Use British English from September 2017

David_Webster_(opera_manager)

Sir David Lumsden Webster (3 July 1903 – 9 May 1971) was the chief executive of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, from 1945 to 1970. He played a key part in the establishment of the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera companies.
From a retail background, Webster became chairman of the Liverpool Philharmonic during the Second World War. From there he was asked to set up opera and ballet companies at Covent Garden. He persuaded the existing Sadler's Wells Ballet to move to the opera house but found no established opera company suitable to do the same, and he set up a new opera company from scratch.
At first, Webster presented opera in English with a permanent company, but as Covent Garden flourished and international stars were attracted to appear, the policy gradually changed to presenting operas in their original language. By the time of Webster's retirement, the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet were world-famous.

David_Wilkie_(surgeon)

Sir David Percival Dalbreck Wilkie, (5 November 1882 – 28 August 1938), known to friends and colleagues as DPD, was among the first of the new breed of professors of surgery appointed at a relatively young age to develop surgical research and undergraduate teaching. At the University of Edinburgh, he established a surgical research laboratory from which was to emerge a cohort of young surgical researchers destined to become the largest dynasty of surgical professors yet seen in the British Isles. He is widely regarded as the father of British academic surgery.

John_Byrne_(playwright)

John Patrick Byrne (6 January 1940 – 30 November 2023) was a Scottish playwright, screenwriter, artist and designer. He wrote The Slab Boys Trilogy, plays which explore working-class life in Scotland, and the TV dramas Tutti Frutti and Your Cheatin' Heart. Byrne was also a painter, printmaker and scenic designer.

John_George_Bartholomew

John George Bartholomew (22 March 1860 – 14 April 1920) was a British cartographer and geographer. As a holder of a royal warrant, he used the title "Cartographer to the King"; for this reason he was sometimes known by the epithet "the Prince of Cartography".Bartholomew's longest lasting legacy is arguably naming the continent of Antarctica, which until his use of the term in 1890 had been largely ignored due to its lack of resources and harsh climate.