The latest update of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was published last week and adds biographies of 226 men and women who left their mark on the UK and who died in the year 2015.
Prominent figures in the new edition include politicians Denis Healey (1917-2015), Geoffrey Howe 1926-2015) and Charles Kennedy (1959-2015), singers Cilla Black (1943-2015) and Val Doonican (1927-2015), and writers Sir Terry Pratchett (1948-2015), Ruth Rendell (1930-2015) and Brian Friel (1929-2015).
Charles Kennedy (1959-2015), the Inverness-born leader of the Liberal Democrats, galvanised the opposition to the Iraq war in 2003 and in 2005 led his party in winning 62 seats – the greatest number for a centre party since the Liberals in 1923.