Newsletter no. 11, continued

Now with added biography! Updating the Oxford DNB—Philip Carter

Publication of the Oxford DNB in print and online in September 2004 was a landmark in the dictionary's history. However, it was not the end of the road, as editors were already busy commissioning new material. From January 2005 the dictionary publishes three annual updates, timed for January, May, and October of each year. Each update includes a range of new content, with three key intentions. First, to extend and develop the dictionary's existing coverage with publication of up to 500 new biographies each year. Second, to add new thematic material offering interpretations of the dictionary and different routes into its existing 55,000 lives. Finally, to make corrections and add new information to keep the dictionary continuously up to date and in step with recent discoveries.

The addition of new biographies extends the dictionary in two directions. People included in the 2004 edition of the Oxford DNB died on or before the cut-off date of 31 December 2000. Online updates take our coverage into the twenty-first century. In January each year we publish entries on noteworthy men and women who died after 2000, starting in January 2005 with biographies of people who died in 2001. Future January updates will cover individuals who died in successive calendar years: so January 2006 sees publication of biographies of those who died in 2002, and so on.

The January 2005 update told the life stories of 195 men and women who shaped British politics, society, science, business, and culture in the second half of the twentieth century. The oldest subject was Dame Ninette de Valois (1898–2001), founder of the Royal Ballet, and the youngest was the developmental biologist Rosa Beddington (1956–2001). The inclusion of about 200 new biographies each January keeps twenty-first century subjects in proportion to the number of lives previously included in the Oxford DNB and their distribution over time. Likewise the range of lifestyles reflects the dictionary's continuing interest in the diversity of national life. In addition to de Valois and Beddington, the January 2005 update added men and women from politics (for example, Peter Shore and Lords Hailsham and Longford), business (Marcus Sieff, David Curry, and Joseph Bamford of JCB diggers), literature (Douglas Adams and W. G. Sebald), the arts and scholarship (Denys Lasdun and Ernst Gombrich), and popular culture and sport (Mary Whitehouse, George Harrison, and the Scottish footballer Jim Baxter). Of the new intake the largest group (with twenty-eight biographies) was of those who shaped British science and medicine in the later twentieth century, including the astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, the hepatologist Dame Sheila Sherlock, the computer pioneer Tom Kilburn, and the chemist Herchel Smith, whose fortune was made from research which led to the manufacture of the contraceptive pill. And, in keeping with the Oxford DNB, there were also a few surprises: people without whom modern life would not have been the same, such as Brian Trubshaw, Concorde test pilot; the engineer responsible for the BBC 'test card', George Hersee; and Yan-kit So, who wrote on Chinese cookery. Currently published online, these modern subjects will also appear in printed supplements later.

While the January updates extend coverage into the twenty-first century, those released in May and October add new people active from the earliest times to the year 2000. As published in September 2004, the dictionary included 16,315 people who appeared for the first time in the wake of a century of new scholarship. Updates in May and October continue this process by adding up to 300 biographies each year of men and women whom we were unable to include in the 2004 edition, or who have become known to us through current research.

Just as January's update focuses on people in a specific year, so those in May and October draw attention to people who broadly shared a common interest or identity. For example, the update published in May 2005 highlights three areas: those who came to Britain as exiles or visitors from mainland Europe; women active in political life from the seventeenth century onwards; and entrepreneurs who gave their names to well-known household brands. The remaining biographies published in May 2005 comprised men and women who left their mark in the arts, the military, trade, religion, and education—ranging from the crusader Sir Roger Stanegrave (fl. 1280s–1331) to John Gilroy (1898–1985), the artist responsible for classic Guinness advertising from the 1930s.

By highlighting groups of subjects, the updates also make connections between people and point to themes which run through the national story, and hence the Oxford DNB itself. The experience of European exiles and visitors, for example, indicates Britain's historical tolerance of political refugees, especially during the final three-quarters of the nineteenth century. We often associate these years with radicals who sought exile from conservative European governments. Figures of this type—from the Russian revolutionary Stepniak to the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta—have now gained a place for their contribution to Britain's diverse exile community. But they have also been joined by victims of progressive European politics. Empress Eugénie (1826–1920), wife of Napoleon III, spent nearly fifty years in Britain following the creation of the French Third Republic, while Manuel II (1889–1932), deposed as king of Portugal in 1910, moved to Twickenham, near London, where, as an avid book collector and president of the Piscatorial Society, he became a solid member of the English bourgeoisie. In contrast to international visitors are new subjects whose local significance has now gained, or deserves, national attention: including, from May 2005, Sarah Jacob (1857–1869), the Welsh Fasting Girl from Carmarthen; the miners' leader Warren James, who led protests in the Forest of Dean in 1830; and Thomas Alderson, a Bridlington ARP warden and the first recipient of the George Cross for bravery (in 1940).

As well as new biographies, the dictionary's three annual updates provide new interpretative material available via the 'Themes' pages of the online edition. Here readers can currently find two routes into the Oxford DNB's 55,000 lives. 'Features' provide accessible essays on topics—be they historical anniversaries, events, or places—which bring together people who appear in the dictionary. Recent features range from Peter Marshall's account of the men and women active in eighteenth-century India to Kenneth O. Morgan's review of the figures who shaped the 1960s, as well as a look at the loss of Normandy (1204) and a snapshot of a newly British cultural life in 1605.

The second route into dictionary content is provided by a growing collection of additional reference material. Currently readers can find a set of reference lists, giving placeholders in all major offices in political, religious, and cultural life, and offer quick answers to numerous research questions: when, for example, was Lord Derby prime minister? Who were the archbishops of Canterbury and York under Elizabeth I? Who was the second viceroy of India? Who was poet laureate in 1923?—and so on. Additional lists record people in the dictionary who shared common achievements: for instance, all of our Nobel prize-winners, woman MPs, Oscar winners, and sporting world champions. Finding all such people by searching would be time-consuming, but the lists make them quickly available, with links provided to every subject.

The final purpose of the online updates is to make corrections and additions to existing Oxford DNB articles. In May 2005 editors made 800 changes among the dictionary's 63 million words and 50,435 articles. As was the case in 1900 with the first DNB, today's readers, contributors, and editors perform a valuable role by advising on necessary changes or identifying new discoveries (for example, subjects' birth or death details, or extra family information) which have come to light since completion of the dictionary's text. Here online publishing comes into its own. Whereas it took nearly a century for corrections to be incorporated into the first DNB, changes and additions can now be made within months of publication, with the previous edition of an amended biography available in the online archive. A small but regular flow of new and corrected information will appear in successive online updates and, as ever, we welcome readers' comments, which will help us ensure that the Oxford DNB remains accurate, topical, and up to date.

'Now with added biography', the online Oxford DNB continues to reflect the diversity of national life from the earliest times to the first years of the twenty-first century. Our next update (to be published on 6 October 2005) offers new entries for, among others, early modern women writers, modern Irish subjects, and historically influential children and adults associated with children and childhood. The latter theme allows us to record the contribution of some well-loved modern performers, among them Eric Thompson (1929-1982), creator of The Magic Roundabout, and Roger Hargreaves, author of the ever-popular 'Mr Men' and 'Little Miss' books. Earlier biographies focus on noteworthy children: for example, Sarah Moulton, who sat for Thomas Lawrence's celebrated portrait 'Pinkie' (1794), and Annie Darwin, who became the subject of her father's research into human development during the 1840s. As in May's update, localism and internationalism are also evident in the lives of, among many others, the Southampton heroine Mary Rogers (1855-1899), the Sutton Hoo archaeologist Basil Brown (1888-1977), and the Irish-born Eliza Lynch (1835-1886), first lady of Paraguay.

Alongside new biographies will come additional thematic material. From October 2005, in addition to lists of office-holders and others, the Oxford DNB's reference information will include new guides to historical groups from all periods. The first set of thirty reference articles about groups ranges from the enforcers of Magna Carta to the directors and actors involved with Ealing Studios, via the Cambridge Platonists and the Clapham Sect. Our aim, with 55,000 lives in place—and more to come—is to look beyond subjects as significant individuals to see connections between people and the interactions that shaped British life. As ever, the Oxford DNB's primary purpose is to present memoirs of noteworthy people. But as it expands and develops the dictionary will also become something of a 'historical database': not just a statement of existing scholarship, but an enormous resource for future research.

Philip Carter is publication editor of the Oxford DNB

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