St Paul's School, was born in January 1467, as attested by a contemporary document; Erasmus, always vague as to chronology, believed him to have been about thirty, two or three months younger than himself, when they first met in 1499. ...
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Anita McConnell
Conti, Italia Emily Stella (1873–1946), actress and founder of the Italia Conti academy of theatre arts, was born on 9 September 1873 at 265 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, the eldest child of Luigi Conti (d. 1884), lyric singer, and his wife, Emily Mary (1844–1914)...
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Maker: T. H. Maguire
William Sands Cox (1802–1875), by T. H. Maguire, 1854
© Royal College of Physicians
