Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Beechey, Frederick William

(Encyclopedia)Beechey, Frederick William, 1796–1856, British admiral and Arctic explorer. He accompanied an expedition N of Spitsbergen in 1818 and wrote an account of it in his Voyage of Discovery towards the No...

May, Philip William

(Encyclopedia)May, Philip William (Phil May), 1864–1903, English pen-and-ink caricaturist, b. Leeds. After living in poverty for many years, he made numerous drawings for the St. Stephen's Review. Phil May's Wint...

Forbes, William Cameron

(Encyclopedia)Forbes, William Cameron, 1870–1959, American business executive and diplomat, b. Milton, Mass. He entered the mercantile house of his grandfather, John Murray Forbes, in Boston and was a partner in ...

Farrar, Frederic William

(Encyclopedia)Farrar, Frederic William, 1831–1903, English clergyman and author, dean of Canterbury (1895–1903), b. Bombay (now Mumbai), India, educated in England. He was assistant master at Harrow from 1855 t...

Wollaston, William Hyde

(Encyclopedia)Wollaston, William Hyde, 1766–1828, English scientist, M.D. Cambridge, 1793. His wide-ranging scientific achievements include the discovery (1802) of the dark lines (Fraunhofer lines) in the solar s...

Bowles, William Lisle

(Encyclopedia)Bowles, William Lisle, 1762–1850, English poet, cleric, and literary critic. In 1804 he became vicar of Bremhill, Wiltshire, in 1818 chaplain to the prince regent, and in 1828 canon residentiary of ...

Maxwell, William Keepers, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Maxwell, William Keepers, Jr., 1908–2000, American novelist, short-story writer, and editor, b. Lincoln, Ill. Educated at the Univ. of Illinois and Harvard, he began his career as a teacher, but soo...

Snow, John William

(Encyclopedia)Snow, John William, 1939–, U.S. government official and business executive, b. Toledo, Ohio. An economist and lawyer, he held Dept. of Transportation posts in the Nixon and Ford administrations incl...

Strong, William Duncan

(Encyclopedia)Strong, William Duncan, 1899–1962, American anthropologist, b. Portland, Oreg., grad. Univ. of California (B.A., 1923; Ph.D., 1926). He served as curator at the Chicago Field Museum (1926–29) and ...

Denver, James William

(Encyclopedia)Denver, James William, 1817–92, American territorial governor, army officer, and congressman, b. Winchester, Va. He commanded a company of Missouri volunteers in the Mexican War, then went (1850) to...