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 Street Tramways Company Orders of 1876, 1877, 1879, 1881, 1883, 1887, and 1896. In 1878 two rival companies, the Landport and Southsea Tramways Company and the General Tramways Company of Portsmouth were purchased. this allowed the Portsmouth Street Tramways Company to become the dominant tram operator in Portsmouth. In 1883 the three tramway companies in Portsmouth together with the Gosport Street Tramways Company were all amalgamated into the Portsmouth Street Tramways Company. This resulted in the Portsmouth Street Tramways Company becoming the dominant tram operator in Portsmouth during the next 17 years. Route extensions continued and in 1881 a new tramway was opened