List of people from the Isle of Wight

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

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

Born on the Isle of Wight

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

Raised on the Isle of Wight

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

Lived on the Isle of Wight

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

Currently resident

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

References

1. Toynbee, Polly (7 April 2015). "Back on the Isle of Wight, Tory Britain rehearses its collapse". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 April 2015.