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
HMS Childers (1812) HMS Childers (1812) HMS "Childers" was a Royal Navy 18-gun , built by Nicholas Diddams at Portsmouth Dockyard and launched in 1812. She was broken up in 1822. "Childers" was commissioned in July 1812 under Commander Buckland Bluett. When news of the outbreak of the War of 1812 reached Britain, the Royal Navy seized all American vessels then in British ports. "Childers" was among the 42 Royal Navy vessels then lying at Spithead or Portsmouth and so entitled to share in the grant for the American ships "Belleville", "Janus", "Aeos", "Ganges" and "Leonidas" seized there on 31 July 1812. Commander