Portal:United Kingdom/Did you know/October 2007

...that Mary Howitt (pictured) wrote The Spider and the Fly (the poem parodied in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) and 120 other books, and translated Hans Christian Andersen?
...that Hampshire and England cricketer Derek Shackleton took over 100 wickets in 20 consecutive seasons of first-class cricket?
...that British farmer Sir Nigel Strutt, great-nephew of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Lord Rayleigh, was offered a peerage, but, like his great-great-grandfather, Joseph Holden Strutt, declined?
...that English inventor Edward Butler produced an early three-wheeled automobile capable of travelling up to 10 mph, but was prevented from adequately testing it because it exceeded the legislated speed limit of 4 mph at the time?