Lives Retold

William Wedderburn. MP and campaigner for Indian self rule.

David Willcocks. Choral conductor, organist and composer.

Stefan Zweig. Novelist, biographer and playwright.

Cecil Ames, soldier, colonial administrator, and judge.

Ove Arup, engineer and philosopher.

Michael Atiyah. Mathematician and Master of Trinity College Cambridge.

Jo Barton. Doctor.

David Baston. Naval helicopter pilot.

Alan Beavitt. Violin maker.

Gillian Beer. Professor of English Literature.

Hubert Booth. Inventor of the vacuum cleaner.

Stewart Brand. Writer and social entrepreneur.

Ruth Brandon. Author.

Robert Bray. Clock maker.

Vyvyen Brendon. An author’s childhood.

Allan Brigham. Road sweeper and local historian.

Charles and Tiny Broadwick. Inventors of the modern parachute.

Tim Brooke-Taylor. Comedian.

Richard Buckinster Fuller. Designer.

Peter Carolin. Professor of Architecture.

Eleanora Carus-Wilson. Professor of Economic History.

Rosemary Champion. Scottish smallholder.

Christo and Jeanne Claude. Wrappers of the Reichstag.

William Cimillo. Runaway New York City bus driver.

David Cleevely. Technoloogy entrepreneur.

Malcolm Cockburn. Engineer, farmer and adventurer.

Christopher Cockerell. Inventor of the hovercraft.

Ann Cotton. Founder of the Camfed charity.

Edward Cullinan. Architect.

Partha Dasgupta. Economist.

Alison Du Cane. Charity administration and amateur dramatics.

Frank Duffy. Architect.

Charles and Ray Eames. Designers.

Herbert Eckford. Pioneer of the Canadian west.

Peter Faulkner. Coracle maker.

Richard Feilden. Architect.

Fergus Feilden. Architect.

Christopher Frayling. Professor of Cultural History.

Annis Gillie. Pioneer of general practice.

Vivette Glover. Professor of Perinatal Psychobioloogy.

Peter Goldmark. Inventor of the long playing record.

Rod Hackney. Community architect.

Hermann Hauser. Technology entrepreneur.

Theo Hobson. Writer and artist.

Alfred Holt. Steamship pioneer.

KItty Holt. Scientist, writer, poet and artist.

Tim Hunkin. Cartoonist and maker of improbable machines.

Selwyn Image. Businessman, composer and charity founder.

Anne Johnson. Professor of Epidemiology.

Lucie James. Devoted Mormon and mother of six.

Katharine Johnson. Mathematician of the US space race.

Tim Keegan. Retail analyst and knife sharpener.

John Spedan Lewis. Founder of John Lewis.

Ottoline Leyser. Professor of Plant Biology.

Susan Long. Humanitarian engineer.

John Lutrell. A career in the Middle East.

Richard MacCormac. Architect.

Alan Macfarlane. Anthropologist and historian.

David Mackay. Scientist and communicator.

Lizzie Magie. Inventor of the Monopoly board game.

Robert Mair. Geotechnical engineer.

Elisha Otis. Inventor of the safety elevator.

Winifred Phillips. The first female Chelsea Pensioner.

Designer of Braun consumer products.

Hilda Reid. Novelist between the wars.

Veronica Mary Price. Teacher.

Louisa Reid. Naval wife and writer.

Allan Shiers. Harp maker.

Marion Shoard. Author and campaigner.

Clive Sinclair. Technology entrepreneur.

Philip Reid. Naval officer and prisoner of war.

Trevor Robbins. Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Vita Sackville-West. Writer and garden designer.

Barbara Sahakian. Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology.

Doria Shafik. Campaigner for women's rights in Egypt.

Amartya Sen. Nobel Prize winning economist.

Percy Shaw. Inventor of Catseye reflecting road studs.

Anthony Smith. Broadcaster, author and academic.

Philip Steadman. Professor of Architecture and writer.

Michael Stern. Founder of a multi-racial schoool in Africa.

Ista Stoddart. Farming during the Second World War.

Nancie Swan. Burma, India and teaching.

John Meurig Thomas. Professor of Chemistry.

Veronica Watts. Teacher.

Robin Webster. Architect.

Click on any picture to go to the life story.

preserving life stories

The Lives Retold website is a non-profit, online archive of biographical and autobiographical essays. The collection, which was started by Alex Reid in 2019, contains 350 life stories totalling more than 20,000 pages.

Rather than adopting a narrow focus, the collection celebrates variety. It includes an astronomer, a biographer, a comedian, a field marshal, a helicopter pilot, a philosopher, a road sweeper, a sea captain, a tea planter, a bus driver, the inventor of the zip fastener, and an archbishop. The collection traces the history of several families through groups of related life stories. There is also a categories listing and an alphabetical index.

MOST POPULAR

The life stories which have been most frequently visited in 2024 are:
Cimillo, William. Born 1909. A New York City bus driver breaks free.
Crowley, George. Born 1919. Inventor of the modern electric blanket.
Arday, Jason. Born 1985. Cambridge Professor of Sociology of Education.

EXAMPLES FROM EACH CATEGORY

ACADEMIA: HUMANITIES
Glover, Jonathan. Born 1941. (222 pages). Professor of Philosophy.
Macfarlane, Alan. Born 1941. (3074 pages). Anthropologist and historian.
Van de Ven, Hans. Born 1958. (18 pages). Professor of Modern Chinese History.

ACADEMIA: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Buckingham, David. Born 1930. (17 pages). Professor of Chemistry and cricketer.
Ahmed, Haroon. Born 1936. (20 pages). Professor of Microelectronics.
MacKay, David. Born 1967. (15 pages). Scientist and communicator.

ADVENTURE
Orde-Lees, Thomas. Born 1877. (28 pages). Antarctic explorer and parachutist.
Cimillo, William. Born 1909. (8 pages). Runaway bus driver.
Eiloart, Timothy. Born 1936. (17 pages). Transatlantic balloonist and entrepreneur.

AGRICULTURE
Wedderburn, John. Born 1700. (8 pages). Country gentleman and rebel.
Eckford, Alexander Herbert. Born 1867. (34 pages). Pioneer in the Canadian west.
Champion, Rosemary. Born 1962. (36 pages). Scottish smallholder.

ARCHITECTURE
Carolin, Peter. Born 1936. (77 pages). Architect, editor and academic.
MacCormac, Richard. Born 1940. (20 pages). Architect.
Steadman, Philip. Born 1942. (22 pages). Professor of Architecture.

ART
Blake, Quentin. Born 1932. (17 pages). Illustrator and author of children’s books.
Christo & Jeanne Claude. Born 1935. (49 pages). Wrappers of the Reichstag.
Harris, Jon. (28 pages). Artist and draughtsman.

AVIATION
Trubshaw, Brian. Born 1924. (14 pages). Concorde test pilot.
Smith, Michael. Born 1939. (16 pages) . Naval helicopter pilot and entrepreneur.
Baston, David. Born 1942. (49 pages). Naval helicopter pilot.

BUSINESS
Tudor, Frederic. Born 1783. (46 pages). Ice harvesting entrepreneur.
Roberts, Owen Owen. Born 1870. (10 pages). Ironmonger and Councillor.
Luttrell, John. Born 1915. (23 pages). A career in Middle East oil companies.

CAMPAIGNING
Wedderburn, Robert. Born 1762. (7 pages). Author of ‘Horrors of Slavery’.
Shafik, Doria. Born 1908. (21 pages). Campaigner for women’s rights.
Shoard, Marion. Born 1949. (23 pages). Author and countryside campaigner.

CHILDHOOD
Brendon, Vyvyen. Born 1941. (15 pages). An author’s childhood.
Lucas, Charles. Born 1964. (11 pages). Childhood living in a Chelsea hotel.
Reid, Philip Owen. Born 1989. (17 pages) Growing up in London and Cambridge.

CHURCH
Luckock, Herbert. Born 1833. (35 pages). Dean of Lichfield Cathedral.
James, Cecil. Born 1900. (103 pages). Builder and Mormon Bishop.
Hodgetts, Colin. Born 1940. (15 pages). Vicar and social activist.

DESIGN
Buckminster Fuller, Richard. Born 1895. (55 pages). Designer.
Eames, Charles & Ray. Born 1907 & 1912. (35 pages). Designers.
Rams, Dieter. Born 1932. (22 pages). Designer of Braun consumer products.

ECONOMICS
Luttrell, William. Born 1908. (28 pages). Economist.
Sen, Amartya. Born 1933. (39 pages). Nobel Prize winning economist.
Dasgupta, Partha. Born 1942. (29 pages). Professor of Economics.

EDUCATION
Gillie, Bernard. Born 1907. (40 pages). Teacher in Canada.
Stern, Michael. Born 1922. (63 pages). Founder of a multi-racial school in Africa.
Sabben-Clare, James. Born 1941. (10 pages). Headmaster of Winchester College.

ENGINEERING
Mackay, Roderick. Born 1880. (23 pages). Engineer of Los Angeles Aqueduct.
Clarke, Keith. Born 1940. (11 pages). Telecommunications engineer.
Mair, Robert James. Born 1950. (152 pages). Baron Mair. Geotechnical engineer.

ENTERTAINMENT
Cartwright, Midgie. Born 1899. (19 pages). Edwardian stunt woman.
Hepburn, Audrey. Born 1929. (19 pages). Acrress and UNICEF ambassador.
Brooke-Taylor, Tim. Born 1940. (11 pages). Radio and television comedian.

FOUNDERS
Booth, William & Catherine. Both born 1829. (26 pages). Founders of the Salvation Army.
Smith, John. Born 1923. (21 pages). Banker and founder of the Landmark Trust.
Cotton, Ann. Born 1950. (15 pages). Founder of Camfed charity for education of girls in Africa.

HOMEMAKING
Thompson, Elizabeth. Born 1814. (38 pages). A Victorian grandmother.
Powell, Kathleen. Born 1903. (179 pages). Wife and mother in Burma.
Hoffbrand, Joyce. Born 1933. (10 pages). Life in Bradford’s Jewish community.

HORTICULTURE
Plumb, Joseph. Born 1845. (11 pages). Gardener.
Sackville-West, Vita. Born 1892. (30 pages). Writer and garden designer.
Coghill, Steven. Born 1961. (15 pages). Horticulturist.

INVENTORS
Booth, Hubert. Born 1871. (23 pages). Inventor of the vacuum cleaner.
Broadwick, Charles & Tiny. Born 1875 & 1893. (23 pages). Parachute inventors.
Goldmark, Peter. Born 1906. (26 pages). Inventor of the long playing record.

LAW
Campbell, James. Born 1916. (15 pages). Cambridge law don and piping expert.
Bingham, Thomas. Born 1933. (16 pages). Lord Chief Justice.
Vardag, Ayesha. Born 1968. (14 pages). Divorce lawyer for the very wealthy.

MAKERS
Beavitt, Alan. Born c.1950. (15 pages). Violin maker in the Scottish highlands.
Hunkin, Tim. Born 1950. (36 pages). Engineer, cartoonist and maker of improbable machines.
Oglethorpe, William. Born c.1980. (15 pages). Urban cheese maker.

MARITIME
Gillie, John. Born 1829. (41 pages). Sea captain in the days of sail.
Holt, Alfred. Born 1829. (13 pages). Steamship pioneer.
Reid, Philip Henry Stewart. Born 1901. (42 pages). Naval officer & prisoner of war.

MEDICINE
Hoffbrand, Victor. Born 1935. (210 pages). Professor of haematology.
Sahakian, Barbara. Born 1952. (19 pages). Professor of clinical neuropsychology.
Johnson, Anne. Born 1954. (17 pages). Professor of epidemiology.

MILITARY
Stanier, Alexander. Born 1899. (73 pages). Decorated officer in two world wars.
Cross, John. Born 1925. (18 pages). Soldier and author.
Phillips, Winifred. Born 1926. (9 pages). First female Chelsea Pensioner.

MUSIC
Sousa, John Philip. Born 1854. (486 pages). Composer and conductor.
Willcocks, David. Born 1919. (16 pages). Choral conductor, organist and composer.
Evans, Berwyn. Born 1940. (200 pages). Civil engineering and Welsh male voice choirs.

POLITICS
Wedderburn, David. Born 1835. (472 pages). Traveller, diarist and Liberal MP.
Luttrell, Hugh. Born 1857. (24 pages) Liberal Member of Parliament.
Roberts, Emrys. Born 1910. (66 pages). Lawyer and Member of Parliament.

PUBLIC SERVICE
Crichlow, Frank. Born 1932. (10 pages). Community activist in Notting Hill.
Wilson, Richard. Born 1942. (28 pages). Head of the Home Civil Service.
Brigham, Allan. Born 1951. (16 pages). Road sweeper and local historian.

TECHNOLOGY
Butler, David. Born 1936. (40 pages). Computer consultant.
Hauser, Hermann. Born 1948. (18 pages). Technology entrepreneur.
Cleevely, David. Born 1953. (39 pages). Technology entrepreneur.

VARIED CAREERS
Garside, Roger. Born 1939. (14 pages). Diplomat, consultant and author.
Cockburn, Malcolm. Born 1940. (17 pages). Engineer, farmer and adventurer.
Reid, Alexander. Born 1941. (201 pages). Architecture & telecomms.

WRITING
Campbell, John. Born 1947. (39 pages). Political biographer.
Reid, Anna. Born 1965. (13 pages). Author on eastern Europe.
Hobson, Theo. Born 1972. (23 pages). Writer and artist.

LISTINGS

CATEGORIES

ALPHABETICAL LISTING

FAMILIES with more than one life story in the collection.

THEMES that have emerged in the life stories.