- Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 - 24 January 1965) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman, orator and strategist, Churchill was also a soldier in the British Army. He has been studied to a unique extent as part of modern British and world history. - Michael Howard
Sir Michael Eliot Howard, OM, CH, CBE, MC (born 29 November 1922) is a retired British military historian, formerly Chichele Professor of the History of War and Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, and Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. Howard was educated at Wellington College and Christ Church, Oxford (with service in World War II in between). - Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC (12 June 1897 - 14 January 1977) was a British politician who was Foreign Secretary for three periods between 1935 and 1955, including World War II and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 to 1957. He is mainly remembered for his role in the Suez Crisis of 1956, which was politically disastrous from a British perspective. He is generally ranked among the least successful British Prime Ministers of the 20th century. - Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath, KG, MBE (9 July 1916 - 17 July 2005) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath's accession represented a change in the leadership of the Conservative party, from aristocratic figures such as Harold Macmillan to the self-consciously meritocratic Ted Heath, and later, Margaret Thatcher. - Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC (3 January 1883 - 8 October 1967) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1945 to 1951. The Labour Party under Attlee won a landslide election victory over Winston Churchill immediately after Churchill had led Britain through World War II. He was the first Labour Prime Minister to serve a full Parliamentary term and the first to have a majority in Parliament. - Harold MacMillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Nicknamed 'Supermac', he did not use his first name and was known as Harold Macmillan before elevation to the peerage. When asked what represented the greatest challenge for a statesman, Macmillan replied: “Events, my dear boy, events”. - Christopher Lee
Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE (born May 27, 1922) is an English actor known for his professional longevity and his distinctive "basso" delivery. Lee is also best known for his portrayals of villains; he became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films. Other notable roles include Lord Summerisle in "The Wicker Man," Francisco Scaramanga in "The Man with the Golden Gun", … - Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born 16 December 1917) is a British science-fiction author and inventor, most famous for his novel "2001: A Space Odyssey", and for collaborating with director Stanley Kubrick on the film of the same name. Clarke is the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction, which included Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. - David Niven
David Niven was an Academy Award-winning British actor. - Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July, 1895 - 7 December, 1985) was an English poet, scholar, and novelist. During his long life, he produced more than 140 works. He was the son of the Anglo-Irish writer Alfred Perceval Graves and Amalie von Ranke. The historian Leopold von Ranke was his mother's uncle. He was the brother of the author Charles Patrick Graves. Graves considered himself a poet first and foremost. - Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (October 28 1903 - April 10 1966) was a British writer, best known for such satirical and darkly humorous novels as "Decline and Fall", "Vile Bodies", "Scoop", "A Handful of Dust" and "The Loved One", as well as for more serious works, such as "Brideshead Revisited" and the "Sword of Honour" trilogy, that are influenced by his own conservative and Catholic outlook. - Alec Guinness
Sir Alec Guinness CH CBE (April 2, 1914 - August 5, 2000) was an Academy Award and Tony Award-winning English actor who became one of the most versatile and best-loved performers of his generation. - J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English philologist, writer and university professor, best known as the author of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings". He was an Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon language (Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon) from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a devout Roman Catholic. - George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser, OBE (born 2 April, 1926 in Carlisle) is a British author of both historical novels and non-fiction books. - William Robertson
Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson, 1st Baronet of Beaconsfield, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO (29 January 1860 – 12 February 1933) was a British Field Marshal who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from 1916 to 1918 during the First World War. He is not, as is often incorrectly stated, … - Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler (September 5, 1905, Budapest - March 3, 1983, London) was a Hungarian polymath who became a naturalized British subject. He wrote journalism, novels, social philosophy, and books on scientific subjects. In 1931, he joined the Communist Party of Germany, but left the party seven years later, after emigrating to the United Kingdom. By the late 1940s, he was one of the most recognized and outspoken British anti-communists, … - Roy Jenkins
Roy Harris Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Hillhead OM PC (11 November 1920 - 5 January 2003) was a British politician. Once prominent as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) and government minister in the 1960s and 1970s, he went on to be President of the European Commission (1977-81) and one of the four principal founders of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. He was also a distinguished writer, especially of biographies. - Claude Auchinleck
Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, GCB, GCIE, CSI, DSO, OBE (June 21 1884 - March 23 1981), nicknamed The Auk, was a British army commander during World War II. He was a career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, where he developed a love of the country and a lasting affinity for the soldiers he commanded. - Peter Ustinov
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov, CBE (April 16, 1921 – March 28, 2004), born Peter Alexander Baron von Ustinov, was an Academy Award-winning British-born actor, writer, dramatist and raconteur of French, Italian, German, Russian, Armenian, and Ethiopian ancestry. - John Vassall
William John Christopher Vassall was a British civil servant who, under pressure of blackmail, spied for the Soviet Union. In World War II, Vassall worked as a photographer for the Royal Air Force. After the war, he became a clerk at the Admiralty. In 1954, he was posted as Naval Attaché at the British embassy in Moscow. The year after he arrived, Vassall (who was homosexual) was encouraged by the KGB to become extremely drunk at a party, … - Hugh Dalton
Edward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton PC, generally known as Hugh Dalton (26 August 1887 - 13 February 1962) was a British Labour Party politician, and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1945 to 1947. He was implicated in a political scandal involving budget leaks. He was born in Neath in Wales: his father, Canon John Neale Dalton was chaplain to Queen Victoria and tutor to King George V of the United Kingdom. - Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, 10 June 1921) is the husband and consort of Queen Elizabeth II. Originally a Prince of Greece and Denmark, Prince Philip abandoned these titles shortly before his marriage. At the time of his engagement he was known as Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. In 1947, he married Princess Elizabeth, the heiress to King George VI. - John Dill
Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill, GCB, CMG, DSO (25 December 1881 - 4 November 1944) was a British commander in World War I and World War II who played a significant role in the formation of the "special relationship" between the United Kingdom and the United States. - William Roberts
William (Bill) Roberts (September 29 1900 - April 30 2006) was one of only a few surviving British veterans of the First World War alive at the start of 2006. As a fourteen-year-old boy Roberts was present in Hartlepool during the Imperial German Navy's bombardment. After Roberts' father was killed in the battle of the Somme in 1916, he joined the RFC. William, who worked as an aircraft fitter, claimed to have flown with T. E. Lawrence. - Henry Moore
Sir Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA, (30 July 1898 - 31 August 1986) was a British artist and sculptor. The son of a mining engineer, born in the Yorkshire town of Castleford, Moore became well known for his larger-scale abstract cast bronze and carved marble sculptures. Substantially supported by the British art establishment, Moore helped to introduce a particular form of modernism into the United Kingdom. - Gerald Templer
Field Marshal Sir Gerald Walter Robert Templer, KG, GCB, GCMG, KBE (1898 - 1979) was a British military commander. He is best known for his defeat of the guerrilla rebels in Malaya between 1952 and 1954. "The jungle has been neutralised", he declared in a Time Magazine cover article in 1952. - Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a Welsh novelist, short story author and screenwriter of Norwegian parentage, famous as a writer for both children and adults. His most popular books include "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", "James and the Giant Peach", "Matilda", "The Witches", "The BFG", and "Kiss Kiss". - Dudley Pound
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Alfred Dudley Pickman Rogers Pound GCB GCVO RN (August 29 1877 - October 21 1943) was a British naval officer who served as First Sea Lord, professional head of the Royal Navy from June 1939 to September 1943. - Airey Neave
Airey Middleton Sheffield Neave, DSO, OBE, MC, (January 23, 1916 - March 30, 1979) was a British soldier and later Conservative politician and MP for Abingdon. Neave was assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army in 1979. - Bertram Ramsay
Admiral Sir Bertram Home Ramsay, KCB KBE MVO, (January 20, 1883 - January 2, 1945) was a British admiral during World War II. He was an important contributor in the field of amphibious warfare. - Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone (13 June, 1892 - 21 July, 1967) was an English actor most famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes and of suave villains in such swashbuckler films as "The Mark of Zorro", "Captain Blood", and "The Adventures of Robin Hood". - David Stirling
Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling DSO, OBE (November 15, 1915 - November 4, 1990) was a Scottish laird, mountaineer, World War II British Army officer, and the founder of the Special Air Service. - Fitzroy MacLean
Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle MacLean of Dunconnel, 1st Baronet of Strachur and Glensluain was a Scottish diplomat, soldier, adventurer, writer and politician. In "Eastern Approaches", MacLean recounted his extraordinary adventures in Soviet Central Asia, and in the Western Desert Campaign, where he specialized in commando raids behind enemy lines. It has been speculated that Ian Fleming used Maclean as one of his inspirations for James Bond. - John Gardner
John Edmund Gardner (born November 20, 1926) is an English spy novelist. - Duncan Sandys
Duncan Edwin Sandys, Baron Duncan-Sandys, CH PC (24 January 1908 - 26 November 1987) was a British politician and a minister in successive Conservative governments. His daughter, Laura Sandys, is the conservative candidate for Thanet South. He was the son-in-law of Sir Winston Churchill. - John Masters
Lieutenant Colonel John Masters, DSO (1914-1983) was an English officer in the British Indian Army and novelist. His works are noted for their treatment of the British Empire in India. - James Marshall
James Marshall, VC, MC and bar, Croix de Guerre (Belgium), Chevalier of the Order of Leopold (Belgium) (12 June 1887- November 4 1918), was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was 31 years old, and an acting Lieutenant Colonel in the Irish Guards, British Army, attached to the Lancashire Fusiliers, … - John Maxwell
General Sir John Maxwell (d. 1929) was a British Army officer. For a time he served on the western front in the first world war until he was given command of the Army in Egypt. He is mainly known for his role in defeating the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland and in pursuing the execution of the leaders of the Rising. He was later assigned to a quiet military posting in the north of England. - Henry Allingham
Henry William Allingham (born 6 June 1896) has been the oldest surviving British veteran of the First World War since 20 July 2003 upon the death of then 108-year-old Jack Davis. He is also believed to be Britain's longest-lived member of the armed forces since George Frederick Ives died in 1993 at age 111, and Britain's oldest living man. On 13 February 2007, he became the UK's second-oldest living person, behind Florrie Baldwin, now 111, … - Edward Thomas
Corporal Edward Thomas, MM, of the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards fired the first shot of the British Army in World War I, at 7am on 22 August 1914 outside Mons. He enlisted as a drummer in the Royal Horse Artillery, but transferred to the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards before the outbreak of hostilities. He was promoted to Sergeant on 5 November 1915 and transferred to the Machine Gun Corps in 1916.
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