Stephen Roberts

Gustav Theodore von Holst was born in Cheltenham on 21st September 1874

T.E. Lawrence was eight when he moved to Oxford with his family

The author J.B Priestley told us much about the city of Southampton in the 1930s, but how much would he recognise as being the same today?

Thomas Henry Cotton, won the Open Golf Championship three times, more than 30 professional tournaments, and in the process became the leading British player of his generation.

Thomas Phillipps gathered together the largest collection of books in the 19th century

Sir Walter Besant was a novelist and historian who would become the first Chairman of the Society of Authors

From sleepy St Ive came Leonard Hobhouse, a man who favoured equality, freedom of choice and women’s rights and helped to shape what is now the Liberal Democrat party

Stephen Roberts explores the origins of the WH Smith newsagents which has become a global brand

The achievements of the Cheshire-born irrigation engineer whose life work throughout British India is remembered on the subcontinent to this day.

Leonard Courtney had connections extending to the heart of the British Establishment and the Privy Council