Preface

• Children, childhood, and literature
• Local and imperial lives
• Connecting people: groups in history
• New research opportunities

Welcome to the third online update of the Oxford DNB, which appears shortly after the anniversary of the dictionary's publication in September 2004.

Over the last year we have been extending and developing the online edition of the Oxford DNB. In our first update, in January 2005, we published biographies of men and women who died in 2001, and in January each year we will extend the dictionary's coverage to the next year in the twenty-first century. In May we turned to people from the earliest times to the year 2000, and we continue this focus in the October 2005 update.

Here we offer new biographies of 98 people who left a mark on some aspect of the British past between the ninth and twentieth centuries, plus 58 new theme articles (comprising 51 lists and 7 features) for ready reference and paths into the dictionary. In addition the October update sees a new development in the Oxford DNB's scholarly content: 'reference groups' on well-known historical groups from all periods. Reference groups, of which 30 examples are published here, allow expert authors to look beyond the dictionary as a collection of individuals and to make connections between people, so as to trace the interactions and associations that have shaped British life.

As in May, the new biographies in this update extend the Oxford DNB's existing coverage of people from all walks of life. Here we highlight three areas in which subjects share a common interest or identity: children and adults associated with childhood; women writers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and modern Irish lives, covering those active in the formative and early years of the independent Irish state (which remained part of the Commonwealth until 1949). Our remaining biographies are of those who left their mark in exploration, technology, politics, religion, sport, and the arts. Chronologically the newly included lives range from Conchobar mac Donnchada (d. 833), high-king of Ireland, to the 1960s children's television presenter Christopher Trace (1933–1992). Of the 98 new lives 33 are of women. Our new theme material is similarly broad: reference lists cover the political leaders of Britain's former colonies, while features provide introductions to new biographies as well as anniversary essays on Trafalgar and the Gunpowder Plot.

Children, childhood, and literature

The great majority of men and women in the Oxford DNB gain a place for activities during adulthood. However, a small number of people are noteworthy for events or achievements that occurred at a far earlier stage of life. The 2004 edition of the dictionary included over 20 historically significant children from all periods, to which we now add further examples.

Some of our new child subjects, such as Salomon Pavy (1588–1602), displayed exceptional talents; in Pavy's case as a boy actor commemorated with an epitaph by Ben Jonson—a tribute Jonson paid to only two other actors, Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare. Other children leave their mark not for their actions but their image. Sarah Moulton (1783–1795) is little known by this name, but her pet name Pinkie is readily associated with Thomas Lawrence's celebrated portrait. Two more children in this update are remembered for their unwitting contribution to evolutionary biology. As the eldest children of Charles Darwin, William and Annie Darwin became the focus of their father's research into human development. Darwin's study of William resulted in 'A biographical sketch of an infant' (1877) which traced his son's development from birth to the age of three, and makes William one of the youngest subjects of English life writing. The death of Annie Darwin aged ten also prompted a remarkably candid memoir from her father, whose subsequent rejection of Christianity is said to have been hastened by his daughter's death.

Other newcomers are remembered not for their youth but for the pleasure they brought to children as adult performers. Without the charm of Christopher Trace (1933–1992) it is doubtful whether Blue Peter would have become a classic of British children's television. Likewise the success of The Magic Roundabout owed everything to Eric Thompson (1922–1982), who adapted the French original to English sensibilities and so scored a hit with children and adults alike. Scottish readers may have grown up listening to Elizabeth Dodd's radio stories about Tammy Troot, and many more will be familiar with the work of Roger Hargreaves (1935–1988), a copywriter whose workplace doodles led to the creation of the Mr Men characters, which Hargreaves successfully developed into an international brand.

Authors like Hargreaves made their name by writing. However several people in this update are known because of what others wrote about them or for what they themselves set down in manuscripts published after their death. Our knowledge of Dafydd ab Ieuan ab Iorwerth, a late fifteenth-century Cistercian abbot who became bishop of St Asaph, owes much to two bards who stayed in his monastery. Robert Reynes, a close contemporary of Dafydd, was a Norfolk parish official whose commonplace book gives a detailed account of the beliefs of a countryman from the late middle ages.

The scholarly value of private writing is especially evident in recent histories of early modern women. The Oxford DNB reflected these newly discovered lives in 2004 and we continue this theme here with biographies of women like Unton Dering (d. 1676), whose correspondence with her husband reveals a close involvement in political life; during the 1640s, for example, Lady Dering acted as her husband's political agent. The letters and notebooks of Alice L'Estrange (1585–1656), Katherine Paston (1578–1629), and Lady Rachael Fane (1613–1680) similarly demonstrate the role of Stuart gentlewomen as estate managers, accountants, and educators. Others, like Anne Cornwallis, countess of Argyll (d. 1635), combined possible authorship with religious and literary patronage, while very different talents were displayed by Winifred Wigmore (1585–1657) and Margaret Hamilton, Lady Belhaven (d. in or after 1697) as a schoolmistress and medical practitioner respectively.

Local and imperial lives

The dictionary's interest in people of regional significance continues in this update with biographies of, among others, the heroine Mary Ann Rogers (1855–1899), a stewardess who died rescuing passengers from the Stella, which sank off Guernsey. Her actions were later commemorated by a memorial in Southampton, verse from the poet laureate, and a window in Liverpool's Anglican cathedral. Robert Cadman's death at Shrewsbury in 1740 was equally premature, though perhaps less of a surprise. Cadman became a celebrated 'ropeslider' whose descent from the cupola of St Paul's Cathedral earned him the title 'the famed Icarus of the rope' before his fall and death brought an end to the 'flying craze' of the 1730s.

Others are remembered for a more learned legacy: the politician and art patron Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (1749–1789), for example, sponsored artistic tours of north Wales; the journalist Allen Clarke (1863–1935) combined social reform with efforts to preserve Lancashire culture and dialect, while at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk Basil Brown (1888–1977) discovered an Anglo-Saxon burial ship in 1937, and so made one of Britain's most significant archaeological discoveries. Meanwhile, George Meason's mid-nineteenth-century essays on the railway network encouraged travellers to use a technology that connected the British regions as none had previously done. Among earlier commentators on regional and national culture are the fourteenth-century Florentine merchant Francesco di Balducci Pegolotti, whose trader's handbook is an essential source for the medieval English wool trade, and the Frenchman Étienne Perlin (fl. 1553–1558), whose praise for the wealth and beauty of Britain was balanced by criticism of the English as vain and drunken.

Particular attention is paid in this update to Irish lives. The high-king Conchobar mac Donnchada lived in the early middle ages. Others were active during the formative years of the independent Irish state and are drawn from many aspects of early twentieth-century Irish society. Politicians include Laurence Ginnell (1852–1923), who championed the rights of smallholders, and Helena Concannon (1878–1952), who promoted the nationalist cause in her historical writing. Critics of such views include Ellen Cuffe, countess of Desart (1857–1933), who advocated the union and the Gaelic revival, principally through the promotion of local industries in Kilkenny. Among others who shaped Gaelic culture are the philologist Richard Best (1872–1959), the scholar Patrick Joyce (1827–1914), and the Gaelic footballer Sam Maguire (1877–1927) after whom the sport's premier trophy is named. New biographies of the diplomats John Hearne (1893–1969) and Joseph Walshe (1886–1956) and of the playwright and broadcaster Denis Johnston (1901–1984) also highlight those who negotiated and challenged Éire's neutrality during the Second World War.

Other Irish-born subjects, among them Eliza Lynch (1835–1886), made their name overseas. In Paris Lynch met and became the mistress of Francisco Solano López, who inherited the presidency of Paraguay, where Lynch imported aspects of European culture and became involved in the country's ferocious war with Brazil. Fellow international travellers include David of Ashby, the thirteenth-century missionary to the Mongols who accompanied their embassy to the Council of Lyons, and Henry Smeathman (1742–1786), who pioneered the study of termitology in Sierra Leone.

In addition to new biographies we continue our international focus with 51 reference lists, located in the 'themes' area of the website. These provide comprehensive information on the governors, the chief ministers and premiers under responsible government, and the post-independence heads of state and heads of government, of the 47 countries which made up the British empire. Lists range from India (in population the largest) to Kiribati and Tuvalu (the smallest), with links to subject biographies where political leaders have dictionary entries. The update also adds guides to the governors of Gibraltar; the governors and governing officers of Tangier during the period of English rule; and the seneschals and lieutenants of Gascony, and commanding officers at Calais, included in the Oxford DNB.

Connecting people: groups in history

The primary purpose of the Oxford DNB is to present memoirs of noteworthy people in British history. But the dictionary may also be used as a historical database which links people through their actions and common endeavours. With this in mind, the October update includes 30 'reference groups'—a new type of article to highlight connections between men and women who shared similar enterprises as members of well-known groups or associations in British history. Written by expert authors, these articles define established historical networks, provide a concise account of the aims and significance of a particular group, and give full details of all known members or participants. Biographies for those men and women in the Oxford DNB are linked for further reading.

The categories discussed in the first set of reference groups range from the sixth-century Gregorian missionaries who launched the conversion of England to Roman Christianity to the Suez group of MPs who criticized Anthony Eden's handling of the 1956 crisis. Along the way, our authors focus on politics (among others, the baronial enforcers of Magna Carta, the Whig junto, and the Keep Left group); religious and intellectual life (the Cambridge Platonists, the Feathers Tavern petitioners, and the Rainbow Circle); and culture, sporting life, and science (the Kit Cat Club, Ealing Studios, and the Society of Civil Engineers). Further groups will be added in the May and October updates of each year, allowing us to create a wide-ranging and comprehensive set of essays for reference and research.

New research opportunities

In addition to our new academic content this update includes several significant developments in the dictionary's appearance and usefulness.

From October the dictionary is more closely integrated with authoritative external sources. We have increased the number of Oxford DNB subjects whose articles are linked to the National Register of Archives: now almost 18,000 of our biographies are directly connected to the register's listing of relevant archival materials. In addition we now include links to the Royal Historical Society bibliography, which provides a comprehensive listing of published research on British and Irish history. There are more than 5000 links to the RHS bibliography, each of which offers an authoritative list of relevant further reading; click on the link to see William Gladstone's RHS bibliography entry.

One of the dictionary's most striking features is the images, researched and selected by the National Portrait Gallery, London, which currently accompany one in five biographies. Our association with the NPG has continued since publication, focusing principally on the selection of images for new people included since January 2005. But October's update also develops the selection of likenesses by republishing 750 of the dictionary's existing black and white portrait images in colour. Such developments—coupled with the addition of images for people previously without a portrait—will continue in future updates.

Lastly, we continue to update and amend biographies published in 2004 in order to keep the Oxford DNB's existing material in step with new discoveries. Just over 500 changes and additions, authorized by the research staff and contributors, have been included among the dictionary's 63 million words. As ever, we welcome information, with evidence, about articles that may need amending following new research.

And in the light of these online developments it is fitting that October's update also includes biographies of two men—John Simmons (1902–1985), pioneer of office computer use, and Alec Reeves (1902–1971), inventor of pulse code modulation—who were central to the computer and digital revolutions that have brought such changes to scholarly research and publishing.

The Oxford DNB's next contribution to the 'information age' takes place in January 2006 when we publish an update dedicated to men and women who died in the year 2002.

Lawrence Goldman, editor

> Back to top
> New online update, October 2005