Sir Francis Drake(1540 - 1596)

English navigator and explorer

Marcus Gheeraerts: 16th century oil on canvas portrait of Sir Francis

 He served an apprenticeship as a mariner

1567 he was given his first command
In 1570 and 1571 Drake made two profitable trading voyages to the
West Indies
1572 he commanded two vessels in a marauding expedition against
Spanish ports in the Caribbean Sea. During this voyage, Drake first
saw the Pacific Ocean; he captured the port of Nombre de Dos on the
Isthmus of Panama and destroyed the nearby town of Portobelo. He
returned to England with a cargo of Spanish silver and a reputation as
a brilliant privateer
1579 set sail again and was hailed as the first Englishman to
circumnavigate the world
he was knighted aboard the Golden Hind by Queen

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 1618)

Nicholas Hilliard: Portrait of Walter Raleigh 1585

English adventurer and writer, who was prominent at the court of Queen

Elizabeth I, and became an explorer of the Americas

Raleigh attended the University of Oxford. for a time
and later studied law in London
In 1578 Raleigh sailed to America that stimulated his
plan to found an
English empire there
In 1585, Raleigh sponsored the first English colony in
America on Roanoke Island in present-day North
Carolina
He was knighted, and became one of the most powerful
figures in England

Oliver Cromwell 1599 - 1658)

Statesman

Samuel Cooper: Portrait of Oliver Cromwell

Cambridge, and in 1628 he was first elected to Parliament
opposed the absolute power of the crown, and when war broke out he
became a military organizer for the Parliamentary forces
After the Civil War and the execution of king Charles I, Cromwell
became first chairman of the new republic
He suppressed an insurrection in Ireland (1650) with a severity
remembered by the Irish Catholics with bitterness

 he defeated a Royalist army in Scotland, and he fought the Dutch in

several naval battles
In 1653 dissolved Parliament and he became Lord protector of the
new puritanical republic
he concluded the Anglo-Dutch War, sent an expeditionary force to the
Spanish West Indies and destroyed the Spanish fleet at Teneriffe
In the fall of 1658 Cromwell died, and England fell away from his
attempt to realize a puritanical commonwealth of free men

Sir Christopher Wren(1632 - 1723)

architect, scientist, and mathematician

Godfrey Kneller: Sir Christopher Wren

precocious child with remarkable talent for science and mathematics
and had already invented numerous scientific devices before the age
of 14
University of Oxford. While still a student, he made several original
contributions in mathematics, winning immediate acclaim

 1657 he was appointed professor of astronomy at Gresham College in

London. Three years later he returned to Oxford to accept the post of
professor of astronomy
started his career as an architect at the age of 29. His earliest work
included designs for several new structures at Oxford and at
Cambridge.
The fire of 1666 burned the oldest part of London. Within a few days
Wren submitted a brilliant plan for rebuilding the area.
In 1667 he was appointed for the reconstruction of Saint Paul's
Cathedral, numerous parish churches, and other buildings destroyed
by the fire
Wren's designs for St. Paul's Cathedral were accepted in 1675, and he
superintended the building of the vast baroque structure until its
completion in 1710. It ranks as one of the world's most imposing
domed edifices. He also designed
o Saint James's, Picadilly, Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford (166469), the Trinity College library at Cambridge (1677-92), and the
facade for Hampton Court Palace (1689-94). He also built the
Chelsea Hospital (1682), the Greenwich Observatory (1675),
and the Greenwich Hospital (1696).
extraordinary contributions in science: a weather clock comparable to
the modern barometer and new methods of engraving and etching; His
biological experiments, in which he injected fluids into the veins of
animals, were important in developing blood transfusion.
Wren was knighted in 1673; he subsequently served for many years as
a member of Parliament
One of the founders of the Royal Society of London for Improving
Natural Knowledge
buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. Near his tomb is a tablet inscribed with
his epitaph, which ends with the following famous words: Si
monumentum requiris, circumspice ("If you seek his monument, look
about you")
Englands foremost architect. His work, in a simple version of the
baroque style, displayed great inventiveness in design and
engineering. The Wren style strongly influenced English architecture
in the Georgian period and its colonial version in America

Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Godfrey Kneller: 1689 portrait of Isaac Newton

studied at Cambridge
Legend has it that the fall of an apple initiated the train
of thought that led to the law of gravitation
As professor of mathematics at Cambridge he worked
on his famous Philosophiae naturalis principia
mathematica, which supplied a complete proof of the
law of gravitation. This law explained celestial motions,
the tides, and terrestial gravitation
He deveolped a new kind of mathematics known as the
calculus

 He invented the reflecting telescope, and discovered

that white light is a combination of all colors by using
prisms
elected President of the Royal Society in 1703
knighted in 1705

James Brindley (1716 - 1772)

Francis Parson: James Brindley

British canal builder

He was the first to employ tunnels and aqueducts

extensively, in order to reduce the number of locks on a
direct-route canal; His 580 km / 360 miles of canals
included:
1. the Bridgewater (Manchester-Liverpool) and
2. Grand Union (Manchester-Potteries) canals

 He set up a machine shop in Staffordshire and began

constructing flint and silk mills. He was virtually
illiterate and made all calculations in his head
In 1759 Brindley was engaged by the Duke of
Bridgewater to construct a canal to transport coal to
Manchester from the duke's mines. Brindley's
revolutionary scheme included a subterranean channel
and an aqueduct

John Howard (1726 - 1790)

Mather Brown: John Howard (1789)

English philanthropist
- improved prison conditions (continued today by the Howard League for
Penal Reform)
- 1773, he undertook a tour of English prisons which led to two acts of
Parliament 1774:
making jailers salaried officers and setting standards of cleanliness
After touring Europe 1775, he published State of the Prisons in England
and Wales, with an account of some Foreign Prisons 1777

He died of typhus fever while visiting Russian military hospitals at Kherson

in the Crimea

Captain James Cook (1728 - 1779)

Nathaniel Dance: James Cook, portrait(1775), Nathaniel Maritime

Museum, Greenwich
the son of a Scottish farm
In 1755 signed up with the Royal Navy; he worked his way up
through the ranks, eventually rising to command his own vessel
His first mission was to map the estuary of the St. Lawrence River
prior to a naval assault on Quebec. It was those surveys that made
Cook's name, along with the information he obtained from observing

and recording an eclipse of the sun in 1766. The surveys were so

accurate that they remained in use until the beginning of the Twentieth
Century.
1768: mission to explore the great unknown of the Pacific Ocean and
scientifically record everything that was encountered. It was the first
of the three great voyages of discovery he led in the South Pacific
killed by Hawaiian in February 1779

William Blake (1757 - 1827)

Considered insane and largely disregarded by his peers, the visionary poet
and engraver William Blake is now recognised among the greatest
contributors to English literature and art

Thomas Philips: William Blake in an 1807

William Blake, the son of a draper from Westminster
At the age of eleven Blake entered Par's Drawing School in the strand.
1782 Blake became a freelance engraver and he experimented a new
method
his first illuminated works, Natural Religion, appeared in 1788: the
poetry and their illustrations were drawn in reverse on copper plates in

an impervious liquid, then the plain parts eaten away with acid. After
the prints were taken they were coloured by hand
Natural Religion was followed by Songs of Innocence (1789),
Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790) and Songs of Experience (1794),
a book that deals with topics of corruption and social injustice
In his books The French Revolution (1791), America: A Prophecy
(1793) and Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), Blake
developed his attitude of revolt against authority, combining political
belief and visionary ecstasy. Blake feared government persecution and
some of work such as The French Revolution was printed
anonymously and was only distributed to political sympathizers
In 1800 William was commissioned to decorate a library with
eighteen heads of poets
His poetic works and paintings are provided with a complex mixture
of prophecy, social criticism and biblical legend

The archetype of the

Creator is a familiar image in Blake's work. Urizen prays before the
world he has forged

Blake's The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with Sun (1805)

Blake: Ancient of Days

Horatio Nelson, Viscount Nelson (1758 - 1805)

Lemuel Francis Abbott: Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson

In the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars:
a commodore in 1796 and destroyed most of the French vessels
during the Battle of the Nile (1798);
In the Battle of Trafalgar, on October 21, 1805, Nelson
overwhelmingly defeated the French and Spanish fleets, leading the
attack himself in his flagship Victory and put an end to Napoleon's
plans for invading England
the most famous of all British naval leaders and as one of the most
noteworthy in world history

 buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral

In 1849 a monument known as the Nelson Column was erected to
Admiral Nelson in Trafalgar Square, London

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769 - 1852)

Sir Thomas Lawrence: The Duke of Wellington, painted in 1814, several

months before the Battle of Waterloo
born in Dublin, Ireland
commissioned as ensign in the British army in 1787
elected to the Irish parliament in 1790
took part in several military campaigns in India:
o the Battle of Assaye in 1803, he subdued the Marathas, then the
dominant people of India
in England 1805 he was rewarded with a knighthood and with
election to the British Parliament
involved in the struggle against Napoleon
He took part in military campaigns against France and its allies in
Hannover (1805-6) and in Denmark (1807)
In 1808 he was given command of the British expeditionary forces in
Portugal, where in 1810 he first made use of his famous military tactic
known as the scorched-earth policy, laying waste to the countryside
behind him as he and his troops moved on
In the ensuing Peninsular War (1808-14), which resulted in the
expulsion of Napoleon's armies from Portugal and Spain, Wellesley's
troops won the battles of Talavera de la Reina (1809), Salamanca
(1812), Vitoria (1813), and Toulouse (1814)
His success in Spain won him many honors and large estates and cash
awards. In 1814 he was created 1st duke of Wellington

George Stephenson (1781 - 1848)

British inventor and engineer:

o built the first practical railroad locomotive
o devised one of the first miner's safety lamps but shared credit
for this invention with the British inventor Sir Humphry Davy,
who developed a similar lamp at about the same time
o Stephenson's early efforts in locomotive design were confined
to constructing locomotives to haul loads in coal mines, and in
1823 he established a factory at Newcastle for their
manufacture

o In 1829 he designed a locomotive known as the Rocket , which

hauled both freight and passengers at a greater speed than had
any locomotive constructed up to that time. The success of the
Rocket greatly stimulated the subsequent construction of
locomotives and the laying of railroad lines

Michael Faraday (1791 - 1867)

Thomas Philips : Portrait of Michael Faraday

physicist and chemist, best known for his discoveries of
electromagnetic induction and of the laws of electrolysis
elected to the Royal Society in 1824 and the following year was
appointed director of the laboratory of the Royal Institution
recipient of many scientific honors, including the Royal and Rumford
medals of the Royal Society
offered the presidency of the society but declined the honor
Faraday's earliest researches were in the field of chemistry:
o discovery of two new chlorides of carbon
o benzene
o optical glass, etc

o experiments in the fields of electricity and magnetism

(electromagnetic induction, the induction of one electric current
by another, etc)
o research on the phenomena of electrolysis:
the amount of chemical action produced by an electrical
current in an electrolyte is proportional to the amount of
electricity passing through the electrolyte;
and that the amount of a substance deposited from an
electrolyte by the action of a current is proportional to the
chemical equivalent weight of the substance
Faraday wrote:
Chemical Manipulation (1827),
Experimental Researches in Electricity (1844-55), and
Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics (1859)

Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)

born in London, son of an Anglicized Jew, baptized in 1817

novelist,
leader of the 'Young England' movement (he opposed free trade
policies, especially after the repealed the Corn Laws in order to
relieve the famine in Ireland)
leader of the Conservatives
Chancellor of the Exchequer in Derby's minority governments
prime minister on
supported reform at home and imperialism abroad

 During his 2nd administration (1874--80) Britain became half-owner

of the Suez Canal, and the queen assumed the title Empress of India
(1876)
Disraeli's diplomacy at the Congress of Berlin (1878) helped to
preserve European peace after the conflict between Russia and Turkey
in the Balkans

David Livingstone (1813 - 1873)

Posthumous portrait of David Livingstone by Frederick Havill

Scottish missionary, doctor, explorer, scientist and anti-slavery activist
He spent 30 years in Africa, exploring almost a third of the continent
the first white man to see Victoria Falls and though he never
discovered the source of the Nile, one of his goals, he eliminated some
possibilities and thereby helped direct the efforts of others.
At a village on the Lualaba River he witnessed the slaughter of
villagers by slave traders. The letter he sent home describing the event
so infuriated the public that the English government pressured the

Sultan of Zanzibar to stop the slave trade. The pressure was only
partially successful
On Nov. 10, 1871 in the village of Ujiji, on the east side of Lake
Tanganyika, Livingstone encountered Henry Stanley, who had been
sent by the New York Herald Tribune newspaper to find and help him
With Stanley's supplies Livingstone continued his explorations, but he
was weak, worn out and suffering from dysentery. Then, on the
morning of April 30, 1872, his two African assistants found him
kneeling at his bedside, dead. They dried his body and carried it and
his papers on a dangerous 11-month journey to Zanzibar, a trip of
1,000 miles. From there his body was taken to England

Sir (Frederick) Henry Royce

(1863 - 1933)

the producer of some of the most luxurious cars in the

apprenticed to a locomotive works where he became an expert
machinist noted for his dedication to unequalled precision
in London he worked by the day at an electricity generating station,
while at night he went to school
he went to Manchester to open his own shop to produce dynamos and
motors.

 In 1904 he entered into partnership with Rolls to sell automobiles,

thus Rolls-Royce was formed
1906 Royce produced the Silver Ghost, a car which was to become
known as the greatest car in the world
Royce's reputation as a leading engineer led the Royal Navy to contact
him during World War I with an order to build Renault-designed aeroengines. The result was the Eagle, a twenty-litre engine which
produced 225hp. This engine, and it's derivatives the Falcon and the
Hawk, were so successful that by the end of World War I Rolls-Royce
supplied 60% of all British built engines
Royce stayed actively involved with the design of his company's
engines up until his death in 1933
Before he died, he dictated what was to become known as the RollsRoyce bible. It was a set of guidelines for future generations of RollsRoyce engineers to follow. Even today, it is a closely guarded
industrial secret

Robert Falcon Scott

(1868 - 1912)
Profession: Explorer

British naval officer and explorer of Antarctica

Born in Devonport, England. Scott entered the Royal Navy at
the age of 14. In 1900 he was placed in command of the
National Antarctic Expedition. Leaving England in 1901, Scott
established a land base on the shores of McMurdo Sound, in
Antarctica. He explored to the east of the Ross Ice Shelf and
named Edward VII Peninsula. He also led a party that
achieved a record latitude of 81 17' south and sledged over
Victoria Land. The expedition, which returned in 1904, was
responsible for scientific discoveries of marked importance.

In 1910 Scott embarked on a second Antarctic expedition,

with the aim of being the first man to reach the South Pole.
He again landed at McMurdo Sound and with four companions
began a trek
of 2964 km (1842 mi), the longest continuous sledge journey ever made in the polar
regions. Scott reached the South Pole on January 18, 1912, only to find the tent and
flag of the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who had achieved the goal 5 weeks
earlier. The return journey ended in the loss of the entire party. Petty Officer Edgar
Evans died from a fall; Captain Lawrence Oates sacrificed his life, hoping thus to
save his comrades; Henry R. Bowers, Dr. Edward Wilson, and Scott perished of
starvation and exposure on March 29, 1912, within 18 km (11 mi) of a supply depot.
Their bodies, along with valuable documents and specimens left by Scott in his tent,
were found by a search party almost eight months later. His diaries and other
documents were published as Scott's Last Expedition (1913). He is also the author of
The Voyage of the Discovery (1905)

Sir Winston (Leonard Spencer) Churchill

(1874 - 1965)
Profession: Statesman
Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire,
the elder son of Lord Randolph Churchill. Educated at Harrow and
Sandhurst, he joined the army in 1895. In the dual role of soldier
and military correspondent he served in the Spanish-American
War in Cuba, and then in India, Egypt, and South Africa, where
he made a dramatic escape from imprisonment in Pretoria.
A British Conservative politician, prime minister from 1940-45
and 1951-55. In Parliament from 1900, as a Liberal until 1923,
he held a number of ministerial offices, including First Lord of the
Admiralty, 1911-15 and chancellor of the Exchequer, 1924-29.
Absent from the cabinet in the 1930's, he returned in Sept 1939
to lead a coalition government from 1940-45, negotiating with
Allied leaders
in World War II to achieve the unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945; he led a
Conservative government from 1951-55. Churchill received the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1953. He was a member of Parliament for more than 60 years and tried

to prevent the dissolution of the British Empire, but his fierce opposition to the
ambitions of Nazi Germany transformed him into a war leader, who personified
resistance to tyranny. Churchill played a considerable role in the eventual allied
victory over Germany

The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls

(1877 - 1910)
Profession: Engineer
The son of a wealthy British peer, Rolls might have led
a carefree life often associated with the young
Edwardian aristocracy. Instead, he combined an
adventurous spirit with an education and thus made a
useful contribution to his nation.
Rolls went to Cambridge University where he earned a
BA, and later MA in engineering. His love for speed led
him to become a racing cyclist. Later he turned to
racing automobiles along with his friend, MooreBrabazon. In 1896 Rolls joined with other auto
enthusiasts to break a law which forbade automobile
travel at over 4mph (6.4km/hr). Their defiance led to
a new speed limit which at 12 mph (19.3 km/hr) was
200% faster than had previously been allowed.
In 1901 Rolls, having become an aeronaut, helped found the Aero Club. Two years
later he entered an automobile sales venture in London selling expensive French
cars. One day a friend introduced him to F. H. Royce who was just beginning to build
quality automobiles. Royce, who had worked hard his entire life, had little in common
with Rolls yet they still became friends. In 1904 they agreed that Royce would build
cars and Rolls would sell them. Rolls-Royce was born.
Rolls continued to fly balloons when he wasn't demonstrating his soon-to-be-famous
products. His balloon flying led to aeroplane flying and in 1910 he received certificate
number 2 from the Royal Aero Club (Royal as of that year). Later in the same year
he became the first man to fly non-stop across the English Channel both ways, but
his triumph was short lived. In July 1910 he was killed when his French-built Wright
biplane broke up in mid-air. Though he came down from only 20 feet, he cracked his
skull. He became Britain`s first aircraft fatality.

Marie Carmichael Stopes

(1880 - 1958)
Profession: Scientist

English paleobotanist and eugenicist

Born in Edinburgh, D.Sc. Univ. of London, Ph.D. Univ. of Munich.

She lectured on paleobotany at the universities of London and
Manchester.
In 1921, with Humphrey Verdon Roe, her second husband, she
founded the first birth-control clinic in the British Empire.
Her activities in this field gave impetus to similar movements
elsewhere. Her many works include books on eugenics, birth
control, and paleobotany.

Sir Alexander Fleming

(1881 - 1955)
Profession: Scientist
British bacteriologist and Nobel laureate, best known for his
discovery of penicillin. Born near Darvel, Scotland, and educated at
Saint Mary's Hospital Medical School of the University of London, he
served as professor of bacteriology at St. Mary's Hospital Medical
School from 1928 to 1948, when he became professor emeritus.
Fleming conducted outstanding research in bacteriology,
chemotherapy, and immunology. In 1922 he discovered lysozyme,
an antiseptic found in tears, body secretions, albumen, and certain
fish
plants. His discovery of penicillin came about accidentally in 1928 in the course of
research on influenza. His observation that the mold contaminating one of his culture
plates had destroyed the bacteria laid the basis for the development of penicillin
therapy.
Fleming was knighted in 1944. In 1945 he shared the Nobel Prize in physiology or
medicine with the British scientists Howard Walter Florey and Ernst Boris Chain for
their contributions to the development of penicillin.

Sir Geoffrey de Havilland

(1882 - 1965)
Profession: Engineer
Born the son of a clergyman, de Havilland was one of the most
successful of all British aviation pioneers. Before his twentieth
birthday he designed a motorcycle and after graduating from
the Crystal Palace Engineering School began a short-lived
career in the automotive industry. By 1908, he persuaded his
grandfather to loan him one thousand pounds from which he
could fund the construction of an aeroplane. Along with his
assistant Frank Herle, de Havilland built an engine and a biplane, which were ready to test by 1909. The success of this
machine, in which de Havilland taught himself to fly, brought
him to the attention of the British military which bought his
plane for four hundred pounds and offered him a job at HM

Balloon Factory. He test-flew all of his

own designs until 1918.
In September 1920, de Havilland founded his own company and decided to target
the commercial market and reject, for the most part, the military one. His factory,
first at Stag Lane, Edgeware and later at Hatfield, produced a steady stream of welldesigned biplanes for the civil and commercial markets.
To conserve vital materials during World War II, de Havilland's company designed the
Mosquito fighter bomber, using less important wood for it's structure. The 'Mossie' is
considered by some to have been the best all-round aircraft of World War II. Not only
was it twice as fast as any other bomber, it was even faster than the fastest British
fighter.

Reginald Joseph Mitchell

(1895 - 1937)
Profession: Engineer

Designer of the Supermarine Spitfire

Born in Talke Village near Stoke on Trent on 20 May

1895.
Leaving school in 1911 aged 16 he joined the locomotive
engineering company, Kerr Stewart & Co of Stoke as an
apprentice and upon completion of his apprenticeship he
began working in the drawing office.
At night school however he continued his education
studying engineering, mechanics and higher mathematics
and with the use of a home based lathe he mastered
practical engineering.
In 1917, at the age of 21, a partnership that was to have
a significant effect upon his future was formed when he
joined the Supermarine Aviation Works as a designer and
by 1918, recognising the excellent skills that he had,
Reginald Mitchell was appointed Chief Designer by Hubert
Scott-Paine the
Managing Director of Supermarine.
As seaplane manufacturers, Supermarine were attracted by the Schneider Trophy
contests although until 1922 when Mitchell took over complete control of the design
for that years entry, the competition was dominated by Italy, who having won the
Trophy in 1920 and 1921 meant that a further win in 1922 would secure them the
Trophy outright.
Mitchell's aircraft was the only challenger to the Italian's in the 1922 Schneider
Trophy and flown by Captain Henri C Baird it won, also taking four new Marine World
Records.
Mitchell was however a sick man. He underwent an operation to remove abdominal
cancer late in 1933 and almost died. He was told that if their was no recurrence
within five years he would likely survive but following that operation he never fully
recovered his vitality and remained a weak man.
Over the next two years his health deteriorated and resisting all medical advice he
drove himself hard, working not only on the Spitfire but also the Type 317 long
range, four engined bomber. On 11th June 1937 Reginald Joseph Mitchell died aged
just 42

Stephen (William) Hawking

(1942 - )
Profession: Scientist

English physicist

Hawking was born in Oxford, studied at Oxford and

Cambridge, and became professor of mathematics at
Cambridge in 1979. He is confined to a wheelchair
because of a rare and progressive neuromotor disease.
His work in general relativity - particularly gravitational
field theory - led to a search for a quantum theory of
gravity to explain black holes and the Big Bang,
singularities that classical relativity theory does not
adequately explain. His book A Brief History of Time 1988
gives a popular account of cosmology and became an
international bestseller. Hawking's objective of producing
an overall synthesis of quantum mechanics and relativity
theory began around the time of the publication in 1973
of his seminal book The
Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, written with G F R Ellis. His most remarkable
result, published in 1974, was that black holes could in fact emit particles in the form
of thermal radiation - the so-called Hawking radiation.