Portsmouth enrols 23,000 students and is ranked among the world's best modern universities. Portsmouth is also the birthplace of author Charles Dickens and engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The Romans built Portus Adurni, a fort, at nearby Portchester in the late third century. The city's Old English name "Portesmuða" is derived from "port", meaning a haven, and "muða", the mouth of a large river or estuary. The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" has a warrior called Port and his two sons killing a noble Briton in Portsmouth in 501. Winston Churchill, in his "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples", says that Port was a pirate
Portsmouth and District Magic Circle Portsmouth and District Magic Circle The Portsmouth and District Magic Circle (PDMC) is a magicians' society based in Portsmouth in the English county of Hampshire. It is one of the largest magic societies in the UK with nearly 100 members. The society was founded in 1938 at a meeting in the Talbot Hotel in Portsmouth. Amongst its founding members were the close-up magician Lewis Ganson and the master illusionist Will Ayling, author of "The Art of Illusion" and "Oriental Conjuring and Magic". Another early member was the engineer and illusionist Donald Stevenson who worked for the American magician William Ellsworth