List of people from the Isle of Wight explained

This is a list of notable people born in or strongly associated with the Isle of Wight, alphabetically within categories.

Born on the Isle of Wight

• Dr Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School and immortalised in Tom Brown's Schooldays, born in Cowes
• King Arwald, last pagan king in England and last king of the Isle of Wight, died 686
• Lee Bradbury, ex professional footballer, currently manager of Havant and Waterlooville, born in Cowes
• Danny Briggs, Hampshire and England cricketer
• Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères, born in St Helens
• Craig Douglas (Terry Perkins) pop singer, born 1941 in Newport, topped the charts in 1959 with Only Sixteen
• Arthur Percy Morris Fleming, born 1881 in Newport, electrical engineer and pioneer in the development of radio and submarine detection
• Thomas Fleming, judge and Lord Chief Justice
• Uffa Fox, yacht designer
• Vivian Fuchs, Antarctic explorer
• Marius Goring, born Newport
• Maxwell Gray (Mary Gleed Tuttiett), novelist
  • Lauran Hibberd Slacker-pop singer, born in Newport Sheila Hancock, actress, born in Blackgang
• Robert Hooke, scientist, born in Freshwater
• Jeremy Irons, actor, born in Cowes and raised in St Helens
• Phill Jupitus, comedian, born in Newport
• Mark King, born in Gurnard nr. Cowes, bass player and vocalist in pop/funk band Level 42
• Suri Krishnamma, film director and writer, born in Shanklin
• Cliff Michelmore, television presenter and producer born in Cowes
• Albert Midlane, failed ironmonger, poet and hymn-writer was born in Newport
• Anthony Minghella, film director; born in Ryde; his parents run the Minghella's Ice Cream company on the Island; his film The English Patient includes footage of Shanklin Pier; on accepting his Best Picture Oscar, he said, "This is a great day for the Isle of Wight!"
• Loretta Minghella, charity executive and solicitor
• Brian Murphy, actor, born in Ventnor
• Noel Odell, geologist and mountaineer, born in St Lawrence
• Queen Osburga, daughter of Oslac, Chief Butler of England and mother of King Alfred the Great
  • Adam Pacitti, Leader of Cultaholic, born in Ryde Arthur Cecil Pigou, economist and proponent of Pigouvian taxes, born in Ryde
• Albert Pollard, historian, born in Ryde
• Horace Rawlins, golfer, winner of the first U.S. Open in 1895
• Jake Scrimshaw, professional footballer
• Henry Sewell, first Prime Minister of New Zealand, born on the island in 1807 and lived there until emigrating to New Zealand at the age of 45
• Kelly Sotherton, heptathlete, born in Newport
• Polly Toynbee, journalist, born at Yafford^[1]
• George Westmore, founder of Hollywood's first make-up department, born 1879 in Newport. His son Bud Westmore is credited as make-up artist on over 450 movies
• Harry Frederick Whitchurch V.C., born in Sandown
• Eric Charles Twelves Wilson V.C., born in Sandown in 1912

Raised on the Isle of Wight

• E. Power Biggs, concert organist
• Frank Cadogan Cowper, artist, raised at Lisle Court, Wootton
• Uffa Fox, raised in Cowes
• William Hutt, MP and colonial administrator, educated in Ryde
• George, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
• Donna Langley, film executive and chairwoman of Universal Pictures, raised on the island.
• Fidelis Morgan, actress and writer, raised in Bonchurch
• Nicholas Dingley alias Razzle, drummer for Hanoi Rocks, raised in Binstead
• Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, raised in East Dene, Bonchurch
• Bear Grylls, climber, youngest Briton to reach the summit of Mount Everest and live; survival expert; host of Man vs. Wild

Lived on the Isle of Wight

• Sam Browne, soldier, retired to Ryde
• Master Gunner Daniel Cambridge VC (later Yeoman of the Guard), stationed at Redoubt Battery, Fort Redoubt, Freshwater Bay, until 1871 (Census)
• Julia Margaret Cameron, photographer, lived in Freshwater Bay
• Lewis Carroll, author, lived at Sandown while working on Alice in Wonderland
• Winston Churchill, visited Ventnor for extended periods throughout his life
• Helen Clare, soprano singer
• Sir Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft, spent two years in East Cowes working on his prototypes
• E. E. Cowper, novelist, lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
• Frank Cowper, yachtsman and author; designed and lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
• Charles Darwin, naturalist, lived for a period in 1867 in the Kings Head Hotel in Sandown
• Charles Dickens, author, lived in Bonchurch for 3 months in 1849
• King Charles I, held prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle for a year
• Ken Dodd, comedian, had a holiday home at Freshwater Bay
• Jack Douglas, actor from a series of Carry On films
• Trevor Duncan, composer (known for the Dr Finlay's Casebook theme), lived in Bonchurch
• King Ethelred the Unready, fled to the Isle of Wight in 1012 from the Danes under Sweyn Forkbeard
• Gertrude Fenton, novelist and editor of the Carisbrooke magazine
• Uffa Fox, yacht designer, lived in Puckaster
• David Gascoyne, 20th-century surrealist poet
• Pamela Green, infamous nude model of the 1950s and 1960s, lived in Yarmouth with the dambuster Douglas Webb, DFM
• King Harold II and his brother Tostig Godwinson, have estates at Kern and Nunwell respectively
• Jet Harris, musician with The Shadows
• Peter de Heyno, defended the Carisbrooke Castle 1377 against French–Castilian troops
• Robyn Hitchcock, musician, lived in Yarmouth from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and cited it in many of his works of the period
• John Oliver Hobbes (Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie), novelist, lived part-time in Steephill, 1900–1906
• Geoffrey Hughes, actor, lived in Newport
• Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Samuel Raymond Jarvis died at his home, Cove Cottage in Ventnor, in 1868
• Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, lived at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
• John Keats, poet, moved to the island in 1814; areas of Shanklin are named after him
• Kenneth Kendall, journalist and TV presenter, lived in Cowes where his partner owned an art gallery
• Charles Kingsley, spent childhood there
• Marek Larwood, actor and comedian
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, spent the summer in Shanklin in 1868
• Guglielmo Marconi did radio experiments in Alum Bay and Niton around 1900
• Karl Marx, lodged in Ryde in the 1870s and in Ventnor in the 1880s
• John Milne, inventor of the horizontal pendulum seismograph, retired from the Japanese Imperial College of Engineering in Shide, Isle of Wight
• David Niven, actor, lived in Bembridge as a child
• Isaac Pitman, invented a shorthand system, lived for a time in Sandown
• J.B. Priestley, author, playwright and broadcaster, lived at Brook for over a decade from 1948
• John Morgan Richards, cigarette and patent medicine entrepreneur, lived in Steephill, 1903–1918
• Legh Richmond, preacher and writer of the religious tract The Dairyman's Daughter, curate for Yaverland and Brading
• Frederick Riddle, viola player, died in Newport
• John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone, Secretary of State for War in the years leading up to the First World War; MP and Justice of the Peace for the Isle of Wight
• Michael Sheard, actor, lived in Ryde
• Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, lived in Bonchurch
• Shaw Taylor, television presenter, known for the catchphrase "keep 'em peeled", lived in Totland
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet, lived in Farringford in Freshwater Bay
• Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, rented a house in Seaview
• Edward Upward, long-lived author and part of the Auden Group in the 1930s, lived in Sandown from 1961 to 2004
• Queen Victoria, had one of her residences at Osborne House in East Cowes
• Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb, lived and worked in Cowes
• Douglas Webb, DFM air gunner with 617 Squadron on the Dambusters raid; partner of the infamous nude model Pamela Green; lived in Yarmouth

Currently resident

• Raymond Allen, television scriptwriter best known for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, born and lives in Ryde
• Keegan Brown, professional darts player
• Patrick Buckland, CEO of Stainless Games, creator of Carmageddon
• Hester Chambers, founding member of Wet Leg
• Sarah Close, singer-songwriter and YouTuber, born and lives on the island
• Melvyn Hayes, actor, lives in Ryde
• David Icke, conspiracy theorist, lives in Ryde
• Mark King, Level 42 musician
• Dame Ellen MacArthur, sailor, based in Cowes
• The Osbourne family have a holiday home in Yaverland
• Dick Taylor, founding member of The Rolling Stones and the Pretty Things
• Rhian Teasdale, founding member of Wet Leg
• Alan Titchmarsh, author and TV presenter
• M J Trow, author and teacher

Notes and References

1. Web site: Toynbee. Polly. Back on the Isle of Wight, Tory Britain rehearses its collapse. The Guardian. 7 April 2015. 7 April 2015. gu.