Telford and Wrekin 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.

Matthew Webb

In the more than 70 million words of the ODNB, Telford or Wrekin are mentioned 260 times.

Here you’ll find some famous (and some less familiar) Telford faces, including the Channel swimmer Captain Webb (above) and (below) author Hesba Stretton and ironmaster William Reynolds.
In addition, the Oxford DNB has entries on the writer Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter), who was born in Horsehay a century ago this year, and the engineer Thomas Telford after whom Telford new town is named.

Philip Larkin Lord Woodbine William Withering
Henry Gauntlett John Fletcher Richard Reynolds Sarah Smith

James Friswell Gordon Richards Mary Fletcher 

Wiliam Reynolds William Penny Brookes Billy Wright 

Who and how? in Telford and Wrekin

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

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?

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