James Gillray was the leading satirist of the regency producing numerous biting and funny caricatures on politics, royalty and social life. The National Portrait Gallery owns copies of over ninety ...

Campbell was initially apprenticed to an Edinburgh marble cutter. In 1816, his marble busts caught the attention of Gilbert Innes of Stow, who became his patron. Innes's financial support enabled ...

Johnston was closely involved in what has been called the 'scramble for Africa' by 19th-century colonial powers. He published forty books on African subjects and in the 1890s was the first British ...

Born in Grenada, East Caribbean in 1945, John emigrated to Britain in 1964. He is an associate professor of education and honorary fellow of the University of London (UCL) Institute of Education and ...

Daniel Defoe was a novelist, pamphleteer and journalist who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719). Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest practitioners of the novel who ...

Lieutenant-General. Commander during the early stages of the Peninsular War, 1808, he was cut off from Portugal by the French and obliged to make a forced march to the coast at Corunna to embark his ...

The Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize returns for its 17th year, showcasing the work of talented young photographers, gifted amateurs and established professionals in the very best of contemporary ...

Britain's first motorway is built. The Preston bypass (M6) was the first road to be built to official motorway standards, although the M1 (opened in 1959) was the first road to be given official ...

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Sir John William Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown pilot the first successful non-stop transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland, flying 1980 miles in their modified Vickers Vimy ...

Percy Horton attended the Brighton School of Art from 1912-1916. During the First Word War he became a conscientious objector and was sentenced to two years hard labour in Calton Jail, Edinburgh, from ...

Born in Edinburgh, Brendan Kelly studied at Camberwell College of Art and the Slade School in London. He won second prize in the BP Portrait Award in 2001 and was awarded the Changing Faces prize at ...