Biographical Extracts

Some years before the Elgin marbles were put on display in the British Museum, rising artist Benjamin Haydon got a sneak preview.

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... I heard John Wesley sing. A visitor on the quayside on Sunday May 30th, 1742, would have stumbled into a crowd agape and a determined clergyman singing psalms.

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A gentleman travelling home from London by train reached his destination carrying more than he set out with.

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Byron felt compelled to set the record straight after it was alleged that he had swum the Hellespont the easy way.

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As a young man, surveyor Thomas Telford was a red-hot political activist who yearned for revolution, but admittedly he had read just one book on the matter.

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While on tour in Austria, Irish tenor Michael Kelly was introduced to Mozart, and discovered a man of many talents and much kindness.

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