This book introduces the reader to the key people who have shaped the history of Britain, its culture and identity, by exploring essential highlights from the National Portrait Gallery’s unrivalled ...

John Harris, artist and facsimilist, was the son of watercolour painter John Harris (1767-1832). Harris studied at the Royal Academy where he specialised in miniatures. He exhibited occasionally ...

Lord Chelmsford was appointed commander of British forces in South Africa in 1878. The following year he led the British invasion of Zululand. The first engagement of the campaign was the Zulu rout of ...

Born in Oxford on 7 August 1826, Gilbert was one of eleven children of Ashurst Turner Gilbert, principal of Brasenose College, Oxford and afterwards bishop of Chichester and his wife Mary Anne.

The eldest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and his fourth wife, Elizabeth of Pomerania. Anne became Queen of England on 20 January 1382 when she was married to Richard II in Westminster ...

Tewodros II (or 'Theodore') was a Coptic Christian ruler of Abyssinia from 1855. Like many rulers, he won power through defeating his rivals through war, but he continued to face internal revolt and ...

stipple engraving and etching, published 1 December 1800 (circa 1759) ...

Following the death of his father George V, Edward succeeds to the throne as King Edward VIII, but chooses to abdicate in order to marry the American divorcee, Wallis Simpson. Edward was the only ...

Staley was a Catholic goldsmith and banker accused of speaking malicious and treasonable words against King Charles II. His accusers were 'loose and vicious gentleman' who offered to drop the charge ...

Bulgarian-born writer; studied Chemistry in Vienna before emigrating to England in 1938; wrote essays, plays, autobiography and a study of crowds, but made his name with the novel, Die Blendung (1935) ...

Olaudah Equiano was born in Essaka, in what is now southeastern Nigeria. He was kidnapped into slavery at the age of eleven and put to work for a number of different masters in America, the West ...

Younghusband's interests lay in problems of the poor, and whilst a full-time lecturer at the London School of Economics (1933-57), she devoted her spare time to the Citizens' Advice Bureaux, care ...