Dictionary of National Biography

The Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes and online, with 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives.

The title page of the first volume of the Dictionary of National Biography (1885)

First series

Hoping to emulate national biographical collections published elsewhere in Europe, such as the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1875), in 1882 the publisher George Smith (1824–1901), of Smith, Elder & Co., planned a universal dictionary that would include biographical entries on individuals from world history. He approached Leslie Stephen, then editor of the Cornhill Magazine, owned by Smith, to become the editor. Stephen persuaded Smith that the work should focus only on subjects from the United Kingdom and its present and former colonies. An early working title was the Biographia Britannica, the name of an earlier eighteenth-century reference work.

The first volume of the Dictionary of National Biography appeared on 1 January 1885. In May 1891 Leslie Stephen resigned and Sidney Lee, Stephen's assistant editor from the beginning of the project, succeeded him as editor. A dedicated team of sub-editors and researchers worked under Stephen and Lee, combining a variety of talents from veteran journalists to young scholars who cut their academic teeth on dictionary articles at a time when postgraduate historical research in British universities was still in its infancy. While much of the dictionary was written in-house, the DNB also relied on external contributors, who included several respected writers and scholars of the late nineteenth century. By 1900, more than 700 individuals had contributed to the work. Successive volumes appeared quarterly with complete punctuality until midsummer 1900, when the series closed with volume 63. The year of publication, the editor and the range of names in each volume is given below.

Supplements and revisions

George Murray Smith conceived of the DNB, subsidised it, and saw it finally into print before he died in 1901.

Since the scope included only deceased figures, the DNB was soon extended by the issue of three supplementary volumes, covering subjects who had died between 1885 and 1900 or who had been overlooked in the original alphabetical sequence. The supplements brought the whole work up to the death of Queen Victoria on 22 January 1901. Corrections were added.

After issuing a volume of errata in 1904, the dictionary was reissued with minor revisions in 22 volumes in 1908 and 1909; a subtitle said that it covered British history "from the earliest times to the year 1900". In the words of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, the dictionary had "proved of inestimable service in elucidating the private annals of the British", providing not only concise lives of the notable deceased, but additionally lists of sources which were invaluable to researchers in a period when few libraries or collections of manuscripts had published catalogues or indices, and the production of indices to periodical literatures was just beginning. Throughout the twentieth century, further volumes were published for those who had died, generally on a decade-by-decade basis, beginning in 1912 with a supplement edited by Lee covering those who died between 1901 and 1911. The dictionary was transferred from its original publishers, Smith, Elder & Co., to Oxford University Press in 1917. Until 1996, Oxford University Press continued to add further supplements featuring articles on subjects who had died during the twentieth century. These include the 3rd supplement in 1927 (covering those who died between 1912 and 1921), 4th supplement in 1937 (covering those who died between 1922 and 1930), 5th supplement in 1949 (covering those who died between 1931 and 1940), 6th supplement in 1959 (covering those who died between 1941 and 1950), 7th supplement in 1971 (covering those who died between 1951 and 1960), 8th supplement in 1981 (covering those who died between 1961 and 1970), 9th supplement in 1986 (covering those who died between 1971 and 1980), 10th supplement in 1990 (covering those who died between 1981 and 1985), 11th supplement in 1993 (covering missing persons, see below), and 12th supplement in 1996 (covering those who died between 1986 and 1990).

The 63 volumes of the original DNB included 29,120 lives; the supplements published between 1912 and 1996 added about 6,000 lives of people who died in the twentieth century. In 1993, a volume containing missing biographies was published. This had an additional 1,086 lives, selected from over 100,000 suggestions.

L. G. L. Legg was editor of the DNB in the 1940s.

In 1966, the University of London published a volume of corrections, cumulated from the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research.

Concise dictionary

There were various versions of the Concise Dictionary of National Biography, which covered everyone in the main work but with much shorter articles; some were only two lines. The last edition, in three volumes, covered everyone who died before 1986.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Some volumes of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

In the early 1990s, Oxford University Press committed itself to overhauling the DNB. Work on what was known until 2001 as the New Dictionary of National Biography, or New DNB, began in 1992 under the editorship of Colin Matthew, professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Matthew decided that no subjects from the old dictionary would be excluded, however insignificant the subjects appeared to a late twentieth-century eye; that a minority of shorter articles from the original dictionary would remain in the new version in revised form, but most would be rewritten; and that room would be made for about 14,000 new subjects. Suggestions for new subjects were solicited through questionnaires placed in libraries and universities and, as the 1990s advanced, online. The suggestions were assessed by the editor, the 12 external consultant editors, and several hundred associate editors and in-house staff. Digitisation of the DNB was performed by the Alliance Photosetting Company in Pondicherry, India.

The new dictionary would cover British history, "broadly defined" (including, for example, subjects from Roman Britain, the United States of America before its independence, and from Britain's former colonies, provided they were functionally part of the Empire and not of "the indigenous culture", as stated in the Introduction), up to 31 December 2000. The research project was conceived as a collaborative one, with in-house staff co-ordinating the work of nearly 10,000 contributors internationally. It would remain selective – there would be no attempt to include all members of parliament, for example – but would seek to include significant, influential or notorious figures from the whole canvas of the life of the United Kingdom and its former colonies, overlaying the decisions of the late-nineteenth-century editors with the interests of late-twentieth-century scholarship in the hope that "the two epochs in collaboration might produce something more useful for the future than either epoch on its own", but acknowledging also that a final definitive selection is impossible to achieve.

Matthews's dedication to a digitised ODNB included what Christopher Warren calls Matthews's "data internationalism". In a 1996 essay, Matthew prophesied, "Who can doubt that in the course of the next century, as nationality in Europe gives way to European Union, so national reference works, at least in Europe, will do so also....Just as the computer is collapsing national library catalogues in a single world-wide series, so I am sure that in the course of the next fifty years we will see the gradual aggregation of our various dictionaries of national biography. We will be much blamed by our users if we do not!"

Following Matthew's death in October 1999, he was succeeded as editor by another Oxford historian, Brian Harrison, in January 2000. The new dictionary, now known as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (or ODNB), was published on 23 September 2004 in 60 volumes in print at a price of £7,500, and in an online edition for subscribers. Most UK holders of a current library card can access it online free of charge. In subsequent years, the print edition has been obtainable new for a much lower price. At publication, the 2004 edition had 50,113 biographical articles covering 54,922 lives, including entries on all subjects included in the old DNB (the old DNB entries on these subjects may be accessed separately through a link to the "DNB Archive" – many of the longer entries are still highly regarded). A small permanent staff remain in Oxford to update and extend the coverage of the online edition. Harrison was succeeded as editor by another Oxford historian, Lawrence Goldman, in October 2004. The first online update was published on 4 January 2005, including subjects who had died in 2001. A further update, including subjects from all periods, followed on 23 May 2005, and another on 6 October 2005. New subjects who died in 2002 were added to the online dictionary on 5 January 2006, with continuing releases in May and October in subsequent years following the precedent of 2005. The ODNB also includes some new biographies on people who died before the DNB was published and are not included in the original DNB, because they have become notable since the DNB was published through the work of more recent historians, for example William Eyre (fl. 1634–1675).

The online version has an advanced search facility, allowing a search for people by area of interest, religion and "Places, Dates, Life Events". This accesses an electronic index that cannot be directly viewed.

Response to the new dictionary has been for the most part positive, but in the months following publication there was occasional criticism of the dictionary in some British newspapers and periodicals for reported factual inaccuracies. However, the number of articles publicly queried in this way was small – only 23 of the 50,113 articles published in September 2004, leading to fewer than 100 substantiated factual amendments. These and other queries received since publication are being considered as part of an ongoing programme of assessing proposed corrections or additions to existing subject articles, which can, when approved, be incorporated into the online edition of the dictionary. In 2005, The American Library Association awarded the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography its prestigious Dartmouth Medal. A general review of the dictionary was published in 2007.

Sir David Cannadine took over the editorship from October 2014.

First series contents

Contents of each volume of the first series with year of publication and editor.

Volume	Names	Year published	Editor
1	Abbadie – Anne	1885	Stephen
2	Annesley – Baird
3	Baker – Beadon
4	Beal – Biber
5	Bicheno – Bottisham	1886
6	Bottomley – Browell
7	Brown – Burthogge
8	Burton – Cantwell
9	Canute – Chaloner	1887
10	Chamber – Clarkson
11	Clater – Condell
12	Conder – Craigie
13	Craik – Damer	1888
14	Damon – D'Eyncourt
15	Diamond – Drake
16	Drant – Edridge
17	Edward – Erskine	1889
18	Esdale – Finan
19	Finch – Forman
20	Forrest – Garner
21	Garnett – Gloucester	1890
22	Glover – Gravet		Stephen & Lee
23	Gray – Haighton
24	Hailes – Harriott
25	Harris – Henry I	1891
26	Henry II – Hindley
27	Hindmarsh – Hovenden		Sidney Lee
28	Howard – Inglethorpe
29	Inglish – John	1892
30	Johnes – Kenneth
31	Kennett – Lambart
32	Lambe – Leigh
33	Leighton – Lluelyn	1893
34	Llywd – MacCartney
35	MacCarwell – Maltby
36	Malthus – Mason
37	Masquerier – Millyng	1894
38	Milman – More
39	Morehead – Myles
40	Myllar – Nicholls
41	Nichols – O'Dugan	1895
42	O'Duinn – Owen
43	Owens – Passelewe
44	Paston – Percy
45	Pereira – Pockrich	1896
46	Pocock – Puckering
47	Puckle – Reidfurd
48	Reilly – Robins
49	Robinson – Russell	1897
50	Russen – Scobell
51	Scoffin – Sheares
52	Shearman – Smirke
53	Smith – Stanger	1898
54	Stanhope – Stovin
55	Stow – Taylor
56	Teach – Tollet
57	Tom – Tytler	1899
58	Ubaldini – Wakefield
59	Wakeman – Watkins
60	Watson – Whewell
61	Whichcord – Williams	1900
62	Williamson – Worden
63	Wordsworth – Zuylestein

See also

• List of contributors to the Dictionary of National Biography
• Biographical dictionary
• Oxford Biography Index
• Historiography of the United Kingdom

External links

• Oxford DNB in The Wikipedia Library

• Official website (subscription required)
• About the Oxford DNB, Oxford University Press site
• Corrections to the ODNB submitted and peer-reviewed by members of soc.medieval/Gen-Med

DNB

• Index and Epitome to the Dictionary of National Biography, 1903, Perseus Digital Library
• "National Biography" in Leslie Stephen's Studies of a Biographer, vol. 1
• Online volumes of the first and second series, selected from Internet Archive and Google Books at The Online Books Page.

The volumes of the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography in various file formats in the Internet Archive

Volume	Date	From	To	Notes
Index and Epitome	1903			The Index, with a summary for each entry.
Volume 1	1885	Abbadie	Anne
Volume 2	1885	Anneslya	Baird
Volume 3	1885	Baker	Beadon
Volume 4	1885	Beal	Biber
Volume 5	1886	Bicheno	Bottisham
Volume 6	1886	Bottomley	Browell
Volume 7	1886	Brown	Burthogge
Volume 8	1886	Burton	Cantwell
Volume 9	1887	Canute	Chaloner
Volume 10	1887	Chamber	Clarkson
Volume 11	1887	Clater	Condell
Volume 12	1887	Conder	Craigie
Volume 13	1888	Craik	Damer
Volume 14	1888	Damon	D'Eyncourt
Volume 15	1888	Diamond	Drake
Volume 16	1888	Drant	Edridge
Volume 17	1889	Edward	Erskine
Volume 18	1889	Esdaile	Finan
Volume 19	1889	Finch	Forman
Volume 20	1889	Forest	Garner
Volume 21	1890	Garnett	Gloucester
Volume 22	1890	Glover	Gravet
Volume 22 supplement	1901	Glover	Gravet
Volume 23	1890	Gray	Haighton
Volume 24	1890	Hailes	Harriott	Incorrectly labeled as Volume 25
Volume 25	1891	Harris	Henry I
Volume 26	1891	Henry II	Hindley
Volume 27	1891	Hindmarsh	Hovenden
Volume 28	1891	Howard	Inglethorp
Volume 29	1892	Inglis	John	Truncated at p. 279, at Jeffreys G.
Volume 30	1892	Johnes	Kenneth
Volume 31	1892	Kennett	Lambart
Volume 32	1892	Lambre	Leigh
Volume 33	1893	Leighton	Lluelyn
Volume 34	1893	Llwyd	MacCartney
Volume 35	1893	MacCarwell	Maltby
Volume 36	1893	Malthus	Mason
Volume 37	1894	Masquerier	Millyng
Volume 38	1894	Milman	More
Volume 39	1894	Morehead	Myles
Volume 40	1894	Myllar	Nichols
Volume 41	1895	Nichols	O'Dugan
Volume 42	1895	O'Duinn	Owen
Volume 43	1895	Owens	Passelewe
Volume 44	1895	Paston	Percy
Volume 45	1896	Pereira	Pochrich
Volume 46	1896	Pocock	Puckering
Volume 47	1896	Puckle	Reidfurd
Volume 48	1896	Reily	Robins
Volume 49	1897	Robinson	Russell
Volume 50	1897	Russen	Scobell
Volume 51	1897	Scoffin	Sheares
Volume 52	1897	Shearman	Smirke
Volume 53	1898	Smith	Stanger
Volume 54	1898	Stanhope	Stovin
Volume 55	1898	Stow	Taylor
Volume 56	1898	Teach	Tollet
Volume 57	1899	Tom	Tytler
Volume 58	1899	Ubaldini	Wakefield
Volume 59	1899	Wakeman	Watkins
Volume 60	1899	Watson	Whewell
Volume 61	1900	Whichcord	Williams
Volume 62	1900	Williamson	Worden
Volume 63	1900	Wordsworth	Zuylestein
Supplementary volumes for the first edition
Supplement Volume 1	1901	Abbott	Childers
Supplement Volume 2	1901	Chippendale	Hoste
Supplement Volume 3	1901	How	Woodward
Errata	1904
The volumes of the second edition at Google Books
Volume 1	1908	Addadie	Beadon
Volume 2	1908	Beal	Browell
Volume 3	1908	Brown	Chaloner
Volume 4	1908	Chamber	Craigie
Volume 5	1908	Craik	Drake
Volume 6	1908	Drant	Finan
Volume 7	1908	Finch	Gloucester
Volume 8	1908	Glover	Harriott
Volume 9	1908	Harris	Hoveden
Volume 10	1908	Howard	Kenneth
Volume 11	1909	Kennett	Lluelyn
Volume 12	1909	Llwyd	Mason
Volume 13	1909	Masquerier	Myles
Volume 14	1909	Myllar	Owen
Volume 15	1909	Owens	Pockrich
Volume 16	1909	Pockock	Robins
Volume 17	1909	Robinson	Sheares
Volume 18	1909	Shearman	Stovin
Volume 19	1909	Stow	Tytler
Volume 20	1909	Ubaldini	Whewell
Volume 21	1909	Whichcord	Zuylestein
Volume 22	1909
Supplementary volumes for the second edition
Second supplement Volume 1	1912	Abbey	Eyre
Second supplement Volume 2	1912	Faed	Muybridge
Second supplement Volume 3	1912	Neil	Young
Second series of supplementary volumes for the second edition
Second supplement	1927