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
Ralph Richardson (politician born 1812) Ralph Richardson (politician born 1812) Dr Ralph Richardson (1812–1897/1898) was a Member of the New Zealand Legislative Council. He lived in New Zealand for less than a decade, and retired to Devon in England, and later to London. Richardson was born in Capenhurst, Cheshire, England in 1812. He was educated at Chester Grammar School, at Edinburgh University (from where he graduated MD) and Downing College, Cambridge (from where he graduated MA and became a fellow); Richardson never practised as a doctor. Aged 28, he married Marie Louise Seymour, a daughter of George Turner Seymour of Wraxall, Somerset. They emigrated to