Philip Webb

Philip Speakman Webb (1831-1915) mostly designed private houses, including the Red House, Bexley heath, London, for William Morris, and was one of the leading figures, with Richard...

John Anderson Waverley

John Anderson Waverley, 1st Viscount Waverley (1882-1958) organized civil defence for World War II, becoming home secretary and minister for home security in 1939 (the nationally distributed...

Archibald Wavell

Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell (1883-1950) was a British field marshal in World War II, appointed commander in chief Middle East in July 1939. Short Biography: He conducted...

John B. Watson

John Broadus Watson (1878-1958) rejected introspection (observation by an individual of his or her own mental processes) and regarded psychology as the study of observable behaviour...

Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905) was a leading exponent of Victorian Neo-Gothic using, typically, multicoloured tiles and bricks. His works include the Natural History Museum in London...

Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington (1856-1915) was the founder and first principal of Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, in 1881, originally a training college for blacks, which subsequendy gained...

Deborah Warner

Deborah Warner (born in 1959) discarding period costume and furnished sets, she adopted an uncluttered approach to the classics, induding productions of many Shakespeare plays and Sophocles'...

Perkin Warbeck

Perkin Warbeck (c.1474-1499) was a Flemish pretender to the English throne. Gaiming to be Richard, brother of Edward V, he led a rising against Henry VII in 1497, and was hanged...

Alan Walters

Alan Arthur Walters (1927-2009) became economics adviser to Prime Minister Thatcher, but his publicly stated differences with the policies of her chancellor Nigel OLawson precipitated...

Leon Walras

Leon Walras (1834-1910) Elements a "economic politique pure" 1874-1877 he made a pioneering attempt to develop a unified model for general equilibrium theory (a hypothetical situation...

Raoul Wallenberg

Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947) was a Swedish businessman who attempted to rescue several thousand Jews from German-occupied Budapest in 1944 in World War II. Short Biography: There...

Sir Richard Wallace

Sir Richard Wallace, 1st Baronet (1818-1890) inherited a valuable art collection from his father, the Marquess of Hertford, which was given by his widow to the UK as the Wallace Collection...

Valdemar II

Valdemar II the Conqueror (1170-1241) was the second son of Waldemar I, and succeeded his brother Canute VI. He gained control of land North of the river Elbe (which he later lost)...

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796-1862) was imprisoned 1826-1829 for abducting an heiress, and became manager of the South Australian Association which founded a colony in 1836. He...

Terry Waite

Terry Waite (born in 1939) as the archhishop's special envoy, Waite disappeared on 20 January 1987 while engaged in secret negotiations to free European hostages in Beirut, Lebanon....

Otto Wagner

Otto Wagner (1841-1918) initially designing in the Art Nouveau style, for example Vienna Stadtbahn 1894-1897, he later rejected ornament for rationalism, as in the Post Office Savings...

Charles Voysey

Charles Francis Annesley Voysey (1857-1941) designed country houses which were characteristically asymmetrical with massive buttresses, long sloping roofs, and rough-cast walls. He...

Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov (1881-1969) joined the Bolsheviks in 1903 and was arrested many times and exiled, but escaped. Short Biography: He became a member of the central...

Conrad Gessner

Konrad von Gesner (1516-1565) was a Swiss naturalist who produced an encyclopedia of the animal world, the Historia animalium (1551-1558). Short Biography: Gesner was a victim...

Vincent Of Beauvais

Vincent Of Beauvais (c. 1190-1264) was a chaplain to the court of Louis IX, he is mainly remembered for his Speculum majus/Great Mirror 1220-1244, a reference work summarising contemporary...

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Short Biography: Her relations with her prime ministers ranged from the affectionate (Melbourne...

Victor Emmanuel II

Victor Emmanuel II (1820-1878) became king of Sardinia on the abdication of his father Charles Albert in 1849. Short Biography: In 1855 he allied Sardinia with France and the...

Philip Vian

Philip Vian (1894-1968) captured the Altmark in 1940, a German cruiser carrying the crews of Allied merchant ships sunk in attacks, and in 1941 commanded the destroyers that chased...

Vespasian

Titus Flavius Vespasianus (AD 9-79) was the son of a moneylender, and had a distinguished military career. He was proclaimed emperor by his soldiers while he was campaigning in...