British Heritage

Science

Stephen Hawking - Cosmologist

Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who, at the time of his death, was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by...

Isaac Newton - Classical Mechanics

Sir Isaac Newton PRS (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27[a]) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher") widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists of all time and among the most influential scientists. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus.

Francis Bacon - 1600's Father of Science

Sir Francis Bacon was the father of empiricism and the scientific method. An English philosopher and statesman in the reign of Elizabeth 1st, he developing the scientific method through his impressive and prolific body of works. The former child prodigy achieved distinction as an MP, a liberal lawyer, patron of libraries, and after Elizabeth's death in 1603, and under James 1st he eventually served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England in 1618, before his fall from grace in 1621.

Charles Darwin - Evolutionary Biologist

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to evolutionary biology and his "Origin of the Species". His proposition that all species of life have descended from common ancestors is now widely accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science.

Alan Turing - Father of Artificial Intelligence

Turing's most notable work today is as a computer scientist. In 1936, he developed the idea for the Universal Turing Machine, the basis for the first computer. And he developed a test for artificial intelligence in 1950, which is still used today. But he also studied physics, especially as a young man.

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Music

Music - Singers, Soloists Music Groups Classical and Opera Classical Music Composers

The Beatles 1960-1969 - britishheritage.org

The Beatles 1960-1969

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. With a line-up comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they are regarded as the most influential band of all time. They were integral to the development of 1960s counter-culture and popular music'...

Queen 1970-

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Their classic line-up was the late and great Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals) and John Deacon (bass). Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock.

Pink Floyd 1964-2005

Pink Floyd were an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic groups, they were distinguished for their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philosophical lyrics and elaborate live shows. They became a leading band of the progressive rock genre, cited by some as the greatest progressive rock band of all time. After a hiatus of 24 years, Waters, Gilmour, Mason and Wright performed together as Pink Floyd at Live 8 in Hyde Park, London on 2 July 2005, their last concert ever.

Elton John 1947-

Sir Elton Hercules John CH CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is an English singer, pianist and composer, with a career spanning six decades. Collaborating with lyricist Bernie Taupin since 1967 on more than 30 albums, John has sold over 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998; in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron gave him France's highest civilian award, the Legion d'Honneur, for his "melodic genius" and his work on behalf of the LGBT community.

John Lennon 1940-1980

John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as the founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon was characterised by the rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, writing and drawings, on film, and in interviews. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.

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Musicals

The Phantom of the Opera - britishheritage.org

The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera (1986) is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (who co-wrote the libretto alongside Richard Stilgoe) and lyrics by Charles Hart. It is based on the 1910 eponymous French novel by Gaston Leroux. It is the second longest-running West End musical, after Les Misérable...

Cats

Cats is a sung-through musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on the 1939 poetry collection Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. It tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make the "Jellicle choice" by deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside layer and come back to a new life. As of 2022, Cats remains the fourth-longest-running Broadway show and the sixth-longest-running West End show.

Evita

Evita has music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice. It concentrates on the life of Argentine political leader Eva Perón, the second wife of Argentine president Juan Perón. The story follows Evita's early life, rise to power, charity work, and death. Evita began as a 1976 concept for a rock opera album, which led to productions in London's West End in 1978, and on Broadway a year later, winning Best Musical awards in both countries.

Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins is a musical with music and lyrics by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman (the Sherman Brothers) , and a script by Julian Fellowes. The action centres around the arrival of the new nanny Mary Poppins to bring order and chaos to a malfunctioning family in Edwardian London, using her considerable charm, muted magic, and a spoonful of sugar. The musical is based on the similarly titled Mary Poppins children's books by P. L. Travers and the classic 1964 Disney film.

My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion, with lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. Despite his cynical nature, Higgins falls in love with her. The 1956 Broadway production was a huge success, winning six Tony Awards, including Best Musical and was followed by a hit London production. The film version was also a critical and box-office success, and won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Rex Harrison, and Best Director for George Cukor.

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Inventors and Inventions

Tim Berners-Lee - The World Wide Web - britishheritage.org

Tim Berners-Lee - The World Wide Web

The Oxford University graduate is credited with coming up with the notion of the World Wide Web - "a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information". It's largely thanks to Tim that we have protocols like http:// and, of course, all that wonderfully useful content from Fa...

John Logie Baird - Thе Television

Thе Idiot's Lantern іѕ асtuаllу а British invention dreamed uр bу Scotsman, John Logie Baird, іn February 1924. Thе fіrѕt public demonstration of hіѕ semi-mechanical televisor wаѕ held аt Selfridges а year later, but іt wasn't untіl 1928 thаt Baird showed оff а proper working version. The same year, Baird also began experimenting with colour TV and in 1932 made the first TV broadcast between London and Glasgow.

Jony Ive - The British designer who made Apple cool again

One man is more responsible than any other for the way our listening habits changed in the past decade. The Briton who designed the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Sir Jonathan Ive (born 27 February 1967) is a British-American industrial and product designer. Ive was Chief Design Officer (CDO) of Apple Inc., and serves as Chancellor of the Royal College of Art.

Stephenson's Rocket - The Railway Train

Arguably as British as tea, cricket and binge drinking, the first steam trains appeared in the early 19th Century, but it wasn't until George Stephenson's Rocket arrived in 1829 that the age of the train truly arrived. Evolutionary rather than revolutionary, the Rocket took various experimental pieces of train technology - the multi-tube boiler, the blast pipe and angled cylinders - and stuck them in a design that really worked. The Rocket won its place in British history by becoming the only steam train to complete a 50-mile round trip as part of the Rainhill trials.

Dr. Alexander Fleming - Nobel Prize for Penicillin

Sir Alexander Fleming (1881 – 1955) was a Scottish physician and microbiologist, best known for discovering the world's first broadly effective antibiotic substance, which he named penicillin. His discovery in 1928 of what was later named benzylpenicillin (or penicillin G) from the mould Penicillium rubens is described as the "single greatest victory ever achieved over disease." For this discovery, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1945 with Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain.

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Philosophers

Francis Bacon - 1600's Father of Science

John Locke - The "Father of Liberalism" c.1700

John Locke (1632–1704) was an English philosopher and physician, one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Also one of the first of British empiricists, following Sir Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory, and the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Internationally, Locke’s political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law.

David Hume - Scottish Enlightenment Empiricist 1740s

David Hume (1711–1776) was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian and essayist, best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, skepticism, and naturalism. He strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature, arguing against the existence of innate ideas, positing that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. He attended the University of Edinburgh at the age of 12, but had little respect for the professors, telling a friend in 1735 that "there is nothing to be learnt from a Professor, which is not to be met with in Books". He did not graduate.

John Stuart Mill - Classic Liberalist of the Nineteenth Century

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to social theory, political theory, and political economy. Dubbed "the most influential English-speaking philosopher of the nineteenth century", he conceived of liberty as justifying the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state and social control. He was the second MP to call for women's suffrage after Henry Hunt in 1832.

Karl Marx - Critic of the System, 1800s

Karl Marx (1818–1883) was a German-born philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. When Marx became stateless due to his political publications, he lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thoughts and publish his writings in collaboration with Friedrich Engels, researching in the British Museum Reading Room. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought has had enormous influence on intellectual, economic, and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun, a school of social theory, as a compliment and as an insult.

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Economists

Adam Smith - The Father of Economics, 1700s

Adam Smith was an 18th-century economist, philosopher, and author who is considered the father of modern economics. Smith is most famous for his 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations. He is also known for creating the concept of gross domestic product (GDP), for his theory of compensating wage differe...

John Stuart Mill - Classic Liberalist of the Nineteenth Century

John Hicks - Value and Capital, 1939

Sir John Hicks (1904 – 1989) was a British economist, one of the most important and influential of the Twentieth Century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economics were his statement of consumer demand theory in microeconomics, and the IS–LM model (1937) which was a Keynesian interpretation of macroeconomics as a balance between three commodities: money, consumption and investment. For his pioneering contributions to general equilibrium theory and welfare theory in "Value and Capital" (1939) and later works, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972, and the compensated demand function was named the Hicksian function in his memory.

Karl Marx - Critic of the System, 1800s

Thomas Mun "Export more than you Import" 1620

Sir Thomas Mun (1571–1641) was an English writer on economics, often referred to as "the last of the early mercantilists". Mun took on a prominent role during the economic depression of 1620, most notably serving as director of the East India Company. To grow the Company and regain England's economic stability, he published A Discourse of Trade from England unto the East-Indies. In it he proposed a set of mercantilist "means to enrich a kingdom" which centred on ensuring that exports exceeded imports. In other words, Mun advocated for a positive balance of trade, so England's wealth steadily increased. He is widely considered to be a sophisticated thinker and a hugely important part of the history of economic theory.

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Film, TV, Theatre - Actors and Originators

Actors Directors Producers Theatre Writers

Sean Connery - The Best Bond Ever - britishheritage.org

Sean Connery - The Best Bond Ever

Sir Sean Connery (1930–2020) was a Scottish actor who played the leading man in blockbuster films for 40 years. He was the first actor to portray British secret agent James Bond, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. He is regarded by many die-hard fans as "The Best Bond Ever" His ...

Sir John Gielgud - "the best Hamlet of our time"

Sir John Gielgud (1904–2000) was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. With Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, he was one of the three great theatrical knights who dominated the British stage in the 20th century. He was famous for his mastery of Shakespearean verse, and for the mellifluous magic of his voice, described by Sir Alec Guinness as a "silver trumpet muffled in silk". He broadcast more than a hundred radio and television dramas and appeared in more than sixty films, though he did not begin a regular film career until his sixties. As the acid-tongued Hobson in Arthur (1981) he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Gielgud had the rare distinction of winning an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. Among his honours, he was knighted in 1953, and the Gielgud Theatre was named after him. From 1977 to 1989, he was president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Alfred Hitchcock - The Master of Suspense

Sir Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) was an English filmmaker and one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", he became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles, and his hosting the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director despite five nominations.

Stephen Fry - The Oscar Wilde Of Our Time

Stephen Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984) again alongside Lawrie, and in Blackadder (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. His acting roles include playing his idol Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde (1997). One would hope the casting director received no fees for assigning Fry to the lead role: there is no one since Wilde who could have played him so well.

Laurence Olivier - The Leading King Lear

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (1907–1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in cinema, making more than fifty films, and late in his career had considerable success in television roles. His honours included a knighthood (1947), a life peerage (1970) and the Order of Merit (1981). For his on-screen work he received four Oscars, two BAFTAs, five Emmys , and three Golden Globes. Macbeth, Antony, Hamlet, Henry V, Richard III, King Lear: he was simply Shakespearean Royalty.

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Literature

George Orwell - In 1949 he wrote "1984" - britishheritage.org

George Orwell - In 1949 he wrote "1984"

Under his pen name "George Orwell", Eric Arthur Blair (1903 –1950), was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. Best known known for the allegorical Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), his work remains influential in popular and political culture. The...

Charles Dickens - The Novelist of the People

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created many of the world's best-known fictional characters and was the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. Dickens built strong plots and populated them with real characters, but woven into his story-telling were powerful messages about the poverty, disparity and cruelty of Victorian society. His story-telling came from the heart: at age 12 he'd been forced into menial labour when his father was slung into debtor's prison. His brutal childhood experiences coloured the narratives of the rest of his life, and found support in the highest places. Karl Marx asserted that Dickens "issued to the world more political and social truths than have been uttered by all the professional politicians, publicists and moralists put together". George Bernard Shaw remarked that Great Expectations was more seditious than Marx's Das Kapital.

Agatha Christie - Best-Selling Writer of All Time

Dame Agatha Christie (1890 –`1976) was an English writer known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, which has been performed in the West End since 1952, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

John le Carré - The Greatest Spy Novelist, by Profession

David Cornwell (1931 – 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré, was a British-Irish author, who wrote espionage novels. During the 1950s and 1960s, he worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). In consequence, he had a unique insider's knowledge of his chosen genre, and a cynical view of the clandestine moves of Cold War Espionage. His characters were relatable and human, and tired and and flawed, and all the more authentic for it. His plots were opaque and tortuous but drew you relentessly along. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), was the breakthrough, becoming an international best-seller. His crumpled hero, George Smiley, was by no means the greatest spy, but was, like Le Carre himself, the consummate professional.

JK Rowling - the World's Highest-Paid Author

JK Rowling (born 31 July 1965), is a British author, philanthropist, film producer, and screenwriter. She wrote the Harry Potter books, the best-selling children's series in history, which have won multiple awards, sold more than 500 million copies, and are the basis of a popular film series. At the University of Exeter she was an average student, described by biographers as prioritising her social life over academics, and lacking in ambition and enthusiasm. Rowling herself recalls doing little work there, preferring to read Dickens and Tolkien. Twelve publishers rejected the first Harry Potter manuscript, until eventually the Head of Bloomsbury Publishing decided to go ahead with it after his eight-year-old daughter finished one chapter and wanted to keep reading. In 2004, Forbes stated she was "the first billion-dollar author", but in 2012 accepted she might no longer be a billionaire due to her charitable donations and high UK taxes. She is still, however, the world's highest-ranked paid author.

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Charities

The Royal Foundation - britishheritage.org

The Royal Foundation

The Royal Foundation of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is a charity which supports the work of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Their projects revolve around conservation, the early years, mental health, and emergency responders.

The Prince's Trust

The Prince's Trust is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by Charles, Prince of Wales, to help vulnerable young people get their lives on track. It supports 11 to 30-year-olds who are unemployed and those struggling at school and at risk of exclusion. Many of the young people helped by The Trust are in or leaving care, facing issues such as homelessness or mental health problems, or have been in trouble with the law.

Oxfam

Oxfam is a British founded confederation of 21 independent charitable organizations focusing on the alleviation of global poverty, founded in 1942 and led by Oxfam International.

Centrepoint

Centrepoint is a charity in the United Kingdom which provides accommodation and support to homeless people aged 16–25. Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, has been a patron of the organization since 2005; his first patronage. His mother Diana, Princess of Wales, was patron of the organization before she died.

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, /ˈbæftə/) is an independent charity that supports, develops, and promotes the art forms of the moving image (film, television and games) in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual award ceremonies, BAFTA has an international programme of learning events and initiatives offering access to talent through workshops, masterclasses, scholarships, lectures, and mentoring schemes in the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Sport

Football Rugby Cricket Athletics Rowing Cycling Tennis Boxing Motor Racing Tennis Golf Speciality Sports

Emma Raducanu - Teenage Tennis Sensation - britishheritage.org

Emma Raducanu - Teenage Tennis Sensation

Emma Raducanu MBE (born 13 November 2002) is a British professional tennis player. She is the current British No. 1. and ranked No. 12 by the Women's Tennis Association. She is the reigning US Open champion and the first British woman to win a Grand Slam singles title since Virginia Wade at Wimbl...

David Beckham - Footballer 2000s

David Beckham OBE (born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the current president & co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. He played for Manchester United, Preston North End (on loan), Real Madrid, AC Milan (on loan), LA Galaxy, Paris Saint-Germain and the England national team, for which he held the appearance record for an outfield player until 2016. He is the first English player to win league titles in four countries: England, Spain, the United States and France. He retired in May 2013 after a 20-year career, during which he won 19 major trophies.

Chris Hoy - The Most Successful Track Cyclist Of All Time

Sir Christopher Hoy (born 23 March 1976) is a former track cyclist from Scotland who represented Great Britain at the Olympic and World Championships and Scotland at the Commonwealth Games. Hoy is eleven-times a world champion and six-times an Olympic champion. Between 2012 and 2021 he was the most successful British Olympian and the most successful Olympic cyclist of all time. Sir Christopher is now a British racing driver.

Steve Redgrave - Most Successful Rower In Olympic History

Sir Steven Redgrave (born 23 March 1962) is a British retired rower who won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000. He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships golds. He is the most successful male rower in Olympic history, and the only man to have won gold medals at five Olympic Games in an endurance sport.

Jessica Ennis-Hill - World Champion Heptahlete

Jessica Ennis-Hill (born 28 January 1986) is a British retired track and field athlete from England, specialising in multi-eventing disciplines and 100 metres hurdles. As a competitor in heptathlon, she is the 2012 Olympic champion, a three-time world champion (2009, 2011, 2015), and the 2010 European champion. She is also the 2010 world indoor pentathlon champion. She is a former British record holder for heptahlon, the 100 metres hurdles, the high jump and the indoor pentathlon. Today, Ennis-Hill commentates for the BBC and runs Jennis, a fitness app specialising in women's health.

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Playwrights

William Shakespeare - The World's Greatest Dramatist - britishheritage.org

William Shakespeare - The World's Greatest Dramatist

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor, the greatest writer in the English language, and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 ...

George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950), was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman (1902), Pygmalion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923). With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and is regarded as the second greatest playwright of all time, after Shakespear (sic). He was awarded in 1925 the Nobel Prize in Literature and then uniquely in 1939 an Oscar for Best Written Screenplay for the film version of Pygmalion, an honour which he characteristically described as "an insult, coming from such a source".

Agatha Christie - Best-Selling Writer of All Time

Oscar Wilde - The Importance Of Being Witty

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a brilliant and flamboyant Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is best celebrated for his epigrams and plays, including The Importance of Being Earnest, and his sole novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He is best remembered for the lurid circumstances of his criminal conviction in 1895 for gross indecency in consensual homosexual acts in "one of the first celebrity trials", his subsequent imprisonment, of which he wrote the "Ballad of Reading Gaol", and three years later his tragically early death from meningitis at age 46.

John Osborne - From Angry Young Man to Almost A Gentleman

John Osborne (1929–1994) was a firebrand English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his excoriating prose and intense critical stance towards established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre, throwing off the formal constraints of the post-imperial generation. By using theatre as a weapon, he helped make it artistically respected again, assaulting us with language, rhetoric, and emotional intensity. Then, without losing his fiery passion to kick against the system, within a generation he had become, in his own words, "Almost A Gentleman"

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Brands

Virgin - A Multinational Conglomerate

Virgin is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970 as a mail-order record shop that grew to a brick-and-mortar store, that became a commercial empire. Today, there are over 40 Virgin companies across the Virgin Group, includi...

HSBC - The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Company

HSBC is a British multinational investment bank and financial services holding company. It is the second largest bank in Europe behind BNP Paribas, with total equity of US$205 billion and assets of US$3 trillion as of December 2020. HSBC traces its origin to trading houses (hongs) in British Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1865, and its present form as a new HSBC group holding company in London in 1991. HSBC has offices in 64 countries and territories across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, North America, and South America, serving around 40 million customers. As of 2020, it was the world's sixth largest bank by total assets and market capitalization.

The Economist - The Weekly Newspaper since 1843

The Economist is an international weekly newspaper printed and published digitally that focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Economist Group, with core editorial offices in the USA, and major cities in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In 2019, its global print circulation was over 900,000; its digital readership over 1.6 million, and across social media platforms, it reaches an audience of 35 million. Its mission, from 1843, is to take part in "a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress".

Johnnie Walker - The World's Best-Selling Scotch Whisky

Johnnie Walker is a brand of Scotch whisky now owned by Diageo that originated in the Scottish burgh of Kilmarnock in East Ayrshire. The brand was first established by grocer John Walker. It is the most widely distributed brand of blended Scotch whisky in the world, sold in almost every country, with annual sales of the equivalent of over 223.7 million 700 ml bottles in 2016 (156.6 million litres).

Shell - Oil & Gas Supermajor

Shell plc is a British publicly traded multinational oil and gas company headquartered at Shell Centre in London, United Kingdom. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and by revenue and profits is one of the largest companies in the world, ranking within the top 10 of the Fortune global 500 since 2000.

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Comedy

Comedians and Comedy Groups Comedy Shows

Laurel and Hardy - The Hollywood Comedy Duo in the Silent Era

Laurel and Hardy were a comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957). Starting their career as a duo in the silent film era, they later successfully transitioned to "talkies". Fro...

Rowan Atkinson - The 21st Century Chaplin?

Rowan Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is an English actor, comedian and writer. He is best known for playing the title roles in Blackadder (1983–1989), Mr. Bean (1990–1995), and in the film series Johnny English (2003–2018). Earlier work includes Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979–1982), The Secret Policeman's Ball (1979), the James Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983), the vicar in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), voicing the hornbill Zazu in The Lion King (1994), and playing jewellery salesman Rufus in Love Actually (2003). In a 2005 poll of fellow British comedians, he was voted among the top 50 comedians ever. Due to the visual and histrionic nature of his roles, they translate well to other languages (or in the case of Mr Bean, with no need for words at all) and so he is viewed as a global not just a national star.

Sacha Baron Cohen - Get Real!

Sacha Baron Cohen (born 13 October 1971) is an English actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He is best known for his fictional satirical characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral General Aladeen. He adopts a variety of accents and guises for his characters and interacts with unsuspecting subjects who do not realise they have been set up. At the 2012 British Comedy Awards, he received the Outstanding Achievement Award and accepted it as Ali G. In 2013, he received the BAFTA Award for Excellence in Comedy. In 2018, The Times named him among the 30 best living comedians.

Ricky Gervais - Not Someone You'd Want In The Office

Ricky Gervais (born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, director and writer. He is best known for co-creating, co-writing and acting in the British television mockumentary sitcom The Office (2001–2003). He has won seven BAFTAs, five British Comedy Awards, two Emmys, three Golden Globes, the Rose d'Or twice (2006 and 2019), and has been nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award. He has twice been in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups, and in 2010, he was named in the Time 100 list of World's Most Influential People. Even if he would go back to the Golden Globes, it's not sure they would have him.

Tommy Cooper - Just Like That!

Tommy Cooper (1921–1984) was a British prop comedian and magician. His appearance was large, lumbering and instantly comical, abetted by the red fez he habitually wore when performing. He developed expert conjuring skills, joined The Magic Circle, and spent time perfecting his magical act, which featured tricks that appeared to "fail", embarrassingly. He rose to international prominence when took his disastrous - and hilarious - tricks onto television. Though actually an accomplished magician, he wowed audiences who waited with bated breath for each trick to go horribly wrong - once he'd uttered the fatal close "Just like that!". He was much loved In Britain, and much-mourned when he died of a heart attack live on air, just like that.

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Royalty

Elizabeth II - Our Peerless Queen, for 70 years - britishheritage.org

Elizabeth II - Our Peerless Queen, for 70 years

Elizabeth II (born 21 April 1926) is Queen of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms. She acceded to the Throne on Feb 6, 1952, currently the world's second-longest reigning monarch. Her life has been extraordinary, her dedication legendary, her influence unmatched, and her longevity...

Queen Victoria - Queen of Empire

Victoria (1819–1901) was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837-1901. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch. It was for the UK a period of rapid industrial, political, scientific, and military change, marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, Parliament granted her the additional title of Empress of India. In 1840, she married Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg in what became a remarkable partnership - Queen and Consort, husband and wife. He died of typhoid in 1861, leaving her a widow at 42, and she never recovered from the loss of her "dear Albert". But for 40 more years she remained firmly in charge of "The Greatest Empire The World Has Ever Seen".

George III - Won India and Canada, Lost America

George III (1738–1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760, with Scotland joining in 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom until his death in 1820. He was concurrently Duke, then later King, of Hanover in the Holy Roman Empire. Though a monarch of the House of Hanover, unlike his two predecessors, he was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language and never visited Hanover. His reign was marked by a history-defining military conflicts in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia. Early in his reign, Great Britain defeated France in the Seven Years' War, becoming the dominant European power in North America and India. But then Britain's American colonies were lost in the American War of Independence. Further wars against Napoleonic France concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1807, the transatlantic slave trade was banned from the British Empire.

Richard the Lionheart (Richard I) - The Crusader

Richard I (1157–1199) was King of England from 1189-1199. He also ruled over parts of Northern and Western France, including Brittanyrmandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was overlord of Brittany. He is known Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior. He was the Christian commander during the Third Crusade and achieved victories against his Muslim counterpart, Saladin. Most of his life as king was spent on Crusade, in captivity, or in South-West France, where he was also Duke of Aquitaine.

Henry VIII - The King with a Large Appetite

Henry VIII (1491–1547) was King of England from 1509-1547. He is best known for his six marriages, and trying to get his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disagreement with Pope Clement VII over this led Henry to initiate the English Reformation, separating the Church of England from Rome. Of course, he then appointed himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and dissolved all the monasteries, for which he was excommunicated. Henry is also known as "the Father of the Royal Navy," increasing its size to more than 50 ships.His courtiers thought him an attractive, educated, and accomplished king. In later life he was seen as a lustful, egotistical, paranoid and tyrannical monarch. Whichever - and probably both - he was a king of great passion and large appetite.

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Architects

Norman Foster

Norman Robert Foster, Baron Foster of Thames Bank, OM, Kt, RA, HonFREng (born 1 June 1935) is an English architect and designer. Closely associated with the development of high-tech architecture, Foster is recognised as a key figure in British modernist architecture. His architectural practice F...

Zaha Hadid

Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid DBE RA (Arabic: زها حديد Zahā Ḥadīd; 31 October 1950 – 31 March 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building."

Charles Barry

Sir Charles Barry FRS RA (23 May 1795 – 12 May 1860) was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (also known as the Houses of Parliament) in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.

Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (/rɛn/; 30 October 1632 [O.S. 20 October] – 8 March 1723 [O.S. 25 February]) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.

John Nash

John Nash (18 January 1752 – 13 May 1835) was one of the foremost British architects of the Georgian and Regency eras, during which he was responsible for the design, in the neoclassical and picturesque styles, of many important areas of London. His designs were financed by the Prince Regent and by the era's most successful property developer, James Burton. Nash also collaborated extensively with Burton's son, Decimus Burton.

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Chefs

Restaurant Critics

Gordon Ramsay - The Chef From Hell's Kitchen - britishheritage.org

Gordon Ramsay - The Chef From Hell's Kitchen

Gordon Ramsay OBE (born 8 November 1966) is a British chef, restaurateur, television personality, one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the UK. His global restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 16 Michelin stars overall; it currently h...

Richard Corrigan - Irish Cuisine in London

Richard Corrigan (born 10 February 1964) is an Irish chef. Pioneer of Irish cuisine in the London restaurant scene, Corrigan has worked his way from his local hotel kitchen, to maintaining a Michelin star for ten years, to owning three celebrated London restaurants. He is chef/patron of Corrigan's Bar & Restaurant Mayfair, Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill, Daffodil Mulligan Restaurant, London. In Ireland, he owns Virginia Park Lodge in County Cavan.

Ruth Rogers

Ruth Rogers, Baroness Rogers of Riverside, CBE (née Elias; born 7 July 1948) is an American-born British chef who owns and runs the Michelin starred Italian restaurant The River Café in Hammersmith, London. She is the widow of the Italian-born British architect Richard Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside (Lord Rogers).

Simon Rogan - L'Enclume

Simon Rogan is a British chef who focuses on seasonal British produce and has impeccable restaurants around the UK. He is perhaps most well known for his lengthy tasting menus.

Vivek Singh

Vivek Singh (born 6 May 1971) is an Indian British celebrity chef, restaurateur, and media personality known for his innovative take on Indian cuisine. He is the CEO and Executive Chef of four London based modern-Indian restaurants and one Oxford based modern-Indian restaurant. He started in London with his flagship restaurant The Cinnamon Club, then he opened Cinnamon Kitchen, Cinnamon Soho and Cinnamon Bazaar. The latest addition to the Cinnamon Collection is Cinnamon Kitchen Oxford, Vivek's first UK restaurant outside of London. Singh is a regular face on BBC's Saturday Kitchen, and has been featured on television shows including Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Nation, At Home with Rachel Allen,NDTV Good Times – Will Travel for Food and My Kitchen Rules UK.

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Motors

Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited is a British luxury automobile maker. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Limited operates from purpose-built administrative and production facilities opened in 2003 across from the historic Goodwood Circuit in Goodwood, West Sussex, England, United Kingdom. Rolls-Royce Motor C...

Bentley

Bentley Motors Limited is a British manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs, and a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group since 1998.

Aston Martin

Aston Martin Lagonda is a British independent manufacturer of luxury sports cars and grand tourers. Its predecessor was founded in 1913 by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. Steered from 1947 by David Brown, it became associated with expensive grand touring cars in the 1950s and 1960s, and with the fictional character James Bond following his use of a DB5 model in the 1964 film Goldfinger. Their sports cars are regarded as a British cultural icon. Aston Martin has held a Royal Warrant as purveyor of motorcars to the Prince of Wales since 1982, and has over 160 car dealerships in 53 countries, making it a global automobile brand. The company is traded at the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. In 2003 it received the Queen's Award for Enterprise for outstanding contribution to international trade. The company has survived seven bankruptcies throughout its history.

Jaguar

Jaguar (UK: /ˈdʒæɡjuər/, US: /ˈdʒæɡwɑːr/) is the luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars was the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar cars until its operations were fully merged with those of Land Rover to form Jaguar Land Rover on 1 January 2013.

Mini

Mini (stylised as MINI) is a British automotive marque founded in 1969, owned by German automotive company BMW since 2000, and used by them for a range of small cars. The word Mini has been used in car model names since 1959, and in 1969 it became a marque in its own right when the name "Mini" replaced the separate "Austin Mini" and "Morris Mini" car model names. BMW acquired the marque in 1994 when it bought Rover Group (formerly British Leyland), which owned Mini, among other brands.

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Fashion

Fashion Brands Fashion Models Designers

Vivienne Westwood - New Wave Fashion

Vivienne Westwood (born 8 April 1941) is an English fashion designer and businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave fashions into the mainstream. Vivienne Westwood is as British as you can get. The Derbyshire-born designer started her label in the 70s and is credited...

Amanda Wakeley - "Clean-Glam" Fashion

Amanda Wakeley (born 15 September 1962) is a British fashion designer best known for her evening and cocktail dresses and accessories, and for her “clean glam” signature style, has also developed a presence in daywear, including day-dresses, tailoring and knitwear and a line of accessories and jewellery. Sposa is the brand's bridal collection. Wakeley is an advocate for international organisation Women for Women. She is known for her high-end, luxurious, feminine designs and has dressed many stars and royals in her career, including Diana Princess of Wales.

Stella McCartney - Welfare Fashion

Stella McCartney (born 13 September 1971) is an English fashion designer. She is a daughter of English singer-songwriter Sir Paul McCartney and the late Linda McCartney, an American photographer and animals rights activist. She is one of the most internationally successful British designers, having studied fashion at the prestigious Central St Martin College of Art and Design. Her graduation show featured some of her model friends, including Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Yasmin Le Bon. Her designs are worn by some of the world's biggest celebrities including Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow. Stella's brand is as well known for its delicate feminine cuts as it is for her animal welfare ethics: the designer is in fact a vegetarian like her famous parents and does not use leather or fur in her collections and, like her parents, is a firm supporter of animal rights, environmentalism and for her use of animal-free alternatives in her work.

Alexander McQueen - L'Enfant Terrible

Alexander McQueen (1969 –2010) was an English fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003. Known for his creative and irreverent designs, McQueen was the 'enfant terrible of British fashion'. Hugely successful both at home and abroad, after his untimely death in 2010 the helm of the company has been taken over by Sarah Burton, who went on to design a "very special dress".

John Galliano - Designer of the Years

John Galliano (born 28 November 1960) is a British-Gibraltarian fashion designer who was the head designer of French fashion companies Givenchy (1995-1996), Christian Dior (1996 -2011), and his own label John Galliano (1988-2011). At present, Galliano is the creative director of Paris-based fashion house Maison Margiela. He was named British Designer of the Year four times. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, he was named the fifth most influential person in British culture. The British designer is famous for his intricate creations and worked for many years for French fashion houses, and designed Kate Moss' 1920s-inspired dress for her 2011 wedding to musician Jamie Hince.

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Landmarks

Stonehenge

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizonta...

London Eye

The London Eye, or the Millennium Wheel, is a cantilevered observation wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames in London. It is Europe's tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and is the most popular paid tourist attraction in the United Kingdom with over 3 million visitors annually. It has made many appearances in popular culture.

Tower Bridge

Tower Bridge is a Grade I listed combined bascule and suspension bridge in London, built between 1886 and 1894, designed by Horace Jones and engineered by John Wolfe Barry. The bridge crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and is one of five London bridges owned and maintained by the Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust founded in 1282. The bridge was constructed to give better access to the East End of London, which had expanded its commercial potential in the 19th century. The bridge was opened by Edward, Prince of Wales and Alexandra, Princess of Wales in 1894.

Tower of London

The Tower of London, officially Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress of the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, which is separated from the eastern edge of the square mile of the City of London by the open space known as Tower Hill. It was founded towards the end of 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest. The White Tower, which gives the entire castle its name, was built by William the Conqueror in 1078 and was a resented symbol of oppression, inflicted upon London by the new ruling elite. The castle was also used as a prison from 1100 (Ranulf Flambard) until 1952 (Kray twins), although that was not its primary purpose. A grand palace early in its history, it served as a royal residence. As a whole, the Tower is a complex of several buildings set within two concentric rings of defensive walls and a moat. There were several phases of expansion, mainly under kings Richard I, Henry III, and Edward I in the 12th and 13th centuries. The general layout established by the late 13th century remains despite later activity on the site.

10 Downing Street

10 Downing Street (pronunciation (help·info)) in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the First Lord of the Treasury, usually also the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Along with the adjoining Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall, it is the headquarters of the Government of the United Kingdom.

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Explorers

James Cook - Captain Cook, Discoverer of Australia - britishheritage.org

James Cook - Captain Cook, Discoverer of Australia

James Cook (1728–1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia. On these voyages he made the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Austr...

Francis Drake - Pirate or Paragon?

Sir Francis Drake (1540–1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, including his incursion into the Pacific Ocean, and claiming for England what is now the state of California. His expedition inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish on the western coast of the Americas. In 1581 Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood which he received on the Golden Hind in Deptford. He was vice admiral of the English fleet in the victorious battle against the Spanish Armada in 1588. Drake's exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque. King Philip II of Spain allegedly offered a reward of 20,000 ducats for his capture or death, equivalent to around £6 million (US$8 million) in 2015.

David Livingstone - Colonial Champion, Anti-Slavery Crusader

David Livingstone (1813 –1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era. He had a mythic status that operated on a number of interconnected levels: Protestant missionary martyr, working-class "rags-to-riches" inspirational story, scientific investigator and explorer, imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of British commercial and colonial expansion.

Henry Morton Stanley - Anti-Slavery Explorer of the Congo

Sir Henry Morton Stanley (1841–1904) was a Welsh-American explorer, journalist, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician. He was famous for his exploration of Central Africa and his search for David Livingstone, claiming to have greeted him with the line: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?". Besides his discovery of Livingstone, he is known for his search for the sources of the Nile and Congo rivers, for opening up the Congo Basin as an agent of King Leopold II of the Belgians, and his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. A century after his death, Stanley's legacy remains controversial. Although he had high regard for the Africans on his expeditions, accounts of punishments and brutality in his books fostered his reputation as a hard-driving, cruel leader, in contrast to the more humanitarian Livingstone. His reputation was also damaged by his role in establishing the Congo Free State for Leopold II, though Stanley was never implicated in the atrocities against the native people. Nevertheless, he is recognised for his important contributions to Western knowledge of Central Africa and for his resolute opposition to the slave trade in East Africa. He was a Member of Parliament for Lambeth North from 1895 to 1900, and was knighted in 1897.

Walter Raleigh - Headman to Headless Man

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552–1618), was an English statesman, soldier, writer and explorer. One of the most notable figures of the Elizabethan era, he played a leading part in English colonisation of North America, suppressed rebellion in Ireland, helped defend England during the Spanish Armada. He rose rapidly in the favour of Queen Elizabeth I, was assigned political positions and knighted by her in 1585: then granted a royal patent to explore the territory of Virginia, one of the 13 founding colonies of the USA. He fell foul of the Queen for his unsanctioned marriage to a lady-in-waiting, and then again 20 years later with her sucessor, James I, for stirring friction with Spain in her New World colonies. Raleigh was beheaded at the Palace of Westminster in 1618. According to biographers, he encouraged the proceedings to go faster: "Let us dispatch", and his last words, spoken to the hesitating executioner, were: "What dost thou fear? Strike, man, strike!"

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Advertising

Ad Agencies Advertising People Ads

Ogilvy - The Gentleman's Ad Agency - britishheritage.org

Ogilvy - The Gentleman's Ad Agency

Ogilvy is a New York City-based British advertising, marketing, and public relations agency. It was founded in 1850 by Edmund Mather as a London-based agency. In 1964, the firm became known as Ogilvy & Mather after merging with a New York City agency that was founded in 1948 by Englishman David O...

Saatchi & Saatchi - The Acquistion Agency

Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970, when, after a few years as a creative consultancy, it embarked on a rapacious acquisition trail from 1975-1988, which propelled it from a bit-player in London to a global agency. The parent company of the agency group was known as Saatchi & Saatchi PLC from 1976 to 1994, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange until 2000 and, for a time, was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 2000, the group was acquired by the Publicis Groupe. In 2005 it went private and is currently headquartered in London.

BBH - Bartle Bogle Hegarty

Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) is a British global advertising agency. Founded in 1982 by British ad men John Bartle, Nigel Bogle, and John Hegarty, BBH has offices in London, New York City, Singapore, Shanghai, Mumbai, Stockholm and Los Angeles and employs more than 1,000 staff worldwide. The company is part of international agency group Publicis. In 2018 BBH was named the IPA Effectiveness Company of the Year.

adam&eveDDB

adam&eveDDB. A place that believes in the power of creativity to create the change we want to see in the world. A place full of audacious and famous ideas that help grow businesses and shape cultures. A place packed with the energy and passion to make things happen.

Mother

Mother is an advertising agency with offices in London, New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai. Founded around a London kitchen table in 1996 by Mark Waites, Stef Calcraft, Libby Brockhoff, and Robert Saville, Mother today has over 500 employees around the world, and works with clients including IKEA, KFC, Stella Artois, Target, Sky and Diageo.

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Poetry

Robert Browning - Dramatic Victorian Poet, 1800s - britishheritage.org

Robert Browning - Dramatic Victorian Poet, 1800s

Robert Browning (1812–1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. His early long poems Pauline (1833) and Paracelsus (1835) were acclaimed, but then he moved from Shelleyan forms to a more personal style. In 1846 he married fellow po...

Thomas Wyatt - A Miscellany of Sonnets, 1530s

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) was a 16th-century English politician, ambassador, and lyric poet credited with introducing the sonnet to English literature. Wyatt's poems are short but fairly numerous, the most noteworthy being thirty-one sonnets. His poems were circulated at Court, but his 96 love poems were not published under his name until 15 years after his death, in a compendium called Tottel's Miscellany (1557).

John Clare - The Farm Labourer Poet, 1830s

John Clare (1793–1864) was the poet-son of a farm labourer, known for his celebrations of the English countryside and sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th century, and is now seen as a major 19th-century poet. His biographer Jonathan Bate called Clare "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self." He was committed to a lunatic asylum in 1841 and spent the last 23 years of his life incarcerated.

Seamus Heaney - The Greatest Poet Of Our Age 2013

Seamus Heaney (1939–2013) was an Irish poet and playwright who received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996 he was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 1998 was bestowed the title Saoi of the Aosdána. He is recognised as one of the principal contributors to poetry in Ireland and among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. American poet Robert Lowell described him as "the most important Irish poet since Yeats"; the academic John Sutherland, said he was "the greatest poet of our age"; upon his death in 2013, The Independent described him as "probably the best-known poet in the world".

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Military History

Battles Leaders Heroes

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson - britishheritage.org

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson

Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805), also known simply as Admiral Nelson, was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought about a number of ...

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of the United Kingdom. He is one of the commanders who won and ended the Napoleonic Wars when the coalition defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim

Field Marshal William Joseph Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, KG, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, GBE, DSO, MC, KStJ (6 August 1891 – 14 December 1970), usually known as Bill Slim, was a British military commander and the 13th Governor-General of Australia.

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein

Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, of Hindhead in the County of Surrey, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, GCB, OBE, AFC (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press and often within the RAF as "Butch" Harris,[a] was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) RAF Bomber Command during the height of the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

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Politicians

Winston Churchill - The Greatest Ever Englishman - britishheritage.org

Winston Churchill - The Greatest Ever Englishman

Sir Winston Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Best known for his wartime leadership as Prime Minister, Churchill was also a Sandhurs...

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, DStJ, PC, FRS, HonFRSC (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013), was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. The longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, she was the first woman to hold that office. As prime minister, she implemented policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style.

John Stuart Mill - Classic Liberalist of the Nineteenth Century

Harold Macmillan

Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC, FRS (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he was known for his pragmatism, wit and unflappability.

Tony Blair

Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair KG (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. On his resignation he was appointed Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East, a diplomatic post which he held until 2015. He has been the executive chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change since 2016. As prime minister, many of his policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy.[b] He is the only living former Labour leader to have led the party to a general election victory; and one of only two in history to form three majority governments, the other being Harold Wilson.

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Activists

William Wilberforce - Abolish the slave trade - britishheritage.org

William Wilberforce - Abolish the slave trade

William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming an independent Member of Parliament (MP) fo...

Jane Goodall - Animal Rights Icon

Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE (/ˈɡʊdɔːl/; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall on 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English primatologist and anthropologist. Seen as the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 60-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees since she first went to Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania in 1960, where she witnessed human-like behaviours amongst chimpanzees, including armed conflict. In April 2002, she was named a UN Messenger of Peace. Goodall is an honorary member of the World Future Council.

Nigel Farage - UK independence (Brexit)

Nigel Paul Farage (/ˈfærɑːʒ/;[c] born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021. He was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the United Kingdom's exit from the EU in 2020. He was the host of The Nigel Farage Show, a radio phone-in on the Global-owned talk radio station LBC, from 2017 to 2020. Farage is currently the Honorary President of Reform UK and a presenter on GB News.

Emmeline Pankhurst - Suffragette Movement

Emmeline Pankhurst (née Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist. She is best remembered for organising the UK suffragette movement and helping women win the right to vote. In 1999, Time named her as one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century, stating that "she shaped an idea of objects for our time" and "shook society into a new pattern from which there could be no going back". She was widely criticised for her militant tactics, and historians disagree about their effectiveness, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.

Captain Tom - The 100 year-old Hero

Captain Sir Thomas Moore (1920–2021), more popularly known as Captain Tom, was a British Army officer and fundraiser who made international headlines in 2020 when he raised money for charity in the run-up to his 100th birthday during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 6 April 2020, at the age of 99, Moore began to walk 100 lengths of his garden with the goal of raising £1,000 by his 100th birthday on 30 April. In the next 24 days, he dominated the media, became a popular household name, attracted over 1.5 million individual donations, and raised £32 million. In July he was knighted by the Queen personally. He performed in a cover version of "You'll Never Walk Alone" sung by Michael Ball, with proceeds going to the same charity. The single topped the UK music charts, making him the oldest person to achieve a UK number one.

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Publications

The Sunday Times

The Sunday Times is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as The New Observer. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, which is owned by News Corp. Times Newspapers also publishes The...

The Guardian

The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, The Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of The Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK.

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph, known online and elsewhere as The Telegraph (/ˈtɛlɪɡræf/), is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its coverage of rock music and for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine broadened and shifted its focus to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors, and popular music. It has since returned to its traditional mix of content, including music, entertainment, and politics.

Guinness World Records

Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous United States editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the book was co-founded by twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter in Fleet Street, London, in August 1955.

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Visual Arts

Banksy

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a disti...

Damien Hirst

Damien Steven Hirst (/hɜːrst/; né Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth estimated at $384 million in the 2020 Sunday Times Rich List. During the 1990s his career was closely linked with the collector Charles Saatchi, but increasing frictions came to a head in 2003 and the relationship ended.

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin, CBE, RA (/ˈɛmɪn/; born 3 July 1963) is a British artist known for her autobiographical and confessional artwork. Emin produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. Once the "enfant terrible" of the Young British Artists in the 1980s, Tracey Emin is now a Royal Academician.

David Hockney

David Hockney OM CH RA (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

Lucian Freud

Lucian Michael Freud OM CH (/frɔɪd/; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933 to escape the rise of Nazism. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.

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Speeches

Winston Churchill: "We shall fight on the beaches"

"We shall fight on the beaches" is the title given to a speech delivered by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 4 June 1940. This was the second of three major speeches given around the period of the Battle of France; the...