of a person to notice in the Dictionary has been held to depend on the probability that his career would be the object of intelligent inquiry on the part of an appreciable number of persons a generation or more hence.
Owing mainly to the longer interval of time that has elapsed since the publication of the volumes of the Dictionary treating of the earlier portions of the alphabet, the supplementary names beginning with the earlier letters are exceptionally numerous. Half the supplementary names belong to the first five letters of the alphabet. The whole series of names is distributed in the three supplementary volumes thus: Volume I. Abbott—Childers; Volume II. Chippendale—Hoste; Volume III. How—Woodward.
It was originally intended that the Supplement to the Dictionary should bring the biographical record of British, Irish, and Colonial achievement to the extreme end of the nineteenth century, but the death of Queen Victoria on 22 Jan. 1901 rendered a slight modification of the plan inevitable. The Queen's death closed an important epoch in British history, and was from a national point of view a better defined historic landmark than the end of the century with which it almost synchronised. The scope of the Supplement was consequently extended so that the day of the Queen's death might become its furthest limit. Any person dying at a later date than the Queen was therefore disqualified for notice.[1] The memoir of the Queen is from the pen of the Editor.
- ↑ During the six months succeeding Queen Victoria's demise, 22 Jan. to 29 July 1901, death qualified the following thirty-eight persons for notice by the national biographer of the future. In each case the date of the close of life falls outside the limit assigned to the present Supplement, and the names are necessarily excluded from it. The list roughly indicates the rate at which material for national biography accumulates in the present era. The day of death is appended to each name.
Arthur, William (Wesleyan divine), 9 March.
Besant, Sir Walter (novelist), 9 June.
Bowen, Edward Ernest (master at Harrow and song-writer), 8 April.
Bright, William (ecclesiastical historian), 6 March.
Browne, Sir Samuel, V.C. (general), 14 March.
Buchanan, Robert (poet and novelist), 10 June.
Cates, Arthur (architect), 15 May.
Commerell, Sir John Edmund (admiral), 21 May.
Dawson, George Mercer (Canadian geologist), 2 March.
Dickson, William Purdie (professor of divinity at Glasgow and translator of Mommsen), 10 March.
