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 is the Portsmouth Grammar School, which has been rated as one of the best private schools in the country. The Portsmouth High School, a member of the Girls Day School Trust, was ranked one of the top private schools for girls in the UK by A-level results in 2013. Other independent schools in the city include Mayville High School, founded in 1897, and St John's College, an independent Catholic boarding school. Many of the city's former defences are now museums, or venues for hosting events. Several of the Victorian era forts on Portsdown Hill are now tourist attractions: Fort Nelson,