Biographies

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Caccia, Harold Anthony (1905–1990). Baron Caccia. Diplomat. Ambassador to Washington, 1965–61. Head of H M Diplomatic Service 1964–65. Provost of Eton, 1965–77.  President of MCC, 1973–74. Married, 1935, Anne Catherine ('Nancy') Barstow.

Cadogan, Sir Alexander George Montagu (1884–1968). Diplomat. Married, 1912, Lady Theodosia Acheson. Ambassador to China, 1935–1936; Deputy Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1936–1937; Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1938–1946; Permanent Representative to the United Nations, 1946–1950; Chairman of the BBC, 1952–1957.

Cadogan, Sir Edward (1880–1962). Politician and historian. Brother of Alexander Cadogan. Conservative MP for Reading, Finchley, and Bolton between 1922 and 1945.

Caesar, Gaius Julius (100–44 BC). Roman general, politician and author.

Calder-Marshall, Arthur (1908–1992), Biographer, novelist and essayist.

Calvert, Phyllis, née Phyllis Hannah Bickle (1915–2002). Actress. Married to the actor and antiquarian bookseller Peter Murray Hill.

Cameron, Ian Donald (1922–2007). Stockbroker. Partner in Panmure Gordon and Company. Father of David Cameron, Conservative prime minister 2010–2016.

Campbell, Mrs Patrick, née Beatrice Stella Tanner (1865–1940). Actress.

Campbell, Thomas (1777–1844). Scottish poet, whose collections included The Pleasures of Hope (1799) and Gertrude of Wyoming (1809).

Campbell-Grey, Diana née Cavendish (1909–1992). Daughter of Lord Richard Frederick Cavendish and Lady Moyra de Vere Beauclerk. Married (1) 1935, Robert Boothby (divorced 1937); (2) 1942, Lt-Col the Hon Ian Douglas Campbell-Grey; (3) 1971, 6th Viscount Gage.

Cansdale, George Soper (1909–1993). Superintendent of London Zoo, 1948–53; television's 'Zoo Man' during the 1950s.

Cape, (Herbert) Jonathan (1879–1960). Publisher. Founded his firm in 1921 and built up a list of authors including H E Bates, Duff Cooper, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, Christopher Isherwood, Eric Linklater, T E Lawrence, H L Mencken, Eugene O'Neill, William Plomer, Arthur Ransome, A L Rowse, Mary Webb, and C V Wedgwood.

Caran d'Ache: pseudonym of the French cartoonist Emmanuel Poiré (1858–1909). 'Caran d'Ache' comes from the Russian word karandash (карандаш), meaning pencil. Caran d'Ache was celebrated for his 'stories without words', the precursor of the comic strip.

Cardus, Sir Neville (1889–1975). Music critic and cricket writer for The Manchester Guardian. Publications include, A Cricketer's Book, 1921; Days in the Sun, 1924; The Summer Game, 1929; Ten Composers, 1945 Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Book, 1954 (ed); Sir Thomas Beecham, A Portrait, 1961; Gustav Mahler, His Mind and his Music, 1965; The Noblest Game (with John Arlott) 1969; Full Score, 1970.

Carey, (Francis) Clive Savill (1883–1968). Singer, translator and opera producer.

Carlisle, Countess of: Rosalind, Frances Howard (1845–1921). A campaigner for including women's suffrage and the temperance movement in Britain. She was taken by Bernard Shaw as a model for Lady Britomart Undershaft in Major Barbara.

Carlyle, Thomas (1795–1881). Scottish essayist, satirist and historian. Founded the London Library in 1841.

Carner, Mosco (1904–1985). Music Critic, Time and Tide, 1949–62; The Evening News, 1957–61; The Times, 1961–69.

Carr, Arthur William (1893–1963). Cricketer, Nottinghamshire 1913–34 and England 1922–29. Along with Douglas Jardine pioneered the fast-leg theory, better known as 'bodyline' bowling.

Carr, John Dickson (1906–1977). Author of detective novels under his own name and also as 'Carter Dickson'.

Carter, John Waynflete (1905–1975). Scholar and bibliographer. Born at Eton, but long associated with the American publishing house, Scribner. Was instrumental in exposing the forgeries of T J Wise.

Casals, Pablo (or Pau Carlos Salvador Defilló) (1876–1973). The preeminent cellist of his times. Staunch opponent of the Franco dictatorship in his native Spain.

Casanova: Giovanni Giacomo Casanova Albanase de Seingalt (1725–1798). Venetian adventurer and author.

Casey, William Francis (1884–1957). Editor of The Times, 1948–1952.

Casson, Sir Lewis Thomas (1875–1969). Actor and theatre director. Married, 1908, Sybil Thorndike.

Castle, Barbara Anne, née Betts (1910–2002). Baroness Castle of Blackburn. Labour politician. Leading member of Harold Wilson's governments of 1964–70 and 1974–76.

Castro, Fidel (Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz) (1926–2016) Cuban revolutionary leader who led his country from January 1959 until his retirement in February 2008. He took power in an armed revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

Cattley, Thomas Frank (1874–1958). Eton master, and later librarian of the college.

Causley, Charles (1917–2003). Poet and schoolmaster.

Cavaliero, Roderick. Author and teacher. Taught at St Edward's College, Malta, after reading History at Oxford. Publications include The Last of the Crusaders (1960).

Cavendish, Lady Frederick: Lucy Caroline Lyttelton (1841–1925). Second daughter of 4th Baron Lyttelton, granddaughter of Sir Stephen Glynne and niece of Gladstone's wife, Catherine. Married, 1864, Lord Frederick Cavendish (1836–1882).

Cavendish, Lord Richard Frederick (1871–1946). Author and politician. Married Lady Moyra Beauclerk, 1895.

Cazalet-Keir, Thelma (1899–1989). Conservative politician. Member of many public committees, including those on Equal Pay and the Cost of Living, and the Arts Council of Great Britain, 1940–49; a Governor of the BBC, 1956–61.

Cecil, Algernon (1879–1953). Historian and (according to The Times) 'sensitive artist in prose'. His best-known work is Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers, published shortly before his death.

Cecil, David (Lord Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil) (1902–1986). Author and scholar. Publications include: The Stricken Deer, 1929; Sir Walter Scott, 1933; Early Victorian Novelists, 1934; Jane Austen, 1935; The Young Melbourne, 1939; Lord M., 1954; Max, 1964; Library Looking-glass, 1975; A Portrait of Jane Austen, 1978; A Portrait of Charles Lamb, 1983.

Cecil, Lord (Edgar Algernon) Robert Gascoyne- (1864–1958). Viscount Cecil of Chelwood. Lawyer, politician and diplomat. One of the architects of the League of Nations.

Chaliapin, Feodor Ivanovich (1873–1938). The most famous Russian opera singer of the 20th Century. Possessor of a powerful and flexible bass voice and a magnetic stage presence.

Chamberlain, Joseph (1836–1914). Businessman and politician. Originally a Liberal, he split with his party over the question of Irish home rule. Father of the Conservative party leaders, Sir Austen Chamberlain and Neville Chamberlain, both generally regarded as less charismatic than their father.

Chamson, André (1900–1983). French novelist and essayist. Founder and director of the newspaper Vendredi. Director of the Archives of France 1959–1971. Elected to the Académie française,1956. His books include Roux le bandit, 1925; Les Hommes de la route, 1927; Le Crime des justes, 1928; La Neige et la Fleur, 1951; La Tour de Constance, 1970.

Chandler, Raymond Thornton (1888–1959). American author of crime stories, including The Big Sleep, 1939; Farewell, My Lovely, 1940; and The Long Goodbye, 1954.

Chapman, Guy (1889–1972). Historian. Professor of Modern History, Leeds, 1945–53, visiting Professor, Pittsburgh, 1948–9. Works include: A Passionate Prodigality, 1933; Beckford, a biography, 1938; A Bibliography of the Works of William Beckford, 1931; Culture and Survival, 1940; The Dreyfus Case: A Reassessment, 1955; The Third Republic of France: the First Phase, 1963; Why France Collapsed, 1968.

Chapman, Hester Wolferstan, née Pellatt (1899–1976). Authoress. Books include eleven novels published between 1932 and 1972 and biographies: Great Villiers (1949); Mary II (Queen of England (1953); Queen Anne's Son (1954); The Last Tudor King (1958); Two Tudor Portraits (1960); Lady Jane Grey (1962); The Tragedy of Charles II (1964); Lucy (1965); Privileged Persons (1966); The Sisters of Henry VIII (1969); Caroline Matilda (Queen of Denmark 1751–1775 (1971); Anne Boleyn (1974); Four Fine Gentlemen (1977).

Chapman, Robert William (1881–1960). Editor of Johnson and Jane Austen. Publications include: Selections from Boswell, 1919; The Portrait of a Scholar, 1920; Selections from Johnson, 1923; Edition of Jane Austen's Novels, 1923, and Letters, 1932, 1952; Johnson's and Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, 1924; Sanditon, 1925; Jane Austen, a Critical Bibliography, 1953; Selections from Samuel Johnson, 1955.

Charteris, Sir Martin Michael Charles (1913–1999). Baron Charteris. Assistant Private Secretary to the Queen 1952–72. Private Secretary 1972–77. Provost of Eton 1978–91. Married, 1944, the Hon Mary Margesson.

Chaucer, Geoffrey (c. 1340–1400), poet, civil servant and father of English literature.

Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich (1869–1904). Russian physician, short-story writer and playwright.

Cheney, (Reginald Evelyn) Peter Southouse (1896–1951). Leading British writer of hard-boiled crime fiction in the American tradition rather than that of 'Mayhem Parva' favoured by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers et al.

Chesterton, Frances Alice née Blogg (1869–1938). Married G K Chesterton in 1901. The marriage was childless.

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith (1874–1936). Author and journalist. Creator of the Father Brown series of detection stories and other novels including The Napoleon of Notting Hill, 1904; The Club of Queer Trades, 1905; and The Man who was Thursday, 1907. His non-fiction works included studies of G F Watts, Browning and Shaw.

Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975). Chinese nationalist leader from 1928. Lost a long struggle with Chinese communists by 1949 and withdrew to the island of Formosa (or Taiwan) where the rump of his republic has survived despite the efforts of the communists on the mainland.

Chitty, George Jamieson (1876–1947). Anglican priest. Eton master 1901–1931. Rector of Worplesdon, 1931–41, and St Vedast-alias-Foster, London, 1941–47.

Cholmondeley, Mary (1859–1925). Authoress, known for Red Pottage, a novel of English provincial life and of the plight of unmarried women in the late nineteenth century, which sold more than eighteen thousand copies within months of publication.

Christie, Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa, née Miller (1890–1976). The best-known writer of 20th century British detective fiction. Celebrated for the ingenuity of her plots rather than for her prose or characterisation.

Christie, John Reginald Halliday (1899–1953). Serial killer in the 1940s and 1950s. Hanged for murder.

Church, Richard Thomas (1893–1972). Poet and critic.

Churchill, Clementine Ogilvy née Hozier (1885–1977). Baroness Spencer-Churchill. Wife of Winston Churchill and a life peeress in her own right.

Churchill, Ernest L ('Jelly') (1870–1956). Eton master for 50 years from 1893. As River master, he was well-known as a rowing coach. RH‑D was in Churchill's house, as had been his uncle, Duff Cooper.

Churchill, Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer (1911–1968). Journalist and politician. Only son of Sir Winston Churchill.

Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer- (1874–1965). Prime Minister, 1940–1945 and 1951–1955.

Churton Collins, John (1848–1908). Literary critic. Professor of English literature at Birmingham University from 1904.

Chute, John Chaloner (1881–1961). Anglican priest. Eton master, 1906–1936; Vicar of Piddlehinton, 1936–1957; Archdeacon of Sherborne, 1942–1957.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106–43 BC). Classical Roman orator, much admired in the Renaissance, notably by Dante and Petrarch both for his ethical instruction and the beauty of his Latin.

Cinquevalli, Paul, né Emile Otto Lehmann-Braun (1859–1918). Polish-born juggler.

Clair, René, adopted name of René-Lucien Chomette (1898–1981). French film director noted for satirically surreal films. The first film director to be elected to the Académie Française.

Clare, John FitzGibbon, 2nd Earl of (1792–1851). Beloved of the young Byron. Governor of Bombay, 1830–35.

Clarke, Sir (Henry) Ashley (1903–1994). Diplomat. Ambassador to Italy, 1953–62. Governor, BBC, 1962–67; Venice in Peril Fund: Vice-Chairman, 1970–83, President, 1988–94). National Theatre Board, 1962–66; D'Oyly Carte Trust, 1964–71. Governing Body, Royal Academy of Music, 1967–73. Publication: Restoring Venice: the Madonna dell'Orto (with P Rylands), 1977.

Cleary, Sir William Castle (1886–1971). Civil servant. Board of Education, 1910–45, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Education, 1945–50.

Clemenceau, Georges (1841–1929). French politician. Originally a radical, later a nationalist conservative. French Prime Minister and Minister of War from November 1917.

Close, (Dennis) Brian (1931–2015). Cricketer. The youngest man to play test cricket for England.

Clough, Arthur Hugh (1819–1861). Poet. Author of the Homeric pastoral The Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich, later renamed Tober-na-Vuolich (1848).

Clutton-Brock, Alan Francis (1904–1976). Art critic and academic. Art critic of The Times, 1945–1955, then Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge.

Cobbett, William (1763–1835). Political writer and farmer. In 1802 he founded the weekly Political Register, which started by supporting the Tories but quickly turned Radical, agitating for social and parliamentary reform. Cobbett's Rural Rides (1830), his social observations and commentary from the Register, give a vivid picture of the conditions of his day.

Cobden, Richard (1804–65). Advocate of free trade and economic non-intervention by governments. In 1838 he became one of the seven founding members of the Anti-Corn-Law League in Manchester. Associate of John Bright.

Cobden-Sanderson, Richard (1912–1964). publisher. As well as Edmund Blunden, writers published by him included John Middleton Murry, Adrian Bell and T S Eliot.

Cobham, 10th Viscount – see Lyttelton, Charles John.

Coburn, Alvin Langdon (1882–1966). Photographer. His Men of Mark (1913) is a photographic study of thirty-three influential men, mostly writers and artists. An edition of R L Stevenson's Edinburgh: Picturesque Notes was published by RH‑D in 1954, with 23 photographs by Coburn.

Coburn, Kathleen (1905–1991). Canadian expert on Coleridge. Shortly after World War II, she discovered a large collection of unpublished Coleridge manuscripts, which she edited and published. Professor of English, Victoria College, University of Toronto, 1953–71.

Cockburn, Henry (1779–1854). Lord Cockburn. Scottish lawyer and politician.

Cockerell, Sir Sydney Carlyle (1867–1962). Museum director and man of letters. Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge from 1908–37. As a young man he was befriended by John Ruskin and William Morris. Later literary executor to Thomas Hardy. He had a celebrated friendship, mostly epistolary, with the scholarly Roman Catholic nun Dame Laurentia McLachlan (1866–1933).

Cocteau, Jean Maurice Eugène Clément (1889–1963). French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer and filmmaker. Leading Surrealist.

Cohen, Harriet (1895–1967). Pianist and teacher. Chosen by Elgar to record his Piano Quintet. Partner and muse of Arnold Bax, most of whose piano works were composed for her.

Coke, Sir Edward (1552–1634). Influential jurist whose writings on the English common law were the definitive legal texts for some 300 years. Lord Chief Justice, 1613–16.

Cole, (William) Horace de Vere (1881–1936). Prankster, famous for among others the 'Dreadnought' hoax, in which Cole and five friends (including the young Virginia Woolf) disguised themselves as the Emperor of Abyssinia and his entourage, and were given a full VIP tour of HMS Dreadnought.

Colefax, Sibyl Sophie Julia, née Halsey (1874–1950). Hostess and interior decorator. Founded the firm of Colefax and Fowler. At Argyll House in Chelsea she held celebrated salons The ODNB comments that she was notorious for 'exaggerating her intimacy with the famous dead like Henry James'.

Coleridge, F J R ('Fred') (1908–1982). Eton master. Vice-provost from 1967.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834). Lyrical poet, critic and philosopher, whose Lyrical Ballads (1798), written jointly with William Wordsworth, may be said to have begun the English Romantic movement.

Collins, John (1905–1982) Anglican priest. Canon of St Paul's 1948–81. Radical activist against apartheid in South Africa and one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Collins, Michael John (1890–1922). Irish revolutionary leader, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, in reprisal for which he was murdered by Irish extremists.

Collins, William (1721–1759). Poet, often bracketed with Thomas Gray as a lyrical poet.

Colman, Geoffrey Russell Rees (1892–1935). Oxford cricket IX 1913–14. After service in WWI in which he was seriously injured he became a director of J and J Colman Ltd and the Norwich Union insurance company. Married, 1919, Lettice Elizabeth Evelyn Adeane (sister of Pamela Lyttelton).

Colquhoun, R W ('Reggie'). Eton master 1924–1959, with a break for wartime service in WW2.

Colvin, Sir Sidney (1845–1927), Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge and Keeper of Prints at the British Museum; friend of Robert Louis Stevenson, whose works and letters he edited. Colvin wrote several works on art and literature, including Early Engraving and Engravers in England (with A M Hind, 1905); The Letters of John Keats (1891); and John Keats: His Life and Poetry (1917).

Compton, Denis Charles Scott (1918–1997). Cricketer and footballer. His dashing approach to batting endeared him to a generation of cricket lovers. One of the few men to play both cricket and association football for England.

Conan Doyle, Adrian Malcolm (1910–1970). Youngest son and literary executor of Arthur Conan Doyle. He described himself variously as a racing driver, big-game hunter, explorer, and writer. Together with John Dickson Carr he wrote additional Sherlock Holmes stories.

Connell, John (1909–1965) né John Henry Robertson. Author and Journalist.

Connolly, Cyril Vernon (1903–1974). Writer and literary reviewer. Co-founded (with Peter Watson and Stephen Spender) the literary magazine Horizon, 1939, which he edited until 1950. Publications include The Rock Pool, 1936, and Enemies of Promise, 1938, which includes 'A Georgian Boyhood', an outspoken account of his years at Eton.

Conrad, Joseph né Teodor Józef Konrad Nałęcz-Korzeniowski (1857–1924). Polish-born novelist who spent most of his adult life in England, and wrote in English. His books include: The Nigger of the 'Narcissus', 1897; Heart of Darkness, 1899; Lord Jim, 1900; Nostromo, 1904; and The Secret Agent, 1907. GWL quotes with qualified approval George Moore's condemnation of Conrad (8 March 1956).

Conybeare, Alfred Edward (1875–1952). Eton master, 1897–1945, specialising in mathematics. Vice-provost, 1945–52.

Cooke, Alistair (1908–2005). Anglo-American journalist and commentator.

Coolidge, Calvin (1872–1933). American politician. President of the USA, 1923–28. Famous for his taciturn manner.

Cooper, Artemis (Alice Clare Antonia Opportune Cooper Beevor) (1953–). Authoress. Her books include Writing at the Kitchen Table (a biography of the great food writer Elizabeth David), Paris After the Liberation, 1944–1949 (written with her husband, Antony Beevor), and (ed) Mr Wu and Mrs Stitch: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and Diana Cooper.

Cooper (Alfred) Duff, (1890–1954). Conservative politician and author. Financial Secretary to the War Office, 1931, and to the Treasury, 1934–5. Secretary of State for War, 1935–7. First Lord of the Admiralty, 1937. Minister of Information, 1940–41. Ambassador to Paris, 1944–47. Publications, Talleyrand (1932), Haig (2 vols), 1935–6), and autobiography, Old Men Forget (1953). Brother of RH‑D's mother Sybil Mary Hart-Davis.

Cooper, James Fenimore (1789–1851). American writer, creator of the frontiersman Natty Bumppo in his Leatherstocking Tales and author of The Last of the Mohicans.

Cooper, John Julius – see Norwich, John Julius

Cooper, Lady Diana, née Manners (1892–1986). Society figure, famous beauty, wife of Duff Cooper, mother of John Julius Norwich, aunt of RH‑D, grandmother of Artemis Cooper.

Cooper, Lettice Ulpha (1897–1994). Novelist and biographer. President of the Robert Louis Stevenson Society from 1958 to 1978.

Corbett, (Edward) James (1875–1955). Irish hunter, conservationist and naturalist, known for writing about man-eating tigers and leopards. The Corbett National Park in India is named after him.

Cornish, Mrs – see Warre-Cornish.

Corvo, Baron: pen name of Frederick William Rolfe (1860–1913). Novelist and failed RC priest.

Cory, William, né William Johnson (1823–1892). Educator and poet. He was a noted writer of Latin verse. His chief poetical work is Ionica, a collection including homoerotic poems. He was obliged to resign his position as a master at Eton because of allegations of improper conduct.

Courtauld, Augustine (1904–1959). Arctic explorer. In 1931 he spent five months alone at an ice-cap station in Greenland. Henley, William Ernest (1849–1903). Poet, critic and editor.

Courtney, William Leonard (1850–1928). Fellow, New College, Oxford, 1876; editor of The Fortnightly Review, 1894.

Cousins, Frank (1908–1986). Trade union leader and Labour politician. General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union 1956–1969; Minister of Technology 1964–1966.

Cowdrey, Michael Colin (1932–2000). Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge. Cricketer (Kent, 1950–76 and England 1954–75) and cricket administrator.

Cowles, Virginia (1910–1983). American authoress and journalist. Publications include: Edward VII and His Circle, 1956; The Kaiser, 1963; 1913: The Romanovs, 1971; The Rothschilds, 1973; The Last Tsar and Tsarina, 1977; The Astors, 1979; The Great Marlborough and his Duchess, 1983.

Cowley, Abraham (1618–1667). Cavalier poet.

Coxhead, Elizabeth (1909–1979). Novelist, journalist and biographer.

Cozzens, James Gould (1903–1978). American novelist. Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949 for Guard of Honour. His later prose style was likened by the Times Literary Supplement to 'a form of logorrhoea such as Henry James might have used under light anaesthesia.'

Crace, John Foster ('Jan') (1878–1960). Eton master, specialising in classics, 1901–35.

Craig, Edward Gordon (1872–1966). Actor, producer, designer and writer. Son of the architect Edward Godwin and the actress Ellen Terry.

Craigie, Pearl, née Richards (1867–1906). American-born novelist and playwright (sometimes under the pen name John Oliver Hobbes). Collaborated with George Moore on two plays in the 1890s.

Cranmer, Thomas (1489–1556). Priest. Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533–1555. Creator of The Book of Common Prayer. Burnt at the stake in 1556.

Cranworth, Bertram Francis Gurdon (1877–1964), 2nd Baron. Lived at Grundisburgh, Suffolk, near GWL. Vice-Lieutenant of Suffolk from 1947.

Crawford, Marion ('Crawfie') (1909–1988). Former governess of Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, who breached professional confidentiality by publishing an account of her time as royal governess.

Creevey, Thomas Creevey (1768–1838). Whig politician, remembered for his diaries and letters, published in 1903 under the editorship of Sir Herbert Maxwell as The Creevey Papers. They give a vivid and outspoken picture of political and social life in the late Georgian era.

Creighton, Mandell (1843–1901). Anglican priest, Bishop of London, 1897–1901.

Crippen, Hawley Harvey (1862–1910), American physician, hanged in Pentonville Prison, London for the murder of his wife. The first criminal to be captured with the aid of wireless communication.

Cripps, Sir (Richard) Stafford (1889–1952). Labour politician. Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1947–50. Known for his personal austerity.

Croker, John Wilson (1780–1857). Politician and writer. As a critic, a diehard traditionalist, and opponent of the romantic poets and of innovative novelists including Scott and Dickens. His edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson was the subject of a famously withering review by Macaulay.

Cronin, Vincent (born 1924). Author. Publications include: The Golden Honeycomb: A Sicilian Quest (1954); The Wise Man from the West: Matteo Ricci and his Mission to China (1955); The Last Migration (1957); Louis XIV (1964); and Napoleon (1971).

Crook, Arthur (1912–2003). Times Literary Supplement, Assistant Editor, 1951–59; Editor 1959–74. The last of its editors to insist on unsigned reviews.

Crossman, Richard (1907–74). Labour politician and journalist. Cabinet minister 1964–70. Editor of The New Statesman, 1970–74. His posthumously published diaries were the first to give a sustained picture of the inner workings of government.

Crum, Walter (1865–1944). Egyptologist. While teaching at University College, London Crum met Margaret (Madge) Hart-Davis (1876–1953), who was studying Egyptology, and they fell in love. Crum's wife refused to divorce him and he and Madge Hart-Davis decided to elope abroad, settling in Austria, first in Graz and later in Vienna. They remained together for the rest of Crum's life but could never marry because Crum's wife outlived him; Madge Hart-Davis changed her surname to Crum by deed poll.

Crutchley, Brooke (1907–2003). Printer of the University of Cambridge, 1946–74; Fellow of Trinity Hall, 1951–73; Vice-Master, 1966–70; Emeritus Fellow, 1977.

Cunard, Maud Alice ('Emerald'), née Burke (1872–1948). American-born wife of Sir Bache Cunard of the shipping line. Had two long relationships outside the marriage, first (circa 1895–1910) with George Moore, who remained in love with her after she forsook him for Sir Thomas Beecham, with whom she was involved circa 1910–1943.

Cunard, Nancy (1896–1965). Only child of Sir Bache Cunard, of the shipping family, and his wife Maud 'Emerald'. Poetess, authoress and campaigner in liberal causes. Muse to several important twentieth century writers including Wyndham Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Tristan Tzara, and Ezra Pound.

Curzon, George Nathaniel (1859–1925). 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. Conservative politician. Viceroy of India, 1899–1905, and Foreign Secretary, 1919–24.

Cust, Sir (Lionel George) Archer (1896–1962). Administrator. Served in Palestine Civil Service, 1920–1935. Seconded as private secretary to Sir Ronald Storrs, Governor of Northern Rhodesia, 1932–34. Secretary-General of the Royal Empire Society (later the Royal Commonwealth Society) 1935–1962.

Cyriax, James (1900–1985). Consultant physician at St Thomas's Hospital. Known as 'the Einstein of orthopaedic medicine'.