List of alumni of King's College, Cambridge

Notable alumni of King's College, Cambridge include prime ministers, archbishops, presidents and academics.

• 
  Robert Walpole, first Prime Minister of Great Britain
• 
  M. R. James, scholar and ghost-story writer
• 
  George Santayana, philosopher
• 
  E. M. Forster, novelist
• 
  John Maynard Keynes, economist
• 
  Rupert Brooke, poet
• 
  Philip Noel-Baker, Olympic medallist and Nobel laureate in peace
• 
  Xu Zhimo, poet
• 
  Alan Turing, mathematician and computer scientist
• 
  Salman Rushdie, novelist
• 
  Stephen Poliakoff, playwright and director
• 
  Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England
• 
  David Baddiel, comedian
• 
  Zadie Smith, novelist

Politicians

• Martin Bell, former politician and reporter
• Charles Clarke, former British Home Secretary
• Philip Noel-Baker, politician, Olympic medallist and recipient of a Nobel Prize
• Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden, judge and Lord Chancellor
• David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, peer and Chancellor of the University of Cambridge
• Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend, Secretary of State, who was also known for his interest in agriculture and his role in the British Agricultural Revolution
• Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of Great Britain
• Francis Walsingham, spymaster to Queen Elizabeth I of England

Law

• Robert Alexander, Baron Alexander of Weedon, barrister and vice-chancellor
• Nicholas Phillips, Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers, former President of the British Supreme Court

Clergy

• Richard Cox, Chancellor of Oxford before appointment as Dean of Westminster and eventually Bishop of Ely
• John Frith, 16th-century Protestant martyr
• John Sumner, Archbishop of Canterbury
• William Thomas

Writers

• J. G. Ballard, author
• Rupert Brooke, poet
• E. M. Forster, author
• Sir John Harington, author and translator of Aristotle
• Martin Jacques, author
• M. R. James, writer and medievalist (student, fellow and Provost)
• Stephen Poliakoff, playwright
• Walter Raleigh, poet
• Salman Rushdie, author
• Zadie Smith, author
• Patrick White, Australian novelist and playwright and Nobel Prize winner
• Xu Zhimo, poet

Media and musicians

• Thomas Ades, composer
• Julian Anderson, composer
• David Baddiel, comedian
• George Benjamin, composer
• Lily Cole, model, author and actress
• James Gilchrist, tenor
• King's Singers, Grammy Award-winning a cappella group
• John Spiers, folk musician
• Judith Weir composer (Master of the Queen's Music)
• John Whitworth, countertenor ^[1]

Scientists and academics

• Benedict Anderson, historian
• Edgar Anstey, psychologist
• Charles Glover Barkla, physicist awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1917
• John Craven, economist
• John Dunn, political theorist
• Richard Fortey, palaeontologist
• Anthony Giddens, sociologist
• Oliver Hart, economist who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2016
• Geoffrey Hinton, computer scientist awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024
• Eric Hobsbawm, historian
• Charles Inglis, engineer
• Tony Judt, historian
• John Maynard Keynes, economist and philosopher
• Karl Pearson, mathematician and eugenicist
• George Santayana, philosopher

Businesspeople

• Hermann Hauser, technology entrepreneur of Acorn and ARM
• Mervyn King, Baron King of Lothbury, Governor of the Bank of England

References

1. Garry Humphreys, John Whitworth: Celebrated countertenor, in The Independent , 15 September 2013, accessed 20 June 2020