This is a list of famous or notable people born in, or associated with, the Borough of Woking in England, who have a Wikipedia page.
Woking is a town and borough in Surrey, around 23 mi (37 km) southwest of central London. In addition to the town of Woking, the borough also includes the settlements of Brookwood, Knaphill, Pyrford, Byfleet and West Byfleet.
The first surviving record of the settlement is from Domesday Book of 1086, in which the manor appears as Wochinges. [1] The "monastery at Wocchingas" is mentioned in a c. 1200 copy of an early 8th-century letter from Pope Constantine to Hedda, Abbot of Bermondsey and Woking. [2] [note 1]
Image | Name | Residence Period | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|
— | Michael Axworthy | - | Academic, historian and commentator with special interest in Iran | [4] |
[[File:|center|100x75px| Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour]] | Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour | 1929 to death | Politician, Prime Minister 1902-05, author of Balfour Declaration; lived at Fisher's Hill, Hook Heath Road | [5] |
Gerald Balfour 2nd Earl of Balfour | – | Politician, lived at Fisher's Hill, Hook Heath Road | [6] | |
[[File:|center|100x75px|Elizabeth Balfour, Countess of Balfour]] | Elizabeth Balfour, Countess of Balfour | Politician, suffragette, lived at Fisher's Hill, Hook Heath Road | ||
Lady Margaret Beaufort | – | Mother of King Henry VII, lived in Woking Palace for 5 years | [7] | |
— | Sir Alec Bedser | – | Surrey County and England Cricketer | [7] [8] |
— | Eric Bedser | – | Surrey County Cricketer | [7] |
Richard Benson | – | Singer and guitarist born at Woking | ||
George Bernard Shaw | 1901–1903 | playwright, critic, political activist | [9] | |
— | Martin Birch | – | Rock music producer/engineer for Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden (1948) | [7] |
— | John Braine | – | Novelist | [10] |
— | Thomas Breakwell | – | First Englishman to be a convert to the Baháʼí Faith | [11] |
— | Rick Buckler | – | drummer with The Jam, (1955) | [7] [12] |
— | Sonya Butt | 1940–1943 | WW2 Special Operations Executive agent | [13] |
James Cracknell | – | Olympic rower, from Pyrford | [7] | |
Claire Darke | – | The 161st Mayor of Wolverhampton, grew up in Woking | ||
Peter Davison | – | actor, former lead in Doctor Who attended The Winston Churchill School (Woking) | [7] | |
Ron Dennis | – | CEO/Chairman of the McLaren Group | [7] | |
Susie Dent | – | a lexicographer and the dictionary expert on Countdown | [14] | |
Emilia Dilke | – | art historian, feminist and trade unionist, lived at Pyrford Rough | [15] | |
Ben Charles Edwards | – | photographer/filmmaker | [16] | |
Bruce Foxton | – | bass player with The Jam, (1955) | [7] [12] | |
John Paul Getty | – | Lived in Sutton Green | [7] | |
Robert Freke Gould | Soldier, barrister and historian of Freemasonry | [17] | ||
— | Derek Griffiths | – | children's entertainer, born in Woking | [7] |
Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh | 1906–1967 | businessman, lived at Pyrford | [18] | |
Lady Emma Hamilton | – | lover of Horatio Nelson. Hamilton lived in Pyrford | [7] | |
Harry Hill | – | comedian, was born in Woking (1964) | [7] | |
— | Bob Hiller | – | former England international rugby union player, was born in Woking (1942) | [19] |
— | Brian Hooper | – | Olympic pole vaulter | [7] |
— | Marmaduke Hussey, Baron Hussey of North Bradley | – | newspaper executive, was born at Worplesdon Hill (1923) | [20] |
Chris Ingram | Businessman, Entrepreneur and Former Chairman of Woking F.C. | |||
Albert Jack | Bestselling author from Winston Churchill School | |||
— | Jentina | – | rapper | [21] |
Kazuo Ishiguro | – | novelist, attended Woking County Grammar School | [7] [22] | |
Adelina de Lara | – | concert pianist, lived and worked in Woking. | [7] | |
— | Rowland Lee | – | composer, pianist, conductor and music arranger born in Woking (1960), attended Sheerwater Secondary School, Woking Boys Grammar School and Woking VI Form College. | [7] |
Sean Lock | – | comedian, was born in Woking (1963) | [7] | |
— | Peter Lord | – | co-founder of Aardman Animations, attended Woking Grammar school | [7] |
Liz Lynne | – | Liberal Democrat politician | [23] | |
— | Tom Mison | – | actor | [24] |
— | Iain Morris | – | Co-Writer of The Inbetweeners, born in Woking | [7] |
— | Robert Ogilvie | - | England footballer, captain of Clapham Rovers team who won 1880 FA Cup Final, died at Golf Cottage, St John's (1938) | [25] |
Ian Ogilvy | – | actor, 1943 | [26] | |
Rick Parfitt | – | guitarist for Status Quo went to school in Sheerwater and had family in the area, | [7] [27] | |
Francis Henry Salvin | – | naturalist and writer, lived at Sutton Place and Whitmoor House | [28] [29] | |
Delia Smith | – | best-selling cook was born in Woking | [7] | |
Ethel Smyth | – | composer and the first woman suffragette | [7] [30] | |
The Spice Girls | – | pop group, started their careers at a Knaphill studio | [7] | |
David Sproxton | – | co-founder of Aardman Animations, attended Woking Grammar school | [7] | |
— | Laurretta Summerscales | – | Ballerina, principal dancer with Bayerisches Staatsballett in Munich and formerly with the English National Ballet, grew up in Woking | [31] |
Alan Turing | – | mathematician, Cremated at Woking Crematorium | [32] | |
— | Sam Underwood | – | actor | [33] |
— | Tony Wakeford | – | neo-folk musician, co-founder of Death in June, founder and vocalist of Sol Invictus, & L'Orchestre Noir | [7] |
Paul Weller | – | guitarist and singer-songwriter, The Style Council, The Jam. "Town Called Malice", which was written by Paul Weller and recorded by his band, The Jam, is about Woking. The song reached No. 1 in the UK Charts. | [7] [12] | |
H. G. Wells | 1895-1898 | author who used the town as a setting for his novel The War of the Worlds and was staying in the town when he wrote it. A large sculpture of a (Wellsian) Martian Fighting Machine (above) was installed in the town centre to commemorate Woking's links with the story. | [34] [35] [36] | |
Matt Willis | – | musician, singer-songwriter, television presenter and actor, who was a founding member of pop rock band Busted and was the winner of I'm A Celebrity... in 2006, lived in Woking and attended Woking High School | [7] | |
— | Ken Wood | – | founded the Kenwood company in Woking | [7] [37] |
Milford is a village in the civil parish of Witley and Milford south west of Godalming in Surrey, England that was a small village in the early medieval period — it grew significantly after the building of the Portsmouth Direct Line which serves Godalming railway station and its own minor stop railway station. The village, served by a wide array of shops and amenities, has to one side an all-directions junction of the A3, one of Britain's trunk roads. Nearby settlements are Eashing, Shackleford, Witley and Elstead, and the hamlets of Enton and Hydestile, all of which are in the Borough of Waverley. The west of the parish is in the Surrey Hills AONB.
The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Head of Civil Justice. As a judge, the Master of the Rolls is second in seniority in England and Wales only to the Lord Chief Justice. The position dates from at least 1286, although it is believed that the office probably existed earlier than that.
The Buchanan Medal is awarded by the Royal Society "in recognition of distinguished contribution to the medical sciences generally". The award was created in 1897 from a fund to the memory of London physician Sir George Buchanan (1831–1895). It was to be awarded once every five years, but since 1990 the medal has been awarded every two years.
The British Poet Laureate is an honorary position appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom, currently on the advice of the prime minister. The role does not entail any specific duties, but there is an expectation that the holder will write verse for significant national occasions. The origins of the laureateship date back to 1616 when a pension was provided to Ben Jonson, but the first official holder of the position was John Dryden, appointed in 1668 by Charles II. On the death of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who held the post between November 1850 and October 1892, there was a break of four years as a mark of respect; Tennyson's laureate poems "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" were particularly cherished by the Victorian public. Four poets, Thomas Gray, Samuel Rogers, Walter Scott and Philip Larkin turned down the laureateship. Historically appointed for an unfixed term and typically held for life, since 1999 the position has been for a term of ten years. The holder of the position as at 2024 is Simon Armitage who succeeded Carol Ann Duffy in May 2019 after 10 years in office.
Justice of the Common Pleas was a puisne judicial position within the Court of Common Pleas of England and Wales, under the Chief Justice. The Common Pleas was the primary court of common law within England and Wales, dealing with "common" pleas. It was created out of the common law jurisdiction of the Exchequer of Pleas, with splits forming during the 1190s and the division becoming formal by the beginning of the 13th century. The court became a key part of the Westminster courts, along with the Exchequer of Pleas and the Court of King's Bench, but with the Writ of Quominus and the Statute of Westminster, both tried to extend their jurisdiction into the realm of common pleas. As a result, the courts jockeyed for power. In 1828 Henry Brougham, a Member of Parliament, complained in Parliament that as long as there were three courts unevenness was inevitable, saying that "It is not in the power of the courts, even if all were monopolies and other restrictions done away, to distribute business equally, as long as suitors are left free to choose their own tribunal", and that there would always be a favourite court, which would therefore attract the best lawyers and judges and entrench its position. The outcome was the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, under which all the central courts were made part of a single Supreme Court of Judicature. Eventually the government created a High Court of Justice under Lord Coleridge by an Order in Council of 16 December 1880. At this point, the Common Pleas formally ceased to exist.
The head of the Bodleian Library, the main library at the University of Oxford, is known as Bodley's Librarian: Sir Thomas Bodley, as founder, gave his name to both the institution and the position. Although there had been a university library at Oxford since about 1320, it had declined by the end of the 16th century. It was "denuded" of its books in 1550 in the time of King Edward VI when "superstitious books and images" that did not comply with the prevailing Anglican view were removed. Poor management and inadequate financial resources have also been blamed for the state of the library. In the words of one history of the university, "as a public institution, the Library had ceased to function." Bodley volunteered in 1598 to restore it; the university accepted the offer, and work began soon afterwards. The first librarian, Thomas James, was selected by Bodley in 1599. The Bodleian opened in 1602, and the university confirmed James in his post. Bodley wanted the librarian to be "some one that is noted and known for a diligent student, and in all his conversation to be trusty, active, and discrete, a graduate also and a linguist, not encumbered with marriage, nor with a benefice of Cure". James, however, was able to persuade Bodley to let him marry and become Rector of St Aldate's Church, Oxford.
English county histories, in other words historical and topographical works concerned with individual ancient counties of England, were produced by antiquarians from the late 16th century onwards. The content was variable: most focused on recording the ownership of estates and the descent of lordships of manors, thus the genealogies of county families, heraldry and other antiquarian material. In the introduction to one typical early work of this style, The Antiquities of Warwickshire published in 1656, the author William Dugdale writes:
I offer unto you my noble countriemen, as the most proper persons to whom it can be presented wherein you will see very much of your worthy ancestors, to whose memory I have erected it as a monumentall pillar and to shew in what honour they lived in those flourishing ages past. In this kind, or not much different, have divers persons in forrein parts very learnedly written; some whereof I have noted in my preface: and I could wish that there were more that would adventure in the like manner for the rest of the counties of this nation, considering how acceptable those are, which others have already performed