The inventor and entrepreneur, Richard Arkwright is one of the leading figures of the Industrial Revolution. In 1769 he patented a water-powered spinning machine that could spin a vast number of ...

Hungarian-born publisher; in 1951 with Diana Athill he set up André Deutsch Ltd, an independent publishing house that maintained its position in the market until the 1980s. The firm discovered and ...

A tailor by profession and self-educated, Place was a leading radical activist. Convinced that working men needed the vote, he was Chairman of the London Corresponding Society - an artisanal group ...

Ava (née Bodley), Viscountess Waverley (1895-1974), Former wife of Ralph Follett Wigram, and later second wife of 1st Viscount Waverley; daughter of John Edward Courtenay Bodley. Sitter in 4 portraits ...

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 ...

The Reference Collection is held in the Heinz Archive and Library and contains more than 70,000 portraits of important and lesser known figures in British history. The majority of these portraits are ...

The Primary Collection contains more than 12,700 portraits. Of these, over 4,100 are paintings, sculptures and miniatures. In addition, there are over 8,500 light-sensitive works on paper, shown on a ...

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.

As a child, Dr Crotch, the musician and composer, was known as 'the musical phenomenon of Norwich'. He began his professional career as organist of Christ Church, Oxford, at the age of fifteen, and ...

Born into slavery around 1743, and known as Toussaint de Bréda on the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue, Toussaint L'Ouverture's leadership of the Haitian Revolution has made him an ...

Mary Moser trained with her father George Michael Moser, a Swiss engraver, medallist and a leading figure at the St Martin's Lane Academy, as well as the first keeper of the Royal Academy. His ...

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 ...