Austin, (Ethel) Winifred (1873–1918), pioneer of library services for blind people, was born on 7 October 1873 (not 1875, as her obituaries state) at 3 Lansdowne Place, Blackheath Hill, London, the tenth child of George Austin (1824/5–1887) and Mary Anne Jane Cullum Aldridge (...
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Chetham, Humphrey (bap. 1580, d. 1653), financier and philanthropist, the sixth child of Henry Chetham (c.1540–1603) of Crumpsall Hall, near Manchester, and his wife, Jane (c.1542–1616), the daughter of Robert Wroe of Heaton, was born at Crumpsall Hall, and baptized at ...
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Peter Sherlock
Cranston, Andrew (d. 1708), creator of a public library, was born in the late 1650s in Scotland to unknown parents. He was perhaps connected to the lords Cranstoun, for the descendants of his only known brother, James, assumed the same coat of arms. There is a volume in his library inscribed to him from ...
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Edwards, Arthur (d. 1743), benefactor, was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 17 November 1725. Nothing is known of his parentage and upbringing, though his will refers to 'my brothers and sisters'. Little is known about his life, other than that he reached the rank of first major of the second troop of ...
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Greenwood, Thomas (1851–1908), promoter of public libraries and publisher, son of William and Nanny Greenwood, was born on 9 May 1851 at Mount Pleasant, Woodley, Cheshire. His father, a yeoman farmer turned millworker and an active Chartist, died when Thomas was just five months. From the age of three he attended ...
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A. H. Halsey
Guttsman, William Leo [Willi] [formerly Wilhelm Leo Guttsmann] (1920–1998), librarian and political sociologist, was born in Berlin on 23 August 1920, one of two children of Walter Johann Guttsmann (1880–1941), a native of Berlin, and his wife, Helene, who was born on 5 August 1887 in ...
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Murray C. T. Simpson
Kirkwood, James (b. c. 1650, d. in or after 1709), clergyman and advocate of parochial libraries, was born in or near Dunbar. His schooling took place there, and from 1666 he studied at Edinburgh University, where he graduated MA in 1670. Scott's Fasti ecclesiae Scoticanae...
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C. W. Sutton
revised by Alan G. Crosby
Marsh, John Fitchett (1818–1880), promoter of municipal libraries and antiquary, was the son of a solicitor of Wigan, Lancashire, John Marsh, and his wife, Ann. He was born at Wigan on 24 October 1818, and was educated at Warrington grammar school under the ...
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Matthew [née Barlow; other married name Parker], Frances (1550/51–1629), benefactor, was the fourth daughter of William Barlow (d. 1568), at that time bishop of Bath and Wells, and Agatha Wellesbourne, a former nun; William Barlow (1544–1625) was her brother, and the merchant and explorer, ...
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David Finkelstein
Mudie, Charles Edward (1818–1890), founder of a circulating library, was born on 18 October 1818 at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London, the youngest son of Thomas Mudie, a Scottish newspaper agent, bookseller, stationer, and lending librarian. Details of Charles Mudie's education are not known, although he is reported as describing it as '...
