Curated category
English Anglicans
- Anne BoleynAnne Boleyn went to the scaffold on the 19th of May 1536 wearing a red petticoat beneath a loose grey gown of damask trimmed in fur, and she laughed.
- Charles DickensCharles Dickens earned six shillings a week pasting labels onto pots of boot blacking in a tumble-down warehouse overrun with rats.
- J. J. ThomsonJ. J. Thomson, born on the 18th of December 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, grew up in a household shaped by antiquarian books and a mother rooted in the…
- Benjamin BrittenBenjamin Britten was born on the 22nd of November 1913 in the fishing port of Lowestoft, Suffolk, and that birth date is no accident: it fell on the feast…
- Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin once jotted his thoughts about marriage on two scraps of paper, drawing two columns headed "Marry" and "Not Marry".
- Henry VIIIHenry VIII once dressed all in yellow, with a white feather in his bonnet, the day after he learned that Catherine of Aragon had died.
- David CameronDavid Cameron walked away from 10 Downing Street on the 13th of July 2016, humming a tune that a nearby microphone picked up.
- Jane AustenJane Austen wrote major novels before the age of 22, yet she was not published until she was 35. When her first book appeared in 1811, the title page did not…
- Lewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson was born on the 27th of January 1832 at All Saints' Vicarage in Daresbury, Cheshire, the third oldest of 11 children, and the world…
- William WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth was born on the 7th of April 1770 in what is now called Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland, a market town sitting at the edge of…
- Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift, dying near 78, asked to be buried under the pillar next to the monument of Primate Narcissus Marsh, a man he had openly disdained in life.
- Margaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher arrived at 10 Downing Street on the 4th of May 1979 and kept a portrait of her Oxford chemistry tutor on the wall throughout her time…
- Catherine ParrCatherine Parr entered the world in 1512, likely during late July or August. Her father Sir Thomas Parr held the manor of Kendal in Westmorland, now part of…
- Elizabeth IAt Tilbury in Essex on the 8th of August 1588, Elizabeth I rode before her militias wearing a silver breastplate over a white velvet dress.
- Alfred, Lord TennysonAlfred Tennyson was born on the 6th of August 1809 in Somersby, a small village in Lincolnshire, and by the time he died on the 6th of October 1892, lines…
- Catherine HowardCatherine Howard was Queen of England for barely sixteen months, and she was probably still a teenager when the axe fell on the 13th of February 1542.
- Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson was touched by Queen Anne on the 30th of March 1712, when he was barely two years old, in a ritual meant to cure the scrofula scarring his…
- Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge coined the phrase "suspension of disbelief" - and for much of his life, he seemed to be asking the world to practice it on his behalf.
- John LockeJohn Locke composed his own obituary in Latin, and it begins with a command to a passerby. "Stay traveller: near this place lies JOHN LOCKE." The tablet, he…
- Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin Disraeli climbed what he called "the top of the greasy pole" to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, not once but twice, despite arriving at…
- Lady Jane GreyJane Grey sat in the presence of her father or mother, speaking, keeping silence, sitting, standing, going, eating, drinking, merrily or sadly.
- Thomas CranmerThomas Cranmer was born on the 2nd of July 1489 in the village of Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, England, a younger son from a modest gentry family with deep…
- Isaac NewtonSir Isaac Newton said his mother told him he was so small at birth that he could have fit inside a quart mug. He was born prematurely on Christmas Day, the…
- Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl WavellArchibald Wavell lost his left eye at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, and he spent the next three decades commanding armies across some of the most…
- Richard ArkwrightRichard Arkwright was born on the 23rd of December 1732 in Preston, Lancashire, the youngest of seven surviving children in a family that could not afford to…
- Francis BaconFrancis Bacon dictated his last letter from a borrowed bed in Highgate, his fingers, he wrote, so disjointed with sickness that he could not steadily hold a…
- Hilda Ellis DavidsonHilda Ellis Davidson was born in Bebington, Cheshire, on the 1st of October 1914, and by the time she died in January 2006, she had spent more than six…
- Edmund SpenserEdmund Spenser died in London on the 13th of January 1599, and according to Ben Jonson, he died "for want of bread". That claim was almost certainly false.
- Robert HookeRobert Hooke died in London on the 3rd of March 1703, alone in his room at Gresham College, blind and bedridden. When his belongings were searched, a chest…
- Thomas CromwellThomas Cromwell was a blacksmith's son from Putney who died on Tower Hill with his head set on a spike above London Bridge.
- Robert BridgesRobert Seymour Bridges, born on the 23rd of October 1844, spent the first four decades of his adult life doing something that might seem strange for a man…
- H. F. M. PrescottHilda Frances Margaret Prescott entered the world on the 22nd of February 1896 in Cheshire. Her father was Rev James Mulleneux Prescott and her mother was…
- Donald SwannDonald Ibrahim Swann entered the world on the 30th of September 1923 in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire. His father Herbert Alfredovich Swann was a Russian doctor…
- Edmund CartwrightEdmund Cartwright entered the world on the 24th of April 1743 at Marnham in Nottinghamshire. He was the fourth son born to William Cartwright and his wife…
- Thomas LucySir Thomas Lucy was knighted in 1565 not by Queen Elizabeth herself, but by her favourite, Robert Dudley, the 1st Earl of Leicester, acting at the queen's…