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Burke, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Burke, Edmund, 1729–97, British political writer and statesman, b. Dublin, Ireland. Burke left, in his many and diverse writings, a monumental construction of British political thought that had fa...

Randolph, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Randolph, Edmund, 1753–1813, American statesman, b. Williamsburg, Va.; nephew of Peyton Randolph. He studied law under his father, John Randolph, a Loyalist who went to England at the outbreak of th...

Beaufort, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Beaufort, Edmund: see Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, 2d duke of. ...

Ruffin, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Ruffin, Edmund rŭfˈĭn [key], 1794–1865, American agriculturist, one of the Southern fire-eaters, b. Prince George co., Va. His interest in improving impoverished land led him to become a pioneer ...

Cartwright, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Cartwright, Edmund, 1743–1823, English inventor and clergyman. He was the inventor of an imperfect power loom that, when finally patented (1785), became the parent of the modern loom. It was the fir...

Rich, Edmund

(Encyclopedia)Rich, Edmund: see Edmund, Saint. ...

Wayland Smith

(Encyclopedia)Wayland Smith, in English folklore, a skillful blacksmith and great armor maker, whose forge was near the White Horse (Oxfordshire). He appears in the Old English Beowulf and Deor and in Sir Walter Sc...

Smith, Adam

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Adam, 1723–90, Scottish economist, educated at Glasgow and Oxford. He became professor of moral philosophy at the Univ. of Glasgow in 1752, and while teaching there wrote his Theory of Moral ...

Smith, Bessie

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Bessie, 1894–1937, American singer, b. Chattanooga, Tenn. About 1910 Smith became the protégée of Gertrude (Ma) Rainey, one of the earliest b...

Smith, Dave

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Dave, 1942–, American poet, b. Portsmouth, Va. His early poetry established him as a sensitive observer of human behavior. His verse is often rooted in his native South and has been praised f...