Cambridge

William_Erasmus_Darwin

William Erasmus Darwin (27 December 1839 – 8 September 1914) was the first-born son, and the eldest of all the children of Charles and Emma Darwin, and the subject of psychological studies by his father. He was educated at Rugby School and Christ's College, Cambridge, and later became a banker at Grant and Maddison's Union Banking Company in Southampton. In 1877 he married an American, Sara Price Ashburner Sedgwick (1839 – 1902), daughter of Theodore Sedgwick. William was a great believer in university education being available to all, and championed the establishment of a university college in Southampton in 1902. The Darwins had no children of their own, and after his wife died, William devoted himself much to his nieces Gwen Raverat, Frances Cornford, and Margaret Keynes. William died on 8 September 1914 at Sedbergh in Cumbria. Raverat remembered him fondly as an eccentric and entirely unselfconscious man in her childhood memoirs Period Piece (1952).

There is a story about him at my grandfather's funeral at Westminster Abbey. He was sitting in the front seat as eldest son and chief mourner, and he felt a draught on his already bald head; so he put his black gloves to balance on the top of his skull, and sat like that all through the service with the eyes of the nation upon him.
William is primarily notable as a subject of Charles Darwin's studies of infant psychology. Darwin was very fond of his son; at his birth he called him "a prodigy of beauty & intellect", and named him after his own grandfather Erasmus Darwin. During William's first three years his father kept a diary of gestures and facial expressions the infant made. The studies were part of Darwin's comparison between animal and human development, after he had already thoroughly studied orangutan babies at the London Zoo. The diary contains observations on the child learning to follow a candle with his eyes after nine days, smiling with his eyes after six weeks and three days, and developing distinctive cries adjusted to specific situations after eleven weeks. He also noticed the development of more profound personality traits, such as reason and, at two-and-a-half years, conscience. Charles Darwin published his findings in the journal Mind in June 1877, in an article titled "A biographical sketch of an infant". The studies were also an influence behind his work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872. Darwin's work on infant development and child psychology inspired other academics, such as the German psychologist William Preyer and the American James Mark Baldwin, who acknowledged Darwin's influence in his 1913 History of Psychology.
William was a keen amateur photographer, and took several portraits of members of his family.
William Darwin and his wife are buried in St. Nicolas' Church, North Stoneham, Hampshire; having lived in Bassett, near Southampton, Hampshire.

Gesine_Schwan

Gesine Schwan (née Schneider, 22 May 1943) is a German political science professor and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. The party has nominated her twice as a candidate for the federal presidential elections. On 23 May 2004, she was defeated by the Christian Democrat Horst Köhler. On 23 May 2009, Köhler beat her again to win his second term.

Hector_Laing,_Baron_Laing_of_Dunphail

Hector Laing, Baron Laing of Dunphail, (12 May 1923 – 21 June 2010) was a British businessman.
The son of Hector Laing Sr and Margaret Norrie Grant was educated at the Loretto School in Musselburgh and Jesus College, Cambridge. Laing served as a tank commander in the Scots Guards between 1942 and 1947, and reached the rank of a Captain. He was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the US Bronze Star during campaign in France in 1944–45.Laing followed his father, and grandfather Sir Alexander Grant, inventor of the digestive biscuit, into the McVitie & Price biscuit business and in 1947 became a director. The company merged to form United Biscuits, and Laing became managing director in 1964 and served as chairman from 1972 to 1990.From 1973 to 1991, Laing was Director of the Bank of England. He was Director of the Exxon Corporation from 1984 to 1994.
Laing married Marian Clare, daughter of John Emilius Laurie in 1950; they had three sons.
He was knighted in 1978 and was created a Conservative life peer as Baron Laing of Dunphail, of Dunphail in the County of Moray on 8 February 1991. Laing was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Laing also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1986.Lord Laing died on 21 June 2010 after a short illness.
Lady Laing died in 2020.

Keith_Raffan

Keith William Twort Raffan (born 21 June 1949) is a former British politician. From 1983 to 1992, he served in the British House of Commons as the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for the Delyn constituency in Wales. Then from 1999 to 2005, he was a Scottish Liberal Democrat Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Mid Scotland and Fife region.

Henry_Mayr-Harting

Henry Maria Robert Egmont Mayr-Harting (born 6 April 1936) is a British medieval ecclesiastical historian. From 1997 to 2003, he was Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford and a lay canon of Christ Church, Oxford.