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 Rolling Stones, and Fleetingwood Mac. Numerous musical works are set in the city. "Portsmouth Point" is an overture for orchestra by the English composer William Walton in 1925. The work was inspired by Thomas Rowlandson's etching depicting Portsmouth Point, otherwise known as "Spice Island" in Old Portsmouth. The overture was used for the BBC Proms Concert in 2007. "H.M.S. Pinafore" is a comic opera in two acts set in Portsmouth Harbour, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W.S. Gilbert. John Cranko's 1951 ballet "Pineapple Poll", which features the operetta music of "The Bumboat Woman's Story" by Gilbert and