Historical Figures: Letter 'B' Quiz

Answer: Robert Baden-Powell

Baden-Powell was born in 1857 and pursued a military career, including fighting in the Boer War in South Africa. In the early twentieth century, he found that a book he had written for soldiers was being used by various youth organisations too, and conceived the idea of the Boy Scouts.

He rewrote his book to aim it more at younger boys, and named it 'Scouting for Boys'. A test camp on Brownsea Island, off the southern coast of England, proved to him that youngsters responded to the challenges of an outdoor life. From these small beginnings grew a worldwide organisation. A parallel organisation for girls was set up by Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes, which is now known as The Guide Association.

Answer: Frederick Banting

Banting was a Canadian scientist who, along with the British (Scottish) John MacLeod, isolated insulin, a vital hormone created in the human pancreas. MacLeod was a lecturer at the University of Toronto when he met Banting, and they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1923 for their work. Banting shared his prize with his student Charles Best and downplayed MacLeod's role in the discovery - unfairly, it later transpired.
The work provided a breakthrough in the treatment of diabetes.

Answer: William Baffin

William Baffin was born in England around 1584 - details of his early life are lost in the mists of time and his year of birth was estimated in early encyclopaedias. His name appears in records of an expedition to Greenland in 1612, before he became the pilot on a ship called Discovery, which explored the eastern coast of what is now Canada trying to find a route from the Atlantic to the Pacific. During these expeditions, the large bay which now bears his name was discovered. Baffin Island, in the territory of Nunavut, was also named in his honour.

Answer: Frank Borman

Frank Borman was born in 1928 and was commissioned into the United States Air Force in 1950. Although Borman was not one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, he was recruited as one of the Next Nine, the second set of recruits. He made his first space flight in Gemini VII in 1965, alongside Jim Lovell with the pair spending nearly two weeks orbiting the earth.

In 1968 Borman went into space again, with Lovell and William Anders. They became the first humans to reach the moon, orbiting it ten times and taking photographs of the previously unseen far side.

Answer: Joseph Banks

Banks was born into a wealthy family (his father was a politician) in 1743. He developed an early interest in botany, even studying it at university in preference to the more usual classical education in the arts and humanities. As an adviser to King George III, he was able to encourage the monarch to authorise voyages of discovery, including a trip to Newfoundland and Labrador, where Banks documented the flora and fauna.

In 1768 he was part of James Cook's voyage on the ship Endeavour, which explored the southern regions of the world from South America, New Zealand, Australia to the tip of Africa. Banks's publications of his studies made him famous, and he became a baronet in 1781.

Answer: Karl Baedeker

Born in Essen in 1801 (now Germany but Prussia at the time), Baedeker was a member of a family of booksellers and publishers. Having seen tourists looking in his shop for information about places to visit, Baedeker spotted a gap in the market, to use modern language.

He owed a debt of gratitude, which he freely acknowledged, to the English pioneer of travel guides, John Murray, but expanded the information provided to include details on how to find places and where accommodation was available. Baedakers became a generic term for guidebooks, and are still available into the twenty-first century.

Answer: Benjamin Britten

Born in Lowestoft in 1913, Britten went on to become one of Britain's best known composers. He was the founder, along with his professional (and personal) partner singer Peter Pears and Eric Crozier, of the Aldeburgh Festival. This festival of classical music takes place annually, unless circumstances such as war or pandemics prevent it. Among Britten's compositions are the operas 'Peter Grimes' (1945) and 'Noyes Fludde' (1958).

He also wrote 'The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra' in 1945 as a way of teaching the sound of each instrument which comprises a classical orchestra. Britten also composed choral works, concertos and songs during his long career.

Answer: Edmund Barton

Born in Sydney in 1849, Barton became the first Prime Minister of the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Having previously been a British colony, the country became independent with Barton being Prime Minister from 1901 until 1903. He left politics in 1903 to become one of the judges of the High Court of Australia. Barton was knighted in 1902 to become Sir Edmund Barton, having declined previous offers of the honour three times.

Answer: Robert Browning

Born in London in 1812, Browning published his work during the reign of Queen Victoria, dying in 1889. He is remembered not just as a poet but for his elopement with Elizabeth Barratt, a fellow poet whose father had banned her (and his other children) from marrying.

Her poor health meant that they settled in Italy where Elizabeth died in 1861. Among Browning's works are 'My Last Duchess' and 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' both dating from 1842. He also wrote 'Home Thoughts, from Abroad' (1845) with its famous opening line 'Oh, to be in England; Now that April's there'.

Answer: Robert Bunsen

Robert Bunsen was a German chemist who lived from 1811 until 1899. In collaboration with Gustav Kirchhoff, Bunsen discovered both caesium and rubidium, in 1860 and 1861 respectively. Their work in the field of spectroscopy is remembered in the Bunsen-Kirchhoff Award, a prize which is given to those who make advancements in the same area. For many of us, though, the name will conjure up the Bunsen burner, that essential piece of laboratory equipment which he designed, by improving existing versions, in the 1850s.