Frederic Boase

Born in Penzance, Cornwall, in 1843, he was educated at schools in Penzance and Bromsgrove. Although he trained in law and was admitted as a solicitor, he did not stay with legal practice for long.

Instead, he moved into library work and in 1877 became librarian to the Incorporated Law Society, a post he held until retiring in 1903. That background in legal and library research helped shape the methodical style that defined his later writing.

He is remembered above all for Modern English Biography, published in multiple volumes between 1892 and 1901 and later expanded with supplements. The work eventually grew to around 30,000 biographies of people who died in the second half of the nineteenth century, making it an enduring resource for readers, researchers, and historians.