Birthdays and Anniversaries

Birthdays

Sir Leonard Appleyard, Ambassador to China, 58; Lady Avebury, mental health planner, 62; Professor David Blake, composer and Professor of Music, York University, 60; Sir Peter Boon, former chairman, Hoover, 80; Baroness Brigstocke, former High Mistress, St Paul's Girls' School, 67; Dame Frances Campbell-Preston, Lady of the Bedchamber to the Queen Mother, 78; Professor Dame Barbara Clayton, pathologist, 74; Mr Jimmy Connors, tennis player, 44; Mr Russ Conway, pianist and entertainer, 71; Professor David Daiches, former Professor of English, 84; Sir Oliver Forster, former diplomat, 71; Mr Derek Fowlds, actor, 59; Sir Edward Goschen, Bt, former deputy chairman, Stock Exchange, 83; Mr Michael Hastings, playwright, 58; Mr Leslie Hill, chairman and chief executive, Central Television, 60; Air Marshal Sir Paul Holder, 85; Mr Percy ''Laddie'' Lucas, former MP, fighter pilot and golfer, 81; Mr Francis Matthews, actor, 65; Sir Patrick Moberly, former ambassador to South Africa, 68; Miss Patsy Rodenburg, Head of Voice at the Royal National Theatre and at the Guildhall School of Speech and Drama, 43; Sir Patrick Sheehy, former chairman, BAT Industries, 66; Mr Victor Spinetti, actor and director, 63; Mr Ronnie Stevens, actor and director, 66; General Sir John Waters, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, 61; The Right Rev David Young, Bishop of Ripon, 65.

Anniversaries

Births: John Howard, prison reformer, 1726; Peter Nikolaus Petersen, flautist and composer, 1761; Karl Friedrich August Hering, violinist and composer, 1819; Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, chemist, 1853; Frederick Soddy, chemist and physicist, 1877; Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, diplomat and author, 1887; Joseph Roth, author, 1894; Lord George-Brown, statesman, 1914. Deaths: Taddeo Zuccaro (Zucchero), painter, 1566; Giuseppe de Ribera (''Lo Spagnoletto''), painter, 1652; Thomas Telford, civil engineer, 1834; William Nicol, physicist, 1851; Johann Franz Encke, astronomer, 1865; Sir William Rowan Hamilton, astronomer, 1865; Henri Rousseau, primitive painter, 1910; Baron Pierre de Coubertin, advocate of the modern Olympic Games, 1937; Philip Tennyson Cole, portrait painter, 1939; Tancred Borenius, art historian, 1948; Sir William Alexander Craigie, lexicogapher, 1957; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, South African-born philologist and novelist, 1973; Sir Felix Aylmer (Felix Edward Aylmer-Jones), actor, 1979. On this day: Augustus Octavian defeated Antony at the Battle of Actium, 31 BC; the Great Fire of London began, 1666; the bombardment by the British of Copenhagen began, 1807; the Battle of Omdurman was won against the Mahdists by an army led by Lord Kitchener, 1898; men between the ages of 19 and 41 were conscripted in Britain under the National Service Bill, 1939; Japan surrendered to the Allies, aboard the USS Missouri, 1945; the first television station in China was opened in Peking, 1958. Today is the Feast Day of St Agricolus, St Antoninus of Pamiers, St Brocard, St Castor of Apt, St William of Roskilde and The Martyrs of September 1792.