Dictionary of National Biography

This new volume of the "Dictionary of National Biography" contains details of the lives of 1086 individuals who were omitted from previous volumes. The original DNB covering the lives of famous persons who lived and died prior to 1900 was compiled in an alphabetical sequence between 1885 and 1900; three supplementary volumes followed almost immediately to include entrants who had missed their alphabetical sequence in the main work. After 1900 the Dictionary was continued by means of supplements (generally decennial) covering those who had died during the intervening period. Entrants not chosen for the volume covering the decade in which they died could not be included in future volumes. Thus, those who acquired posthumous fame, or whose achievements were unrecognized by the editors' attention for whatever reason, missed being included in this standard work of reference. This new volume is intended to redress the balance. It covers the whole historical period up to 1985. The choice of entrants not only aims to rectify earlier oversights but also reflects scholarly developments in British history as well as more general changes in social outlook over the period. Thus, for example, there are proportionately nearly four times as many women in this volume as in the original DNB, while a richer concentration of representatives from the developing worlds of commerce and finance, industry and science from the 16th to the mid-19th centuries points to areas of relatively recent attention by historians of the period. Similarly, the selection of some religious radicals of the 17th century singles out individuals whose significance has now been uncovered by modern scholarship. Of the book's entrants, 95 were born before 1500, 215 between 1501 and 1700, 443 between 1701 and 1850, and 333 between 1851 and 1985. Some famous names included at last in the DNB are: Thomas Traherne, Joe Acklerley, Maud Gonne, Wilfred Owen, Sylvia Pankhurst, J. C. Bach, Guy Burgess, George Hepplewhite, Alice Keppel, John Crockford, Gertrude Jekyll, Charles Laughton, Henry Hoare, Anna Pavlova, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.