Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/14

vi of a person to notice in the Dictionary has been held to depend on the probability that his career would be the object of intelligent inquiry on the part of an appreciable number of persons a generation or more hence.

Owing mainly to the longer interval of time that has elapsed since the publication of the volumes of the Dictionary treating of the earlier portions of the alphabet, the supplementary names beginning with the earlier letters are exceptionally numerous. Half the supplementary names belong to the first five letters of the alphabet. The whole series of names is distributed in the three supplementary volumes thus: Volume I. Abbott—Childers; Volume II. Chippendale—Hoste; Volume III. How—Woodward.

It was originally intended that the Supplement to the Dictionary should bring the biographical record of British, Irish, and Colonial achievement to the extreme end of the nineteenth century, but the death of Queen Victoria on 22 Jan. 1901 rendered a slight modification of the plan inevitable. The Queen's death closed an important epoch in British history, and was from a national point of view a better defined historic landmark than the end of the century with which it almost synchronised. The scope of the Supplement was consequently extended so that the day of the Queen's death might become its furthest limit. Any person dying at a later date than the Queen was therefore disqualified for notice. The memoir of the Queen is from the pen of the Editor.