Place, Francis, 1771-1854 : Radical reformer.
Francis Place (1771-1854) was born on 3 November 1771. He was the son of Simon Place, a bailiff to the Marshalsea court and keeper of a 'sponging house' in Drury Lane, London. Francis Place became a maker of leather breeches, but the decay of that trade made it hard for him to obtain work. While work was scarce, he studied industriously to educate himself and became secretary to the clubs of several trades, including his own. In 1799 he and a partner opened a tailor's shop. About a year later, he opened his own tailor's shop, which prospered. The valuable library which he accumulated became the meeting place of the radical political reformers of his time, while he himself was a notable source of inspiration and support to them. He died at Hammersmith on 1 January 1854.
Stirling, Alexander Humphrys-Alexander, Earl of, 1783-1859 : Alexander Humphrys-Alexander was born 21 June 1783 at Birmingham. Between 1803 and 1814 he, with his father, was a prisoner-of-war at Verdun and in Paris. In 1812 he married Forunata Bartoletti, daughter of Giovanni Bartoletti of Naples. On 8 March 1824 he assumed by Royal license the surname of Alexander, after that of Humphrys, and thereafter styled himself Earl of Stirling. Making claim to this Earldom, he voted in the election of Scottish Peers 1825, 1830 and 1831. His claim to the title was under (an alleged) charter of Novodamus, 7 Dec 1639, whereby, failing heirs male of the body of the grantee, the peerage was to go to the eldest heir female (without division) of the last of such heirs male, and to the heirs male of the bodies of such heirs female respectively.
Humphrys-Alexander was indicted for forgery, 18 March 1839, and the charter on which he based his claim was pronounced a forgery, but that he was himself the forger was pronounced "not proven". He died, 4 May 1859, at Washington, U.S.A. "The Stirling Obsession." 18 August 1999.
