List of British people with German ancestry

This is a list of notable British people with German ancestry.

Academia

• Ralf Dahrendorf, sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and liberal politician; born in Hamburg, he acquired British citizenship in 1988
• Geoffrey Elton, (born Gottfried Rudolf Otto Ehrenberg), historian specialising in the Tudor period, born in Tübingen, moved to Britain in 1939
• Edgar Feuchtwanger, historian and author
• Timothy Reuter, historian of medieval Europe whose father was born in Germany ^[1]
• John Stein, professor of physiology and fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; brother of the chef Rick Stein
• J. R. R. Tolkien, writer, poet, philologist, linguist and professor of Anglo-Saxon; his family had German roots but had been living in England since the 18th century; "Tolkien" derives from the German "tollkühn", meaning "foolhardy"
• Sir Guenter Treitel, academic lawyer and expert in English contract law

Aristocracy and royalty

• The Astor family, originally from Walldorf but gained prominence in both America and England; the English branch holds two hereditary peerages: Viscount Astor and Baron Astor
• The British Royal Family, who belong to the House of Windsor (a branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha); George V of the United Kingdom changed the name of his branch from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor in 1917; through Queen Victoria, the current royal family are also descended from the House of Hanover (see entry below)
  • Queen Mary of Teck, consort of George V; born in Kensington Palace, London, she was a member of the House of Württemberg (through her father Francis, Duke of Teck) and also a descendant of the House of Hanover (through her mother Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge)
  • Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, member of the British Royal Family by marriage (consort of Elizabeth II), and member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg by birth
• John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, referred to simply as Lord Acton, Catholic historian, politician and writer, whose mother was a scion of the noble German Dalberg family
• Lady Mary Victoria Douglas-Hamilton (later Hereditary Princess of Monaco), mother was a member of the House of Baden
• Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, wife of Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, and great-granddaughter of Julius Wernher
• The House of Hanover, German royal dynasty who produced seven British monarchs: George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV and Victoria
• Harold Augustus Wernher, 3rd Baronet, peer, grandfather of the above Natalia Grosvenor (née Phillips) and son of Julius Wernher. The Mountbatten family also has German origin.

Art

• Frank Auerbach, artist
• Lucian Freud, German-born painter
• Walter Sickert, Munich-born painter of Danish-German, English and Irish descent (son of the painter Oswald Sickert)

Commerce

• Siegfried Bettmann, founder of motorcycle maker Triumph Engineering and car maker Triumph Motor Company, descended from the village of Bettmannsäge
• Charles Beyer, born Carl Friedrich Beyer, co-founder of railway locomotive builder Beyer, Peacock & Company
• Henry Bolckow, co-founder of steelmaker Bolckow, Vaughan and Liberal politician
• Ernest Cassel, merchant banker of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, born in Cologne ^[2]
• Henry Dübs, born Heinrich Dübs, founder of railway locomotive builder Dübs & Company
• John Goodman, born Johannes Gütgemann, founder of motorcycle maker Velocette
• Tiny Rowland, originally Roland Walter Fuhrhop, Rhodesian-British chairman of the Lonrho conglomerate 1962–94
• Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, co-founder of shipbuilder Harland & Wolff, Conservative MP

Entertainment

• Simon Callow, actor of English, Danish, German and French descent
• Julian Clary, comedian with a great-grandfather (on his father's side) and a great-grandmother (on his mother's side) who were born in Germany ^[3]
• Sacha Baron Cohen, actor, comedian, Israeli mother born to German Jewish parents
• Ernest Cossart, actor born as Emil von Holst; brother of the composer Gustav Holst and consequently of German, Swedish, British, Latvian and Spanish descent
• Rupert Everett, actor whose great-great-grandmother, Augusta Clara de Schmiedern, was a scion of the aristocratic Schmiedern family (Barons von Schmeidern)
• Richard E. Grant, actor of Dutch-Afrikaner, Hungarian and half-German descent ^[4]
• Jenny Hanley, actress of English descent through her father, Jimmy Hanley, and Russian-Jewish and German descent through her mother Dinah Sheridan
• Gerard Hoffnung, Jewish-German musical humourist, born in Berlin who arrived in Britain as a Kindertransport refugee.
• Derek Jacobi, actor and film director, whose great-grandfather, William Jacobi ^[5] emigrated from Germany to England in the 19th century ^[6]
• Frederick Jaeger, actor
• Jodhi May, actress of French-Turkish Jewish and German descent
• Robert Morley, actor whose mother, Gertrude Emily (née Fass), came from a German family that had emigrated to South Africa
• Olivia Newton-John, actress and singer, matrilineal granddaughter of Max Born; her mother and maternal grandparents were Jewish German ^{[7] [8]}
• Soni Razdan, Bollywood actress
• Carol Reed, film director and illegitimate son of Herbert Beerbohm Tree
• Oliver Reed, actor who had Dutch, Lithuanian and German ancestry through his grandfather Herbert Beerbohm Tree
• Enn Reitel, actor and impressionist; his family arrived as refugees from Estonia and Germany
• Sean Pertwee, actor; son of actor Jon Pertwee and his German wife, Ingeborg (née Rhoesa)
• Mark Sheppard, actor and musician, born in London of an Irish and German background
• Dinah Sheridan, actress of Russian-Jewish and German descent
• Claire Stansfield, actress, director, fashion designer and model of half-English and half-German descent
• Herbert Beerbohm Tree, actor and theatre manager who was born as Herbert Draper Beerbohm, son of Julius Beerbohm; his father was of Dutch, Lithuanian and German origin
• Iris Tree, actress, poet and artists' model; daughter of Herbert Beerbohm Tree
• Viola Tree, actress; daughter of Herbert Beerbohm Tree
• Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and dramatist of Russian, German, Polish-Jewish and Ethiopian noble descent
• Gordon Warnecke, actor of Indo-Guyanese and German descent

Food

• Rick Stein, chef, restaurateur and television presenter whose father, Eric Stein, was of German descent (an ancestor, Julius Otto Stein, emigrated from Germany in the 19th century) ^[9]

Literature

• Sybille Bedford, novelist born in Charlottenburg
• John Berger, art critic and novelist, grandfather from Trieste
• Max Beerbohm, essayist, novelist and caricaturist who was of German descent by virtue of his relationship to Herbert Beerbohm Tree, his half-brother; their father was Julius Beerbohm
• Ford Madox Ford, novelist whose father, Francis Hueffer, was from Germany
• Robert Graves (full name Robert von Ranke Graves), poet, novelist and scholar, whose German mother was a great-niece of the historian Leopold von Ranke
• Adam Hart-Davis, historian, photographer, television presenter and scientist; son of Rupert Hart-Davis
• Duff Hart-Davis, biographer and journalist, son of Rupert Hart-Davis
• Rupert Hart-Davis, man of letters, publisher and editor; great-great-great-grandson of King William IV and, in turn, the German House of Hanover (and other prominent German dynasties)
• Frieda Hughes, poet and painter; daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath; Sylvia's father, Otto Plath, was German while her mother, Aurelia Plath, was of Austrian descent
• Judith Kerr, author of children's books, born in Berlin
• John Lehmann, man of letters and editor, whose Hamburg-born grandfather, Augustus Frederick Lehmann, was a businessman and Liberal politician
• Patrick O'Brian (born Richard Patrick Russ), novelist and translator, the son of a physician of German descent
• Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, historian of art and architecture
• Stephen Spender, poet and novelist, whose mother (Violet Hilda Schuster) had German parents
• J. R. R. Tolkien, writer, poet, philologist, linguist and Professor of Anglo-Saxon (alsosee above entry in 'Academia')

Music

• Antony Beaumont, musicologist, writer, composer and conductor; born in London of Anglo-German and Greek-Romanian heritage
• David Bedford, composer and musician; brother of Steuart Bedford (below) and grandson of Liza Lehmann
• Steuart Bedford, conductor and pianist; brother of the above David Bedford and grandson of Liza Lehmann
• Justin Broadrick, musician known primarily for Godflesh and Jesu; maternal grandparents were German immigrants.
• Frederick Delius, composer born as Fritz Theodore Albert Delius in Bradford, Yorkshire to German parents
• Georg Friedrich Handel, composer born as Georg Friedrich Händel
• Gustav Holst, composer of British, Swedish, Spanish, Latvian and German descent
• Bert Jansch, folk musician and descendant of a family originally from Hamburg, who had settled in Scotland during the Victorian era

News and journalism

• Matt Frei, broadcast journalist, born in Essen
• Rachel Johnson, editor, journalist, television presenter and writer; sister of Boris and Jo Johnson, and descendant of the House of Württemberg through an illegitimate line
• Laura Kuenssberg, journalist; granddaughter of Ekkehard von Kuenssberg

Politics and government

• David Cameron, Conservative Party politician and former Prime Minister, who is descended from the German House of Hanover through his fourth great-grandmother Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll, illegitimate daughter of King William IV
• Alf Dubs, Baron Dubs, Labour Party politician
• Eyre Crowe, former diplomat whose mother, Asta von Barby, was a German noblewoman
• Natascha Engel, Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament (half-German and half-English descent, born in Berlin)
• Nigel Farage, UKIP politician, whose great-grandfather Charles Justus Schrod (born Carl Julius Schrod), was born to German parents ^[10]
• Anthony Gueterbock, 18th Baron Berkeley, Labour Party peer
• Wera Hobhouse, (née von Reden) Liberal Democrat and Member of Parliament for Bath
• Boris Johnson, Conservative Party politician and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who is descended from the royal German House of Württemberg (and the House of Hanover) through his German great-great-great-grandmother Karolina von Rothenburg (born to Prince Paul of Württemberg and his mistress Frederike Porth) ^[11]
• Jo Johnson, Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament; brother of Boris and Rachel Johnson, and descendant of the House of Württemberg through an illegitimate line
• Joseph Jonas, former Mayor of Sheffield and Imperial German Consul to the city ^[12]
• Angus Robertson, SNP politician and Member of Parliament; born to a Scottish father and German mother
• Alexander Stafford, Conservative Party politician, Member of Parliament for Rother Valley
• Gisela Stuart (born Gisela Gschaider), Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament

Science

• Andre Geim, Russian-born Dutch-British physicist working in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester ^[13]
• John Herschel, English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and inventor; son of William Herschel, the Hanover-born astronomer who emigrated to Great Britain at the age of nineteen
• William Herschel, 2nd Baronet, forensic scientist; son of the above John Herschel and grandson of William Herschel
• Frederick Lindemann, scientific adviser and physicist; son of Adolph Friedrich Lindemann, an engineer born in the Palatinate
• Otto Metzger, German-British engineer, and inventor of an impact-extrusion process for forming seamless zinc and brass cans

Sport

• Nicky Butt, former English international footballer
• Geoff Hurst, former English international footballer; his mother, Evelyn Blick, was from Gloucestershire but her family originally came from Germany ^[14]
• Daniel Prenn (1904–1991), Russian-born German, Polish, and British world-top-ten tennis player
• Glenn Roeder, former English Club football coach
• Jimmy Bullard, former English footballer

Other

• William Stuart-Houston, nephew of Adolf Hitler

See also

• British people
• German migration to the United Kingdom
• German people

References

1. Nelson, Jinty (17 October 2002). "Timothy Reuter". The Guardian . London. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
2. Grunwald, Kurt (1969). "'Windsor-Cassel' – The last court Jew: Prolegomena to a biography of Sir Ernest Cassel". Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 14 (1): 119–161. doi:10.1093/leobaeck/14.1.119.
3. "Julian Clary". Who Do You Think You Are? . BBC . Retrieved 7 February 2011.
4. Didcock, Barry (30 April 2006). "A life in pictures Richard E Grant not only made a film of his diaries, he kept a diary during filming". Sunday Herald. Archived from the original on 7 November 2012. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
5. "1901 England Census". Ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
6. Jasper Rees (15 July 2002). "Crown him with many crowns". The Daily Telegraph . London. Archived from the original on 2 November 2007. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
7. "Olivia Newton-John, 'Grease' star and granddaughter of Jewish Nobel laureate, dies at 73". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 8 August 2022. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
8. Newton-John, Olivia (2019). Don't Stop Believin'. Simon and Schuster. p. 10. ISBN   9781982122263.
9. "Rick Stein". Who Do You Think You Are?. BBC. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
10. Dassanayake, Dion (3 May 2013). "Great-grandfather of Ukip leader Nigel Farage 'was born to German immigrants'". Daily Express . London. Archived from the original on 31 October 2013.
11. Warner, Gerald (23 April 2010). "Revealed: how David Cameron and Boris Johnson are related (and Nick Clegg's Mata Hari connection)". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 26 April 2010.
12. Mock, Wolfgang (1981). The Emergence of the Welfare State in Britain and Germany, 1850-1950. London: German Historical Institute. p. 115. ISBN   0-7099-1710-4.
13. "Professor Andre Geim, FRS (Condensed Matter Physics Group – The University of Manchester)". Archived from the original on 23 April 2012.
14. Hurst, Geoff & Hart, Michael (2002), 1966 and All That, Headline, p. 24