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News archive
August 2006
- Lives of the Day for August: August is a month for puppeteers, Pre-Raphaelites, and poets. On 4th we celebrate the anniversary of Muffin the Mule's first broadcast with a life of puppeteer Ann Hogarth. Art biographies include William De Morgan and John Everett Millais, while on 28th we mark the centenary of Sir John Betjeman's birth.
- Reading room for August: get away from it all with our holiday pioneers and travellers—from Pontin's to Patagonia:> more
July 2006
- Lives of the Day for July: Win, lose, or draw, there's a British presence to mark the finals of Wimbledon and the World Cup with tennis player Blanche Hillyard and footballer Bobby Moore on 8th and 9th July. There are also lives of the revolutionary James Wilson for US Independence Day and Godfrey de Lucy, bishop of Winchester for St Swithin’s day—plus Evelyn Balfour, Soil Association founder, and governor of Singapore, Stamford Raffles
- 150th anniversary of the National Portrait Gallery: the Royal Mail has issued a special set of stamps featuring portraits from the Gallery's collection. Read the biographies of the featured subjects.
- Top of the Pops bows out: the ODNB marks the passing of Britain's best-known music show with a few of its biggest stars.
- Soldiers of the Somme: the ODNB includes more than 200 biographies of men and women involved in the battles of the Somme (1916–1918). The dictionary marks the battle's 90th anniversary with the biographies of five soldiers.
- Reading room for July: We celebrate summer with a look at gardeners and gardening in the ODNB—from Vita Sackville-West at Sissinghurst to Bill Sowerbutts, voice of Gardeners’ Question Time.
June 2006
- Lives of the Day for June: In June we mark the anniversary of D-Day with the biography of the poet and soldier Keith Douglas. There are also lives of Barbara Goalen for Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot and of John Alcock to commemorate the first Atlantic crossing by plane in June 1919—plus novelist Mary Wesley and a tale of Spanish espionage.
- Reading room for June: We celebrate the 2006 Fifa World Cup with a football team of aces from a hundred years of football.
May 2006
5 May Queen visits Oxford DNB: On 5 May Her Majesty the Queen visited the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography to meet the editors and staff who worked on the 60-volume dictionary and who now update and extend its online edition. > more
During her visit the Queen also 'published' the latest edition of the online dictionary by switching on the new electronic version for readers worldwide. > more
1 May Lives of the Day for May: In May we celebrate the Chelsea Flower Show with the biography of Gertrude Jekyll. There are also lives of John Gilroy — the man behind the classic Guinness adverts — of the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, and Sir Gerald Whent, founder of the telecommunications company, Vodaphone. Plus a nineteenth-century French empress in Chislehurst. > more
April 2006
- 5 April Essays in honour of Colin Matthew: The dictionary's editor Lawrence Goldman and Peter Ghosh (St Anne's College, Oxford) have edited a collection of essays on Politics and Culture in Victorian Britain. The book is a tribute to the late Colin Matthew, one of the most eminent recent historians of Victorian Britain, and the founding editor of the Oxford DNB, who died in 1999. The volume includes memoirs of Colin by Boyd Hilton and Ross McKibbin.
- 1 April Oxford DNB in English and Northern Irish public libraries: The landmark agreement between Oxford University Press and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council comes fully into effect on 1 April 2006. Almost every public library in England and Northern Ireland now subscribes to the Oxford DNB in a deal that will last until 2008. With remote access, if you are a member of your library, you should be able to use your library's subscription to use the dictionary from home. Check our list of subscribing libraries and find out more about the agreement.
March 2006
- 29 March Essential Lives: Adam Hart-Davis, Nicola Beauman, and Anthony Howard join Lawrence Goldman for an evening of 'Essential Lives' in science, literature, and politics at the 2006 Oxford Literary Festival held at Christ Church, Oxford. Tickets are £8 which includes off-prints of Oxford DNB articles by each author. Further details are available from the festival website.
February 2006
- 20 February Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council deal: a major new agreement between OUP and the Museums, Libraries, and Archives Council means that the online edition of the Oxford DNB will be available soon—together with a range of other Oxford Online resources—at even more public library authorities in England. > more
- 14 February National record or historical debate?: dictionary editors Henry Summerson, Vivienne Larminie, and Philip Carter consider the public role of the DNB at the Institute of Historical Research's conference 'History and the public', 13–14 February, Senate House, University of London, UK
- 9 February Lesser-known lives: Lawrence Goldman discusses some of the dictionary's lesser-known figures on BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme. The piece is available to listen to via Today's 'Listen again' archive (scroll down to 0841).
January 2006
- 13 January Legal lives in the Oxford DNB: in September 2005 the Rt Hon Lord Bingham spoke on the Oxford DNB's coverage of legal figures at the Commonwealth Law Conference. You can now read the full text of Lord Bingham's lecture on 'The Lives of the Law' (pdf file).
- 6 January Online update, January 2006: biographies of 202 people who died in 2002, plus new feature essays from Chaucer and medieval literature to Monarchy and charity. > more
December 2005
- 2 December Another award for the Oxford DNB: the online edition of the Oxford DNB has beaten, among others, Google Earth and Lexis Nexis to win the Best User Experience category at this year's annual International information industry awards. > more
November 2005
- 26 November DNB at the WEA: the editor, Dr Lawrence Goldman, along with three of the dictionary's research editors, provided a day-school for Berkshire Workers' Education Association at Reading, UK. Papers considered the dictionary's coverage of criminality and law in medieval Britain; the writing of women's biography in the early modern period, and imperial lives in the Oxford DNB.
- 8 November Dictionary wins design award: the Oxford DNB has won the 'Academic and Reference' category at the 2005 British Design and Production Awards. Judges described the dictionary as 'A paradigm of a reference work' which 'relied purely on the strength of typographic design, good choice of paper, clean crisp even printing and excellent binding'.
- 7 November: Archbishop of Canterbury and public history: In October Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, joined Professor Quentin Skinner (Cambridge), Professor Peter Hennessy (London), and Baroness Onora O'Neill, at an Oxford DNB seminar held at the British Academy, London, UK, to discuss 'The Influence of History in Public Life'. The seminar considered the contribution of historical knowledge to public life from ethical, scholarly, and political perspectives. You can now listen to the seminar in full.
October 2005
- 21 October England expects: The Oxford DNB marks Trafalgar Day with N.A.M. Rodger's biography of Horatio Nelson as 'Life of the Day' for Friday 21 October (subsequently available for free until Thursday 27 October from our lives of the week page). You can also sign up for 'Life of the Day' and have a new biography delivered daily to your mail box.
- 6 October ;Online update, October 2005: biographies of 98 people who shaped British life from the ninth to the twentieth centuries; 30 new reference group articles explaining historical groups from all periods of British history, from the enforcers of Magna Carta to the Kit Cat Club and the Keep Left group > more
- 1 October Black history month: to mark the UK's Black History Month, the dictionary includes a series of black Britons in its October 'Lives of the Day' selection, starting on Saturday 1 October. You can also sign up for 'Life of the Day' and have a new biography delivered daily to your mail box.
September 2005
- 23–5 September Free access weekend: the Oxford DNB celebrated its first birthday with three days' free online access from 23 to 25 September 2005.
- 16 September People's history: Lawrence Goldman lectures on 'New national biographies' at the 'People and their pasts' conference at Ruskin College, Oxford.
- 12 September The lives of the law: The Rt Hon Lord Bingham of Cornhill discusses 'The lives of the law' and their place in the Oxford DNB at the 2005 Commonwealth Law Conference, London. Lord Bingham's talk forms part of an event to mark the dictionary's contribution to legal history.
July 2005
- 25 July Oxford DNB scoops two top industry prizes. Within the space of a week, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has won two of the most prestigious prizes in the reference publishing industry. The 60-volume dictionary, launched in September 2004, was awarded the Dartmouth medal on 27 June for its ‘outstanding quality and significance’. Six days later, on 3 July, the Oxford DNB won the Besterman/McColvin medal (electronic category) for its online edition, also published in 2004, which is updated with new biographies three times a year. Read more about these awards
- 19–22 July The twenty-second Harlaxton medieval symposium has as its theme 'Recording lives in England in the later middle ages'. Dr Henry Summerson, pre-1600 research editor, addresses the issue of 'Rethinking medieval lives: the experience of the DNB'. Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, UK.
- 11 July International medieval congress, Leeds University, UK: A double session addresses this year's theme, 'Youth and age', as presented in the Oxford DNB. The speakers are the consultant editor for the dictionary's medieval area, Barbara Harvey (Somerville College, Oxford), Dr Henry Summerson, pre-1600 research editor at the Oxford DNB, Professor Anne Curry (University of Southampton), Dr Jeremy Goldberg (University of York), Dr Philippa Hoskin (Borthwick Institute, York), and Dr Alan Thacker (executive editor, Victoria County History).
- 8 July Society of Indexers: publication editor Philip Carter discusses the Oxford DNB at the annual conference of the British Society of Indexers, University of Exeter, UK.
- 7 July Australian Historical Association panel: Lawrence Goldman and Robert Faber debate the Oxford DNB's content with the legal historian Professor Wilfrid Prest (University of Adelaide) and the imperial historian Professor Philippa Levine (University of Southern California). AHA congress conference, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
June 2005
- 27 June American Library Association award: the Oxford DNB is awarded the Dartmouth medal at the annual conference of the ALA in Chicago, Illinois, attended by Robert Faber (project director) and Rebecca Seger (OUP USA). The Dartmouth medal is given annually to a single new reference work of outstanding quality and significance.
- 8 June CILIP award shortlist: the Oxford DNB has been shortlisted for the prestigious Besterman/McColvin medal, awarded annually by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals for outstanding works of reference published in the UK.
May 2005
- 31 May Canadian Historical Association panel: Lawrence Goldman discusses Canadians in the Oxford DNB with Sandra Den Otter (Queen's University, Kingston) and Doug Hay (York University). 84th annual conference of the CHA, London, Ontario.
- 28 May Heroes and heroines at the Charleston Festival: A panel debate on the Oxford DNB at the Charleston festival, Brighton, UK. Lawrence Goldman, Simon Winchester, Frances Spalding, and Felipe Fernández-Armesto choose their personal heroes and villains.
Click here for more on this event.
- 26 May: New online update, May 2005: 140 new biographies added from the thirteenth to the twentieth century; plus new reference themes in the dictionary's second online update > more
- 6 May Oxford DNB at Kalamazoo conference: two panels examine the dictionary's contribution to medieval history. Speakers include Mavis Mate (University of Oregon), Christina von Nolcken (Chicago), Richard W. Kaeuper (Rochester), Jeffrey S. Hamilton (Baylor), and the dictionary's pre-1500 editor, Henry Summerson. Fortieth international congress on medieval studies at Kalamazoo, West Michigan, USA.
- 5 May Election special: as Britain's voters go to the polls, Professor Bill Speck looks back to life on the campaign trail in 1705. > More
April 2005
- 21 April Leeds Library celebrates publication: a half-day conference at Leeds Library, Yorkshire, on the writing and reading of the Oxford DNB: contributions from editors, authors, and librarians.
- 16 April Historical Association conference: the dictionary's editor, Lawrence Goldman, lectures on the Oxford DNB at the Historical Association's annual conference in Oxford.
March 2005
- 18 March Oxford DNB receives 'special citation': America's National Book Critics Circle awards the dictionary a special citation at its annual awards ceremony in New York. Judges described the Oxford DNB as a 'monument to scholarship' and 'perhaps the happiest marriage yet of print and electronic publishing'.
- 18 March African lives: research editor Alex May discusses African subjects with London librarians at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
- 17 March Newcastle City Library marks publication: the biographer and historian Jenny Uglow and research editor Matthew Kilburn consider local figures and the making of the Oxford DNB in Newcastle upon Tyne.
- 10 March 'The DNB and scholarly publishing, 1882–2004': an illustrated lecture given by Robert Faber, the dictionary's project director, at the Printing Historical Society, London.
January 2005
- 4 January New online update, January 2005: George Harrison and Mary Whitehouse among 195 new people in the Oxford DNB's first online update, plus new themes and web features > more
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