The Alice stories were originally written in 1862 for Alice Liddell, a daughter of Henry George Liddell, dean of Christ Church College, Oxford. Their appeal to children (and adults) is based upon the mixture of fantasy, realism, satire, absurdity, and logic. The names and sayings of the characters, such as the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and the White Knight, have become part of everyday speech.

The books revolutionised children's literature with a clear departure from the moralistic and instructional style of previous books. Carroll was also one of the first children's authors to write from a child's point of view.

"The Walrus and the Carpenter"

This is a scene from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. The two main characters have led trusting little Oysters on a pleasant walk along the sea. This speech by the Walrus is a prelude to announcing that the he and the Carpenter mean to eat their guests for dinner. Amid protests from the Oysters, the Walrus and the Carpenter do eat them.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing wax -
And cabbages - and kings -
And why the sea is boiling hot -
And whether pigs have wings"

St Ives

There are three towns in England called St Ives. One in Cambridgeshire, one in Dorset, and one in Cornwall. English children learn a nursery rhyme about St Ives - which is, in fact, a small riddle.

See: Cambridge Tourist Information

As I was going to St Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits,
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St Ives?

(The answer to the riddle is "one".  One person was going TO St Ives. All the rest were coming FROM St Ives.)

Sir Christopher Wren

See: Travel Tips, St Paul's

Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) was an architect, mathematician, and scientist. He is seen as one of the UK's most important and influential architects, working predominantly in the baroque style.

He was born on 20 Oct 1632 and, as an exceptional child, entered Oxford University at the age of 14. Having made a number of important mathematical advances, he became interested in astronomy and was made professor of astronomy at Gresham College in London in 1657, and Savilian professor of astronomy back at Oxford in 1660.

At the age of 29, he developed an interest in architecture, which was to become his life's principal work. In 1669, he was appointed to the post of the Surveyor of the Royal Works, a role that gave him enormous control over government buildings in the UK - his influence can still be seen today. He held the post for the next 50 years.

For many people, Wren's greatest structure is St Paul's cathedral, started in 1675 and completed 1710. His other main works are:

• Saint Mary-le-Bow Church, London
• Saint Stephen's Church, London
• Saint Clement Dane's Church, London
• Saint James' Church, London
• Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford
• Trinity College Library, Cambridge
• The facade for Hampton Court Palace
• Chelsea Hospital, London
• Greenwich Observatory, London
• Greenwich Hospital, London

Wren is also noted for his scientific achievements. He invented a weather clock, methods for etching and engraving, and injection methods important to the development of blood transfusions.

He was knighted in 1673, (given the title "Sir") and served as a Member of Parliament for many years. He died in his beloved city of London on 25 February 1723 and was buried in his finest creation, St Paul's.

Samuel Pepys

See: Regent

A brief biography of the diarist Samuel Pepys

Samuel Pepys, the famous English diarist,  was born on 23 February 1633 in Salisbury Court off Fleet Street. The Pepys family had its origins in Cambridgeshire and was well connected. Edward Montague (later Earl of Sandwich) was a relative. A cousin was a Royal Physician and there were also gentry farmers, lawyers and clergymen in the family. Pepys' immediate family, however, were of less elevated status. His father was a tailor and his mother a 'washmaid'.

In the period of the English Civil War (1640-1649) Pepys was sent to live with his uncle Thomas Pepys in Huntingdon, where he attended the local Grammar School. Pepys was back in London in 1649 when, aged 15 and a professed Republican, he witnessed the execution of Charles I at Westminster.

After completing a Degree in Latin and Greek at Magdalen College Cambridge (where he probably also learned the shorthand in which he later wrote his diary) Pepys was appointed as a personal secretary to his distant relative Edward Montague, by then an MP in Oliver Cromwell's Republican Government and a Councillor of State. In 1655 he met, fell in love with and married Elizabeth St Michel, the daughter of an impoverished French Protestant Aristocrat in exile in England. Pepys began to experience slow but steady promotion and to acquire greater professional responsibilities. In 1656 he was appointed to work with George Downing in the Exchequer. Montague himself, meanwhile, was experiencing a period of political disfavour between the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1659 and the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. Pepys, however, always remained intensely loyal to his early patron.

Pepys began his diary on January 1st 1660 and his entries for that year were full of political news, for example Pepys' own personal involvement in the expedition to Holland to fetch back Charles II from exile. By now Pepys was Secretary to an Admiral and Treasurer to the Fleet and in correspondence was referred to as 'esquire'. He was, at the age of 26, well on the way to further promotion and opportunities. It was, for example, at this time that he was first formally presented to the Royal Family at Court and Montague (now back in favour and Earl of Sandwich, Knight of the Garter and Vice Admiral of England) also rewarded Pepys' loyalty to him with further government posts and a free house to live in Seething Lane near Tower Hill. His official salary at the Navy Board was £350 per annum and this excludes a large number of separate and highly lucrative private business deals.

Pepys was seconded onto a small Admiralty committee responsible for the design, construction, repair and supply of ships and shipyards for the Royal Navy at a time of serious French and Dutch Naval threats. At this time he would often begin work at four in the morning and work until eight at night, when he would then spend the rest of the evening and the small hours out with friends enjoying himself. By 1662 his Diary reveals a highly professional, gifted and single minded government official who made a number of resolutions (which were not kept) to have fewer late nights out with his friends drinking and going to plays and parties. He had by now become a senior figure on the Navy Committee and was a self made expert on a wide range of subjects such as ship repairs, rope making, the seasoning of timber and the preservation of fruit and vegetables on long sea voyages.

The period of 1664 to 1667 was a hard one for Pepys. Still in his early thirties, and with a serious Naval War against the Dutch in progress (and going very badly), Pepys was under great pressure at the Navy Board to justify his job and the role of his committee. It was also the period of the Plague and the Great Fire of London, he lost several of his close relatives, and his marriage was under severe strain. To make matters worse, his patron Edward Montague was once more in disgrace following allegations of bribery and corruption and was packed off to Spain as Ambassador.

Throughout all these professionally and personally difficult times Pepys continued to work as hard as ever and was appointed to yet more boards and committees; many of which earned him additional undeclared incomes. Despite earlier promises in the diary in 1661 and 1662, his private social life was also escalating. There were an increasing number of secret love affairs and encounters and a great deal of carousing into the small hours with friends and business associates. Pepys had also become an enthusiastic bibliophile and Patron of the Arts. He was equally fascinated by all aspects of science and was a keen amateur experimenter. In February 1665, this enthusiasm was rewarded when he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society.

With the war against the Dutch growing more serious, Pepys at the Navy Office now revealed a great flair for accountancy. In 1669, the year in which he stopped writing his Diary (being extremely worried about his worsening eyesight), he successfully defended his own conduct and the performance of the Navy Board in a remarkable three hour speech in the House of Commons, receiving the respect due to a senior and highly regarded public servant. In the same year his wife Elizabeth died at the age of 29 after a short illness. Despite his many infidelities Pepys, himself now beginning to experience ill health, had loved her greatly. Earlier in his Diary he had commented that he was pleased that he and Elizabeth had not had any children. Now he deeply regretted it.

The major part of Pepys' professional career still lay ahead of him and his workload actually increased. In 1673 he left the Navy Board and became Chief Secretary to the Admiralty. With the post came an even larger government house, Derby House in Cannon Row south of the Strand. Between 1673 and 1678 all major naval policy decisions (and many minor ones) were made by Pepys himself. In 1673 he was elected as MP for Castle Rising in Norfolk and in 1679 as MP for the more influential seat of the naval town of Harwich. In 1679, however, Pepys was seriously implicated in the so-called 'Popish Plot', an alleged French conspiracy to assassinate the English Royal Family. He was forced to resign from all of his offices and was actually imprisoned in the Tower of London for six weeks. Pepys now added the role of Defence Lawyer to his interests and spent the time and a great deal of money preparing and then successfully defending himself in Court. He was fully exonerated and acquitted.

When released from prison he moved to number 12 Buckingham Street to live with his close friend and former secretary, Will Hewer. Pepys was in the political wilderness now, but was still frequently consulted and asked for advice. He began to spend more time developing his fast growing library and on his passion for scientific experiments. On most weekends, he would take a boat from just outside number 12 at the Watergate to visit another close friend, James Houblon, at his house at Parsons Green near Hammersmith.

In 1683 Pepys was politically rehabilitated and took part in an official expedition to Tangiers in North Africa to assist in an English military evacuation. Pepys, who had had a professional involvement in North African affairs for over twenty years, went as official observer and advisor. When he returned to England he was appointed Secretary for Admiralty Affairs; the equivalent of a modern Secretary for State. Although a tireless supporter and employee of the Stuarts and personally well known to both Charles II and James II, Pepys was never knighted. That he did not receive this honour is something of a mystery, he would most certainly have accepted it. In his later life, however, Pepys did receive other honours. He became Master of Trinity House on two occasions and Master of the Clothworkers Company, an honour which would have greatly pleased his father. In 1684 and in 1686, he was appointed President of the Royal Society.

When, in 1688, James II was forced into exile in the 'Glorious Revolution' and replaced by the Protestant Monarchs William and Mary, Pepys, a known Stuart supporter, again fell out of favour and lost his professional responsibilities. He even spent a second period in prison, two months, as a suspected Jacobite. He also failed on two occasions to be re-elected as an MP. In 1688, Pepys moved next door to 14 Buckingham Street. His career now definitively over, he once more devoted himself to his many hobbies and interests. By now Pepys was suffering from chronic ill health and was very frail. One of the last honours awarded him was that of Freeman of the City of London in 1699. In 1701 he left Buckingham Street and moved to Clapham with his devoted friend Will Hewer. After a long and painful illness, Pepys died at Clapham on 26 May 1703 aged 70.

Pepys was buried next to his wife Elizabeth at St Olave's Church in Hart Street. Among the mourners were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and representatives and dignitaries from the trade boards of the City of London, the Admiralty, the Royal Society and the University of Cambridge. Another very close friend, the diarist John Evelyn, wrote in his own diary the day that Pepys died that 'Pepys was a man unexcelled, universally beloved, hospitable, generous, learned in many things, skilled in the making of Music, a very great cherisher of learned men'.