The Adams family are a major London crime gang specialising in drugs and extortion. The gang have a reputation for hiring Afro-Caribbeans to carry out the murder of informants and competitors. In July 1991 Frankie Fraser, former enforcer for the Richardson gang was shot at point-blank range as he left 'Turnmill's Nite Club' in Clerkenwell, London, on orders from the Adams family. The Adams family are known to regularly bribe a quantity of Metropolitan Police officers. Research Adams Family
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson was an English doctor. He was born in 1828 at Somerby, and died in 1896. He graduated in medicine at St Andrews University in 1854 and in 1855 founded the Journal of Health. He gained the Astley Cooper prize for his treatise on the cause of the Coagulation of the Blood and the Fothergillian gold medal for a disquisition on the Diseases of the Foetus in Utero. He originated the use of ether spray for the local abolition of pain in surgical operations, and introduced methylene bichloride as a general anaesthetic. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Royal Society, and was knighted in 1893. He published works on medicine and hygiene, and was an earnest sanitary and temperance reformer. Research Benjamin Richardson
Charles Richardson was an English writer. He was born in 1775 and died in 1865. He was trained as a barrister, but devoted himself to literature. In 1815 he published Illustrations of English Philology. In 1818 he undertook the lexicographical articles in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, and afterwards published his great work, A New Dictionary of the English Language. He also wrote a work on the Study of Languages in 1854, and contributed frequently to the Gentleman's and other magazines. Research Charles Richardson
Sir George Back was an English Arctic explorer. He was born in 1796 and died in 1878. He accompanied Franklin and Richardson in their northern expeditions, and in 1833-34 headed an expedition to the Arctic Ocean through the Hudson Bay Company's territory, on which occasion he wintered at the Great Slave Lake, and discovered the Back or Great Fish River. Research George Back
Heinrich Barth was a German explorer. He was born in 1821 at Hamburg 1821 and died in 1865. He graduated at the University of Berlin as Ph.D. in 1844; and set out in 1845 to explore all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. The first volume of his Wanderungen durch die Kustenlander des Mittelmeeres was published in 1849, in which year he was invited by the English government to join Dr. Overweg in accompanying Richardson's expedition to Central Africa. The expedition set out from Tripoli in February, 1850, and in spite of the death both of Richardson and Overweg, Barth did not return to Tripoli until the autumn of 1855. His explorations, which extended over an area of about 2,000,000 square miles, determined the course of the Niger and the true nature of the Sahara. The English account of it was entitled Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (published in five volumes bewteen 1857 and 1858). An important work on the African languages was left unfinished. Research Heinrich Barth
Henry Austin Dobson was an English poet. He was born in 1840 at Plymouth in 1840 and died in 1921. He was educated at Beaumaris, Coventry, and Strasburg, and in 1856 obtained a clerkship under the Board of Trade, where he rose to be one of the officials known as principals. His earliest verses first appeared in book form under the title Vignettes in Rhyme and Vers de Sociote published in 1873. His other volumes of verse include Proverbs in Porcelain (1877), Old World Idylls (1883), and At the Sign of the Lyre (1885), which the Athenaeum pronounced to be 'of its kind as nearly as possible perfect', Among his prose works may be mentioned his Lives of Hogarth, Fielding, Stede, Goldsmith, Horace Walpole, and Richardson; Thomas Bewick and his Pupils; Four Frenchwomen, a study on Charlotte Corday, the Princesse de Lamballe, and Mesdames Roland and de Genlis; three series of Eighteenth Century Vignettes; A Paladin of Philanthropy, and several editions of standard works. His collected poema were published in one volume in 1897. Many of Henry Dobson's poems are written in various French forms, such as the rondeau and ballade, and all are marked by gracefulness, ease, and careful finish. Research Henry Dobson
Henry Fielding was an English writer. He was born in 1707 at Sharpham Park near Glastonbury and died in 1754. He was educated at Eton, whence he moved to Leyden; but the straitened circumstances of his father shortened his academical studies, and the same cause, added to a dissipated disposition, turned his attention to the stage. His first dramatic piece was entitled Love in Several Masks, was produced at Drury Lane in 1728, and met with a favourable reception. The Temple Beau, The Author's Farce, The Modern Husband, Don Quixote in England, and many others quickly followed, a number of them being little more than free translations from the French. He himself became a stage-manager, and for some time conducted the Haymarket Theatre.
About 1736 or 1737 he married a Miss Craddock, a lady of some fortune, and at the same time, by the death of his mother, became possessed of a small estate in Dorsets. He immediately commenced on the life of country gentleman on a scale which, in three years, reduced him to greater poverty than ever, with a young family to support. He then, for the first time, dedicated himself to the bar as a profession, and for immediate revenue wrote on various miscellaneous subjects. The Champion, a periodical paper on the model of the Spectator, but written in a freer style, and An Essay on the Knowledge and Characters of Men, were among his writings.
In 1740 he was called to the bar, and went on circuit, but with so little success that he was compelled to return to literature. In 1712 the first of his great novels, Joseph Andrews, appeared, which he had at first conceived as a burlesque of Richardson's Pamela. It was a great sucess, and was followed by A Journey from this World to the Next, and the History of Jonathan Wild.
In 1749 he was appointed a Middlesex justice, a not very reputable office, but which Fielding's honesty and earnest discharge of his duties did something to render more respectable. In the same year his masterpiece, the satirical comedy, The History of Tom Jones, appeared, and was followed two years afterwards by Amelia. At length, however, his constitution, exhausted both by hard work and good living, gave way, and in the June of 1754 he had to seek the milder climate of Lisbon, where he died on the 8th of October of the same year. The chief merits of Henry Fielding as a novelist are wit, humour, correct delineation of character, and knowledge of the humanheart. He drew from a very varied experience of life, which he reproduced with an artistic realism entitling him to be considered, far more than Richardson, as the creator of the English novel. Research Henry Fielding
Henry H Richardson was an American architect. He was born in 1838 and died in 1886. He was the architect of Trinity Church, Boston, and many other noble structures. His architecture is noticeable for harmony and massiveness rather than for elaborate details. He was recognized as the leader of the new school of American architects. Research Henry Richardson
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