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
Thomas Barker (cricketer, born 1812) Thomas Barker (cricketer, born 1812) Thomas Rawson Barker (9 April 1812 – 26 April 1873) was an English first-class cricketer, whose career spanned the 1833 to 1849 seasons. He was an amateur who appeared in only nine matches due to his business commitments. He played for Sheffield Cricket Club, whose team was sometimes called Yorkshire, and for other clubs in the county. Barker was born in Bakewell, Derbyshire. He was a right-handed batsman and a left-arm medium pace bowler using the roundarm style. He appeared in what is sometimes called the inaugural Yorkshire first-class match at the Hyde Park Ground,