George Rose’s surname would later serve as ammunition for political cartoonists wanting to make sure their depictions of him were correctly identified but, before his career as a politician, it linked him to Clan Rose, originating in the Scottish Highlands. Born in 1744, Rose was adopted at the age of four by his maternal uncle after his father was implicated…
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Edward Wortley Montagu II and Massoud Fortunatus Montagu
It was almost inevitable that Edward Wortley Montagu II (1713-1767) would live a less than conventional life. His mother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, is renowned for her epistolary travel writing from the Ottoman Empire, accompanying her husband when he visited as a British ambassador. She promoted inoculation against Smallpox in the West after witnessing the practise in the Ottoman Empire…
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George Colman (OW) and the Nonsense Club
Article by Charlotte Robinson, Archives and Records Management Assistant, first published in The Camden, 2016 George Colman (1732-1794) was a theatre manager and playwright celebrated for his comic farces. He was a King’s Scholar in the 1740s and showed an early talent for lively satire. He was a little man, “without my shoes, little more than five feet in height”,…
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Cut your coat according to your cloth: the story of the Bentham Room
Velis id quod possis Non facere ipse queo Tetrasticha; disticha possum, Accipe quod possum, quod nequeo, sileat. Jeremy Bentham, May 1759 Cut your coat according to your cloth A quatrain isn’t something I can do; But here’s a couplet: Take what’s offered you. Translation by Nicholas Stone, 2015 Last school year Jeremy Bentham (OW 1755-1760) was celebrated as…
