Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Ayer, Sir Alfred Jules āˈər, âr [key], 1910–89, British philosopher, b. London, grad. Oxford, 1932. From 1933 to 1944 he was lecturer and research fellow at Oxford's Christ Church College and th...

(Encyclopedia) Bragg, Sir William Henry, 1862–1942, English physicist, educated at King William's College, Isle of Man, and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served on the faculties of the Univ. of Adelaide in Austra...

(Encyclopedia) Drake, Sir Francis, 1540?–1596, English navigator and admiral, first Englishman to circumnavigate the world (1577–80). In 1585, Drake commanded a fleet that sacked Vigo in Spain and burned São ...

(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...