Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Merton, Walter de, d. 1277, English bishop, founder of Merton College, Oxford. He was lord chancellor from 1261 to 1263, was reappointed after the death of Henry III (1272), and was made bishop of Roc...

(Encyclopedia) Kerr, Walter Francis, 1913–96, American drama critic, b. Evanston, Ill. He wrote for the theater in the 1930s, and became drama critic for the New York Herald Tribune in 1951 and for the New York Ti...

(Encyclopedia) Alston, Walter Emmons, 1911–84, American baseball manager, b. Venice, Ohio. Nicknamed Smokey, he played one major-league game, for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1936, and struck out in his one at bat. ...

(Encyclopedia) Cannon, Walter Bradford, 1871–1945, American physiologist. While still a medical student at Harvard, Cannon was the first to demonstrate (1897) that bismuth could be utilized as a contrast medium in...

(Encyclopedia) White, Walter Francis, 1893–1955, American civil-rights leader, b. Atlanta, Ga., grad. Atlanta Univ., 1916. From 1931 until his death he was secretary of the National Association for the Advancement...

(Encyclopedia) Webb, Walter Prescott, 1888–1963, U.S. historian, b. Panola co., Tex. He joined the faculty of the history department at the Univ. of Texas in 1918, received his Ph.D. in 1932, and became full profe...

(Encyclopedia) Runciman, Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount rŭnˈsĭmən [key], 1870–1949, British shipping magnate and public official. He inherited his father's large shipping business. As a Liberal he served in Par...

(Encyclopedia) Landor, Walter Savage, 1775–1864, English poet and essayist, educated at Oxford. After a quarrel with his father, he went to live in Wales, where he wrote the epic poem Gebir (1798). The middle and ...

(Encyclopedia) Damrosch, Walter Johannes, 1862–1950, German-American conductor and composer; son of Leopold Damrosch. At his father's death in 1885, he finished the season as conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, N...

(Encyclopedia) Hickel, Walter Joseph, 1919–2010, U.S. secretary of the interior (1969–70), b. Claflin, Kan. After moving to Alaska in 1940, he founded (1947) a construction company and built it into a multimilli...