H.G. Wells

1 portrait of H.G. Wells

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H.G. Wells

by Alvin Langdon Coburn
photogravure, 2 November 1905
8 in. x 6 1/4 in. (202 mm x 160 mm)
Purchased, 1978
Photographs Collection
NPG Ax7773

Sitterback to top

  • Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), Novelist and social commentator. Sitter associated with 95 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 114 portraits, Sitter in 2 portraits.

Linked publicationsback to top

  • Funnell, Peter (introduction); Marsh, Jan, A Guide to Victorian and Edwardian Portraits, 2011, p. 45 Read entry

    H. G. Wells (1866-1946) was a writer and social commentator and author of science-based futuristic novels, such as The Time Machine (1895) and The Shape of Things to Come (1933), which predicted air warfare and the atomic bomb. Other works include socialist pamphlets, educational tracts and loosely autobiographical novels such as The History of Mr Polly (1910). Wells spent part of his childhood at Uppark in Sussex, an eighteenth-century house (now owned by the National Trust), where his mother was the housekeeper.

Placesback to top

Events of 1905back to top

Current affairs

Following turmoil over the issue of Free Trade, Balfour resigns and calls an election, believing that the Liberals will be defeated. However, he is mistaken and Henry Campbell-Bannerman replaces him as the Liberal government Prime Minister.
The foundation of the Ulster Unionist Council, established to campaign against Home Rule, marks the birth of the Ulster Unionist party in Northern Ireland with the Duke of Abercorn as the first elected president.

Art and science

The Bloomsbury group of artists and intellectuals begin to hold informal gatherings at the home of Vanessa and Virginia Stephen. The group includes the artist Duncan Grant, biographer Lytton Strachey, and the art critics Clive Bell and Roger Fry.
The German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein has his 'annus mirabilis', publishing groundbreaking papers on the nature of light and motion, including his relation of mass and energy in the equation e = mc2.

International

Massacre of more than 100 workers at a peaceful demonstration by troops in St Petersburg becomes known as 'Bloody Sunday'. The event sparks the 1905 Revolution, with uprisings and peasant revolts in other cities, leading the Tsar to issue the October Manifesto, pledging moderate reform, including the establishment of an elected 'duma' (government), which only partially appeases imperial opposition. Still fighting Japan, the internal agitation weakens the imperial army.

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