Sometimes the name just leaps off the page, and there is a breathless moment where one asks: 'Really? Is that him/her?' Try these recent examples, both of which relate to architectural history:
TNA, SP 78/105/85 [f. 327]: Battière to Coke, 11/21 May 1638, wherein we find mention of Inigo Jones, shortly to be sent some test moulds of a bust by a Mr Borrard (who, by the by, is feeling under the weather and 'keepes his bed').
Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives, P/MUN/5/1: two meetings of the Stepney Reconstruction Group in April and May 1942 which where attended by the unforgettably named Erno Goldfinger (cue blaring James Bond theme music). The great man is recorded offering free technical advice on housing to the Group.
And always when this happens, I think: do the biographers know about this? Because they should.
