Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Mackintosh, Sir James, 1765–1832, British writer and public servant, b. Scotland. He was trained as a physician, but after settling (1788) in London he became a writer and lawyer. His Vindiciae Gall...

(Encyclopedia) Arkwright, Sir Richard, 1732–92, English inventor. His construction of a machine for spinning, the water frame, patented in 1769, was an early step in the Industrial Revolution. His machines and his...

(Encyclopedia) Filmer, Sir Robert, d. 1653, English royalist political writer, author of Patriarcha; or, The Natural Power of Kings (pub. posthumously in 1680), a defense of the divine right of monarchs by an exposi...

(Encyclopedia) Wilkie, Sir David, 1785–1841, Scottish genre painter. He studied in Edinburgh and at the Royal Academy and won early popularity with his admirable little scenes of everyday life. Anecdotal painting ...

(Encyclopedia) Schuster, Sir Arthur, 1851–1934, English physicist, b. Germany. At Owens College, Manchester Univ., he was professor of applied mathematics (1881–88) and professor of physics (1888–1907). He is ...

(Encyclopedia) Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 1734–1801, British general. After serving in the Seven Years War, he returned to service in 1793 against France, where he commanded a brilliant retreat in Flanders in the wint...

(Encyclopedia) Chambers, Sir Edmund Kerchever, 1866–1954, English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. He wrote The Mediaeval Stage (1903), The Elizabethan Stage (1923), Arthur of Britain (1927), William Sha...

(Encyclopedia) Cornforth, Sir John Warcup wôrˈkəp côrnˈfərth [key], 1917–2013, Australian chemist, Ph.D. Oxford, 1941. Although Cornforth suffered a hearing loss from childhood and was deaf by the time he gr...

(Encyclopedia) Wilkins, Sir George Hubert, 1888–1958, British explorer, b. Australia. He made a number of trips to Antarctica and to the Arctic. Valuable experience gained when he accompanied Vilhjalmur Stefansson...

(Encyclopedia) Evans, Sir Arthur John, 1851–1941, English archaeologist. He was (1884–1908) keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. From 1900 to 1935 he conducted excavations on the Greek island of Crete, prin...