Curated category
Members of the Order of Merit
- J. J. ThomsonJoseph John Thomson entered the world on the 18th of December 1856 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. His mother Emma Swindells came from a local textile family…
- Benjamin BrittenEdward Benjamin Britten was born in the fishing port of Lowestoft, Suffolk, on the 22nd of November 1913. His father Robert Victor Britten worked as a…
- T. S. EliotThomas Stearns Eliot was born on the 26th of September 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. He lived at a house on Locust Street for his first sixteen years before…
- Henry JamesHenry James was born at 21 Washington Place in Manhattan on the 15th of April 1843. His father Henry James Sr. inherited a fortune from his own father…
- Winston ChurchillOn the 30th of November 1874, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born at his family's ancestral home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.
- David Lloyd GeorgeOn the 17th of January 1863, a boy named David George was born in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester. His father William died of pneumonia just over a year…
- John GielgudOn the 14th of April 1904, Sir Arthur John Gielgud was born in a house on Cromwell Road in South Kensington. He entered the world as the third child of Frank…
- Thomas HardyThomas Hardy was born on the 2nd of June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, a small hamlet east of Dorchester. His father worked as a stonemason and local builder…
- Margaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Roberts was born on the 13th of October 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Her father Alfred Roberts owned a tobacconist and grocery shop that…
- Francis CrickFrancis Harry Compton Crick was born on the 8th of June 1916 in Weston Favell, a small village near the English town of Northampton.
- Edward ElgarEdward Elgar was born on the 2nd of June 1857 in Lower Broadheath, a small village near Worcester. His father William Henry Elgar worked as a piano tuner and…
- Laurence OlivierLaurence Kerr Olivier was born on the 22nd of May 1907 in Dorking, Surrey. He entered the world as the youngest child of Reverend Gerard Kerr Olivier and…
- Clement AttleeClement Richard Attlee was born on the 3rd of January 1883 in Putney, Surrey. He grew up in a two-storey villa with a large garden and tennis court.
- Paul DiracPaul Adrien Maurice Dirac was born on the 8th of August 1902 at his parents' home in Bristol, England. His father Charles Adrien Ladislas Dirac came from…
- Tom StoppardOn the 15th of March 1939, the day Nazi forces invaded Czechoslovakia, a five-year-old boy named Tomáš Sträussler fled his hometown of Zlín with his mother…
- David AttenboroughDavid Frederick Attenborough was born on the 8th of May 1926 in Isleworth, Middlesex. He grew up in College House on the campus of University College…
- Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell was born at Ravenscroft, a country house in Trellech, Monmouthshire, on the 18th of May 1872.
- Arthur EddingtonOn the 28th of December 1882, Arthur Stanley Eddington was born in Kendal, Westmorland. His parents were Quakers who valued education and quiet reflection.
- Florence NightingaleFlorence Nightingale was born on the 12th of May 1820 at the Villa Colombaia in Florence, Tuscany, and was named after the city of her birth.
- Lawrence Alma-TademaOn the 8th of January 1836, a boy named Lourens Alma Tadema was born in Dronryp. This village sat in Friesland, the northern province of the Netherlands.