John Singleton Copley (1738 – 1815) was an American painter, born presumably in Boston, Massachusetts, and a son of Richard and Mary Singleton Copley, both Irish. He is famous for his portrait paintings of important figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects. His paintings were innovative in their tendency to depict artifacts relating to these individuals' lives.

Copley's mother owned a tobacco shop on Long Wharf. The parents, who according to the artist's granddaughter, Martha Babcock Amory, came to Boston in 1736, were "engaged in trade, like almost all the inhabitants of the North American colonies at that time". The father was from Limerick; the mother, of the Singletons of County Clare, a family of Lancashire origin. Letters from John Singleton, Mrs. Copley's father, are in the Copley-Pelham collection. Richard Copley, described as a tobacconist, is said by several biographers to have arrived in Boston in ill health and to have gone, about the time of John's birth, to the West Indies, where he died. William H. Whitmore gives his death as of 1748, the year of Mrs. Copley's remarriage. James Bernard Cullen says: "Richard Copley was in poor health on his arrival in America and went to the West Indies to improve his failing strength. He died there in 1737." No contemporary evidence has been located for either year.

John Daniel Singleton (born January 6, 1968) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. A native of South Los Angeles, many of his early films consider the implications of inner-city violence like the critically acclaimed and popular Boyz n the Hood, Poetic Justice, Higher Learning and Baby Boy. He branched out into mainstream territory with the blockbuster 2 Fast 2 Furious and Four Brothers.

Singleton was born in Los Angeles, the son of Sheila Ward-Johnson, a pharmaceutical company sales executive, and Danny Singleton, a real estate agent, mortgage broker, and financial planner. He attended Pasadena City College and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He graduated from USC in 1990, and is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. Singleton was enrolled in the University of Southern California's Filmic Writing program under Margaret Mehring and her now famous curriculum. The program was designed to take students directly into the Hollywood system as proficient writer/directors.

Henry Pelham (25 September 1694 – 6 March 1754) was a British Whig statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 27 August 1743 until his death in 1754. He was the younger brother of the politician the Duke of Newcastle who succeeded him as Prime Minister.

For the first year of his premiership, real power was held by the Secretary of State for the Northern Department, Lord Carteret, who headed the Carteret Ministry (Pelham was First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons). Thereafter, he shared power with his brother, the Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This period was relatively uneventful in terms of domestic affairs (Great Britain fought in several wars, however). Upon his death, his brother took full control of the ministry.

Pelham, Newcastle's younger brother, was a younger son of the 1st Baron Pelham of Laughton and his wife, the former Lady Grace Holles, daughter of Gilbert Holles, 3rd Earl of Clare and Grace Pierrepont. He was educated at Westminster School and Hart Hall, Oxford. Hertford College Oxford, the present-day incarnation of Hart Hall, still honours him in the title of its most prestigious drinking club, the Sir Henry Pelham Gentlemen's Sporting Society. As a volunteer he served in Dormer's regiment at the Battle of Preston in 1715, spent some time on the Continent, and in 1717 entered Parliament for Seaford in Sussex which he represented until 1722.

Sarah Allen is a Canadian actress. She studied acting at Canada's National Theatre School and graduated in 2002.

Allen is perhaps best known for playing vampire Rebecca Flynt on Syfy's Being Human. For the role, she watched some of the original BBC version of the series and also researched vampire mythology.

About her character Rebecca, Allen has said: "She definitely starts the series with a cross to bear.. you know, really angry and kind of "guard up", but I think she makes a real effort to try to be good. She does make an effort to be good, and she wants to be, and she fails constantly, but I think that even [her] attempts in changing Bernie, the little boy, to a vampire...[were] done with good intentions...she really wanted to care for someone.."

About Rebecca's relationship with Aidan, she has said: "She keeps on fumbling through her existence as a vampire. She keeps trying to get involved with Aidan’s life and just keeps messing up."

She also mentioned once that having to drink fake blood on Being Human was like "drinking a tube of toothpaste".

Sir William Pepperrell, 1st Baronet (27 June 1696 – 6 July 1759) was a merchant and soldier in Colonial Massachusetts. He is widely remembered for organizing, financing, and leading the 1745 expedition that captured the French garrison at Fortress Louisbourg during King George's War. During his day Pepperrell was called "the hero of Louisburg," a victory celebrated in the name of Louisburg Square in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood.

William Pepperrell was a native of Kittery, Maine, then a part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and lived there all his life. Born to William Pepperrell, an English settler of Welsh descent who began his career as a fisherman's apprentice, and Margery Bray, daughter of a well-to-do Kittery merchant, William Pepperrell studied surveying and navigation before joining his father (a shipbuilder and fishing boat owner) in business. Young William Pepperrell expanded their enterprise to become one of the most properous mercantile houses in New England with ships carrying lumber, fish and other products to the West Indies and Europe. The Pepperrells sunk their profits into land, and soon they controlled immense tracts. Pepperrell also joined the militia, becoming a captain (1717), major, lieutenant-colonel, and in 1726 colonel of militia. Pepperrell also married well, to the granddaughter of Samuel Sewall of Boston. In short, the rise of the Pepperrells within two generations was meteoric.