List of alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
The following is a list of notable people educated at St John's College, Cambridge. When available, years of attendance are provided as indicated in the College Register or in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Over 1000 former members of St John's College appear in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.[1]
Politics and the Civil Service
Lord Palmerston
- Roger Ascham, tutor of Elizabeth I and advisor to Edward VI and Mary I
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, Lord High Treasurer, 1572–98, and chief advisor to Elizabeth I
- Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Lord High Treasurer, 1608–12, and spymaster for James I
- Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, parliamentary general and commander-in-chief in the English Civil War
- Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, Lord Deputy of Ireland and leading advisor to Charles I
- William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, general and major supporter of Charles I in the English Civil War
- Thomas Clarkson, abolitionist and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire
- Dudley Ryder, 1st Earl of Harrowby, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1804-5
- William Wilberforce, Member of Parliament and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade
- Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1812–22
- George Villiers, 4th Earl of Clarendon, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1853-8
- Suematsu Kenchō, historian and Japanese Minister of Home Affairs, 1900-1
- Nigel Dodds, Democratic Unionist Party MP, MLA
- Sarah Teather, MP for Brent East, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesman
- Andrew Duff, Liberal Democrat former MEP
- P. J. Grigg, Secretary of State for War during World War II
- Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 2nd Earl of Minto, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1835–1841
- Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, First Lord of the Admiralty, 1852
- Thomas Thynne, 1st Marquess of Bath, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, 1868–70 & 1875–79
- Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch, Lord Privy Seal, 1842-46
- Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan, President of the All-India Muslim League, 1930–47
- Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, 1842-44
- Matthew Festing, Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, 2008-
Prime Ministers
- F. J. Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1827–28
- George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1852–55
- Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1855–58 & 1859–65
- Alfred Domett, Prime Minister of New Zealand, 1862–63
- Sir Francis Bell, Prime Minister of New Zealand, 1925
- Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, 2004-2014
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Lord Burghley
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Lord Castlereagh
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Justice
- Wee Chong Jin, Chief Justice of Singapore, 1963–90
- Glanville Williams, Q.C. LL.D. F.B.A. described in 1997 by the New York Times, as the greatest lawyer of the 20th century
- Walter Woon, former Nominated Member of Parliament, Solicitor-General and Attorney-General of Singapore
- Thomas Denman, 1st Baron Denman, Lord Chief Justice of England, 1832–1850
- John Williams, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, 1621–1625, Bishop of Lincoln 1621-41, and Archbishop of York, 1641–1650
Science, mathematics, and technology
William Gilbert, regarded by many as the father of electrical engineering or electricity and magnetism
- John Couch Adams, mathematician and discoverer of Neptune
- Bernard Armitage, fellow of the College and psychiatrist
- George Barnard, statistician known for his work on the foundations of statistics
- Sir David Cox, prominent statistician
- Sir Samuel Curran, physicist, inventor of the scintillation counter and proportional counter, and founder of Strathclyde University
- John Dee, mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I
- Fearon Fallows, astronomer
- Thomas Fink, physicist and author
- Johannes de Villiers Graaff, economist
- William Gilbert, physician and natural philosopher, discoverer of the Earth's magnetic field and inventor of the word 'electricity'
- William Gregor, discoverer of titanium
- Andrew D. Hamilton, Professor of Chemistry, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford
- William D. Hamilton, evolutionary biologist who formalised the concept of Kin selection
- David Harvey, Marxist geographer, social scientist
- William Heberden, British physician, who gave the first clinical description (1768) of angina pectoris and demonstrated that chicken pox was different from smallpox
- John Herschel, mathematician and astronomer
- W. E. Hick, pioneer of cognitive science and discoverer of Hick's law
- Robert Hinde, Professor of Zoology, and former Master of St. John's
- Frank Horton FRS Professor of Physics at Royal Holloway College and Vice-Chancellor of the University of London 1939–45
- Sir Fred Hoyle, pioneering but controversial cosmologist who first used the term 'Big Bang'
- James Jago, scientist and physician
- Sir Harold Jeffreys, applied mathematician and geophysicist
- Joseph Larmor, mathematician and physicist
- Louis Leakey, archaeologist and naturalist credited with the discovery of Homo habilis
- John Marrack, immunologist
- Alfred Marshall, economist
- Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, inventor of the steam turbine
- Sir Roger Penrose, mathematical physicist and philosopher
- Cedric Price, architect
- Vikram Sarabhai, father of the Indian space programme
- David Stoddart OBE, biogeographer
- James Joseph Sylvester, mathematician
- Brook Taylor, mathematician
- Sir Maurice Wilkes, one of the founding fathers of modern computer science, and inventor of the first stored program digital computer
- John Tuzo Wilson, geophysicist and geologist who achieved worldwide acclaim for his contributions to the theory of plate tectonics
Nobel Prize Winners
- Sir Edward Appleton, winner of the Nobel prize for Physics, for discovering the Appleton layer
- Sir John Cockcroft KCB, Nobel prize-winning physicist, who first split the atom
- Allan Cormack, Nobel laureate in Medicine or Physiology for the invention of the CAT scan
- Paul Dirac, Nobel laureate in Physics and one of the founders of Quantum Mechanics
- Sir Nevill Francis Mott, awarded Nobel prize for Physics for work on the behaviour of electrons in magnetic solids
- Abdus Salam, Nobel laureate in Physics, for unifying the electromagnetic force and the weak force
- Frederick Sanger, molecular biologist and one of only four double Nobel Prize winners
- Maurice Wilkins, awarded Nobel prize for Medicine or Physiology with Watson and Crick for discovering the structure of DNA
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Paul Dirac, the discoverer of antimatter, attended St John's College from 1923, winning the Nobel prize for Physics in 1933
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Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics for splitting the atom
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Sir Charles Algernon Parsons, inventor of the steam turbine
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Frederick Sanger, the fourth person to win two Nobel Prizes
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John Dee, consultant to Queen Elizabeth, attended St John's College
Arts and Literature
- Douglas Adams, author
- John Andrews, crime and antiques writer
- William Barnes, poet
- Sir Cecil Beaton, photographer
- Patrick Brontë, father of the Brontë sisters
- Samuel Butler, author
- Jez Butterworth, playwright
- Louis Cha, famous Chinese novelist and newspaper editor
- Jennifer Egan, 2011 Pulitzer Prize
- Colin Gardner, film and media studies theorist, Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara
- Robert Greene, arguably the first professional English author of plays, poems and novels
- Robert Herrick, poet
- Thomas Nashe, pamphleteer, satirist & playwright
- Frederic Raphael, screenwriter, novelist and journalist
- Tom Rob Smith, award nominee author of Soviet-era novels; erstwhile writer for Channel 5's defunct soap opera Family Affairs
- Paul Sussman, author, archaeologist and journalist
- William Wordsworth, poet
- Sir Thomas Wyatt 1503–1542, courtier and poet
Musicians
- William Sterndale Bennett, 19th century composer
- Geoffrey Paterson, conductor (college organist)
- Herbert Howells, English composer (college organist)
- John Scott, LVO, English organist, organ scholar 1974–78, organist of St Paul's 1990–2004
- George Guest, Welsh choral conductor, college organist 1951–1991
- Andrew Carwood, Director of Music St Paul's Cathedral (2007), tenor and conductor
- Andrew Gant, chorister and composer
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William Barnes attended St John's College from 1838
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Samuel Butler attended St John's College from 1854
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Jennifer Egan attended St John's College from 1985
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William Sterndale Bennett attended St John's College from 1856
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William Wordsworth attended St John's College from 1787
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Cecil Beaton attended St John's College
Religion
- Thomas Gilbank Ackland, clergyman and domestic chaplain to the Duke of York
- Peter Carnley, Archbishop of Perth 1981–2005, Primate of Australia 2000–2005
- Frederick Donald Coggan, Baron Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury 1974–1980
- W. Owen Chadwick, church historian
- D'Ewes Coke, clergyman and colliery master
- Saint John Fisher, martyr (Fellow and Founder)
- Saint Richard Gwyn, martyr
- Edmund Hickeringill, churchman
- William Higton, clergyman and philanthropist
- Saint Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel
- William Jowett, missionary
- Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia
- William Cassels, missionary and member of the Cambridge Seven
- William Morgan, Bishop of Llandaff and Bishop of St Asaph and Welsh Bible translator
- Edmund Prys, Welsh Bible translator and clergyman
- Andrew Sach, Minister at St Helen's Bishopsgate and author
- Edward Stillingfleet, British theologian and scholar
- John Thomlinson, clergyman and diarist
- Richard Vaughan, Bishop of Bangor 1595-97, Bishop of Chester 1597-1604, Bishop of London 1604-07
- Verne Timms, Vicar of Greendale Church 1963–98
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Saint John Fisher
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Saint Richard Gwyn
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Saint Philip Howard
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Academics
- Stephen Sykes, theologian, former Dean of St John's and Bishop of Ely, and principal of St John's College, Durham
- Kikuchi Dairoku, President of Tokyo Imperial University and Japanese Minister of Education, 1901-3
- Frank Thistlethwaite, Vice-Chancellor of the University of East Anglia (1961–1980)
- Edward Latymer, founder of Latymer Upper School and The Latymer School
- Thomas Sutton, founder of Charterhouse School and one of 16th century England's wealthiest individuals
- Sir Donald MacAlister, 1st Baronet, physician and chancellor of the University of Glasgow
- Sir Harry Hinsley, historian and World War II codebreaker
- Peter Hennessy English historian of government
- Tshilidzi Marwala, academic and businessman
- E. J. Rapson, numismatist and professor of Sanskrit (1906-36) at the University of Cambridge
- John Stevens Henslow English clergyman, botanist and geologist
- William George Constable, art historian
- Sir Peter Noble, Principal of King's College London 1952–1968
- Charles Sydney Gibbes, English tutor of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia
Other
- Rob Andrew, England rugby footballer
- Phil Horrocks-Taylor, England rugby footballer
- Jamie Bamber, actor
- Chris Brasher, Olympic gold medallist runner, founder of the London Marathon
- Mike Brearley, cricketer, England Captain
- Logie Bruce Lockhart, Scotland rugby footballer
- Paul Dempsey (presenter), TV Presenter
- Hugh Dennis, Actor/ Comedian
- Andrew Gilligan, controversial journalist
- Sir Derek Jacobi, actor
- G. R. S. Mead, academic
- Jonathan Miller, physician, theatre and opera director and television presenter
- Sid Waddell, darts commentator
Business
- John Browne, Baron Browne of Madingley, FRS; former chief executive of BP
- Damon Buffini, former head of private equity firm Permira
- Mark Coombs, billionaire and CEO, Ashmore Group[2]
- Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, ninth richest man in the world upon his death in 2006
References
- ↑ http://www.oxforddnb.com/search/quick/?quicksearch=quicksearch&docPos=1&searchTarget=fulltext&simpleName=St+John's+College,+Cambridge&imageField.x=13&imageField.y=4&imageField=Go
- ↑ Burgess, Kate (27 February 2007). "Ashmore’s reluctant debutante". FT. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
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