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Leicestershire Lives

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is the national record of people who’ve shaped British history, worldwide, from the Romans to the 21st century. The ODNB currently includes the life stories of over 60,000 men and women who died in or before 2016.

Robert Bakewell

Of these 60,000 people, more than 1,200 have close ties to Leicestershire.

Below you’ll find some famous (and less-well-known) Leicestershire faces, including farmer Robert Bakewell (above), playwright, novelist, and author of the Adrian Mole series Sue Townsend (below), and travel agent Thomas Cook. Click on an image to read more.

John Johnson Thomas Cook Jessie Pope Joe Orton
Caroline Biggs John Manners Philip Larkin Sue Townsend
Daniel Lambert Henry Hastings Baron Snow

Who and how? in Leicestershire

As well as looking for people by name, you can also search by place, for example:

(NB: You'll need to be logged into your library's subscription for these searches.)

How do I search?

The Oxford DNB includes the life stories of more than 60,000 men and women. Online you can search for where they were born, baptized, lived, died or were buried, by date range or location.

  • The advanced search ‘life event’ feature can be used to find people near you—be they men and women baptised in Edinburgh (189), those born in Whitby (28), or those buried in Exeter (133). Used in this way the ODNB is an excellent resource for school projects or family history.
  • Text searching across the Oxford DNB’s 68 million words, you can also make links between people and places: for example, we’ve 102 references to “Clapham Common”, 27 to the “River Trent”, and 51 to “Snowdonia”.

What else does the Oxford DNB offer?

  • Free biography podcast: as well as over 60,000 life stories, the ODNB publishes a twice monthly biography podcast featuring some popular entries from the collection. There are now over 250 episodes in the archive. Recent highlights include Diana, princess of Wales, George Orwell, John Lennon, and Bobby Moore.
  • Follow us on Twitter for more historical figures in the news.
  • Don’t forget: the ODNB online is available free—anywhere, anytime—via Leicestershire libraries: just type LCC + your library membership number in the box here. 


> Read the Oxford DNB, free and at home, using your library's subscription
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