Curated category
English people of French descent
- George OrwellGeorge Orwell did not exist on any birth certificate. The man behind the name was Eric Arthur Blair, born on the 25th of June 1903 in Motihari, in the Bengal…
- Richard III of EnglandRichard III was born on the 2nd of October 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the youngest of twelve children to survive infancy, and he died…
- Edward IIIEdward III was born at Windsor Castle on the 13th of November 1312, and a contemporary prophecy described him as "the boar that would come out of Windsor".
- John, King of EnglandJohn, King of England, was nicknamed John Lackland, or Jean sans Terre, because as the youngest son of Henry II he was not expected to inherit significant…
- Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier was born on the 22nd of May 1907 in Dorking, Surrey, the youngest child of a nomadic Church of England clergyman who never quite found…
- House of PlantagenetThe House of Plantagenet held the English throne from 1154, when Henry II acceded, until 1485, when Richard III died in battle.
- Henry Edward ManningHenry Edward Manning died on the 14th of January 1892, and when his estate was settled, it came to just £3,527. For a man who had spent decades as the most…
- Daniel DefoeDaniel Defoe died on the 24th of April 1731 in Ropemakers Alley, probably hiding from creditors, not far from where he had been born roughly seven decades…
- Joseph BazalgetteJoseph Bazalgette built something most Londoners have never seen, yet walk over every day. In the summer of 1858, the River Thames had become so foul that…
- Henry FourdrinierHenry Fourdrinier was born on the 11th of February 1766, into a family that already knew the texture of paper intimately.
- Paul DiracPaul Adrien Maurice Dirac was born on the 8th of August 1902 in Bristol, England, and died on the 20th of October 1984 in Tallahassee, Florida.
- Peter MolyneuxPeter Douglas Molyneux was born on the 5th of May 1959, and he has spent four decades doing something most game designers never attempt: building whole…
- Henry BessemerHenry Bessemer was born on the 19th of January 1813 in the village of Charlton, near Hitchin in Hertfordshire, into a family already fluent in the language…
- Harriet MartineauHarriet Martineau was born on the 12th of June 1802 in Norwich, England, the sixth of eight children in a Unitarian family of French Huguenot ancestry.
- David GarrickDavid Garrick stepped onto the stage at Goodman's Fields Theatre on the 19th of October 1741 and, within weeks, had London completely transfixed.
- Simon CallowSimon Callow was born on the 15th of June 1949 in Streatham, South London, and his path into acting began not in a classroom or a casting office, but with a…