Barry Woodside was born on 13 December 1951, the second of three children to working class Belfast parents, his father having worked all his life in the rapidly declining linen industry for which Northern Ireland was at one time famous.Educated at the local grammar school, he was the first member of...
Robert Thompson was born in Cardiff on 15 December 1943, the son of civil servants. He attended the local school, Whitchurch Grammar, where he achieved ten O-Levels and A-Levels in Latin, French and History. He enjoyed the three years of compulsory Welsh lessons and always considered himself Welsh,...
Samuel Birchall, one of five children of Caleb Birchall (1735-1805), of Rainford, Lancashire, and his wife Mary, née Stapleton (1739-1802), was born into a Quaker family in Horsehay, Shropshire, on 31 May 1761. He was a pupil of George Bewley’s school in Kendal from 1773 to about 1777....