Famous writers
William Shakespeare - arguably the most famous
writer in the world.
Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne),
Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Dickens.
Famous Poets
Lord Byron, Robert Burns, and Thomas Hardy.
Famous Composers
William Byrd , Thomas Tallis , John Taverner ,
Henry Purcell , Edward Elgar, Arthur Sullivan , Ralph Vaughan Williams, and
Benjamin Britten.
The Greatest Britons of all
Time
chosen by the people of Britain.
In November 2002, the British public voted to
find the Greatest Briton of all time. Over a million people voted.
NB. The list contains a few non British entrants
includinding two Irish nationals (Bono and Bob Geldof) and Freddie Mercury, who
was born in Zanzibar to Indian Parsi parents.
1.
Sir Winston Churchill 
Winston Churchill was a politician, a soldier, an artist, and the 20th
century's most famous and celebrated Prime Minister.
2.
Diana, Princess of Wales 
From the time of her marriage to the Prince of Wales in 1981 until her death in
a car accident in Paris in 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales was one of the
world's most high-profile, most photographed, and most iconic celebrities.
3.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin was a British naturalist of the nineteenth century. He and
others developed the theory of evolution. This theory forms the basis for the
modern life sciences. Darwin's most famous books are 'The Origin of Species'
and 'The Descent of Man'.
4.
William Shakespeare 
William Shakespeare was a playwright and poet whose body of works is considered
the greatest in English literature. He wrote dozens of plays which continue to
dominate world theater 400 years later.
5.
Sir Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton was a mathematician and scientist who invented differential
calculus and formulated the theory of universal gravitation, a theory about the
nature of light, and three laws of motion.
6. Queen Elizabeth I
The daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Queen Elizabeth 1 reigned
England from 1558–1603. Her reign was marked by several plots to overthrow her,
the execution of Mary Queen of Scots (1587), the defeat of the Spanish Armada
(1588), and domestic prosperity and literary achievement.
7. John Lennon
John Lennon was a musician and composer who was a member of the Beatles, the
biggest rock band of the 1960s.
8.
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Nelson is the greatest hero in British naval history, an honour he earned by
defeating Napoleon's fleet in the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar.
9.
Captain James Cook
James Cook was an explorer of the eighteenth century, known for his voyages to
the Pacific Ocean. Cook visited New Zealand, established the first European
colony in Australia, and was the first European to visit Hawaii. He also
approached Antarctica and explored much of the western coast of North America.
10. Margaret Thatcher, Baroness
Thatcher 
Margaret Thatcher was the United Kingdom's first woman prime minister, and she
held the office of PM for longer than anyone in the 20th century.
11. Queen Victoria
Victoria's nearly 64-year reign was the longest in British history.
12. Sir Paul McCartney 
McCartney was a singer, songwriter and guitarist for The Beatles, the biggest
rock band of the 1960s.
13. Sir Alexander Fleming
British bacteriologist who discovered penicillin in 1928, for which he shared a
Nobel Prize in 1945.
14. Michael Faraday
British physicist and chemist who discovered electromagnetic induction (1831)
and proposed the field theory later developed by Maxwell and Einstein.
15. Queen Elizabeth II 
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (Elizabeth
Alexandra Mary), is the Queen regnant and Head of State of the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and fifteen other Commonwealth countries.
16. David Bowie
David Bowie, is a British rock and roll musician, actor, and artist who has had
a profound influence on rock and roll from the 1960s to the present.
17. Guy Fawkes
English conspirator who was executed for his role in a plot to blow up King
James I and the Houses of Parliament (1570-1606)
18. David Beckham 
Beckham is a leading English footballer and a former star of the legendary team
Manchester United.
19. Sir Thomas More
English politician, humanist scholar, and writer who refused to comply with the
Act of Supremacy, by which English subjects were enjoined to recognize Henry
VIII's authority over the pope, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London and
beheaded for treason.
20.Charles
Dickens - writer 
Charles Dickens wrote some of the most popular and widely read novels of the
19th century, from Oliver Twist to A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectation