List of University of Cambridge people
Appearance
The following persons attended the University of Cambridge but did not necessarily complete a degree course there.
The list of alumni has been divided into categories, but it should be noted that these categories are somewhat arbitrary, and that many of the university's alumni have been polymaths, in these cases an attempt has been made to put them in the category for which they were most famous.
Politics/Royalty
Kings and Queens
- Edward VII of the United Kingdom (Trinity)
- George VI of the United Kingdom
- Margrethe II of Denmark (Girton)
- Peter II of Yugoslavia
- Kumar Shri Ranjitsinhji, Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, India (Trinity) Cricketer, Statesman
Princes
- Charles, Prince of Wales (Trinity)
- Prince Edward (Jesus)
- Princess Takamado of Japan (Girton)
- Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia (Clare)
Lord Protector
- Oliver Cromwell (Sidney Sussex)
Presidents and Prime Ministers (international)
- Stanley Bruce, 1st Viscount Bruce Prime Minister of Australia
- Erskine Hamilton Childers (Trinity) President of Ireland 1973-1974
- Rajiv Gandhi (Trinity) Prime Minister of India 1984-1989
- Lee Hsien Loong Prime Minister of Singapore 2004-
- Ba Maw First Prime Minister of Burma (Myanmar) 1937-1939; Head of State 1943-1945
- Jawaharlal Nehru (Trinity) First Prime Minister of India 1947-1964
- Tunku Abdul Rahman (St Catharine's) First Prime Minister of Malaysia 1957-1970
- Manmohan Singh (St John's) Prime Minister of India 2004-
- Jan Smuts (Christ's) Prime Minister of South Africa
- William Henry Waddington (Trinity) Prime Minister of France 1879
- Lee Kuan Yew (Fitzwilliam) First Prime Minister of Singapore 1965-1990
Prime Ministers (Great Britain)
- Sir Robert Walpole (King's) Prime Minister 1721-1742
- Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle (Clare) Prime Minister 1754-1756, 1757-1762
- Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (St John's) Prime Minister 1765-66, 1782
- Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (Peterhouse) Prime Minister 1768-1770
- William Pitt the Younger (Pembroke) Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806
- Spencer Perceval (Trinity) Prime Minister 1809-1812
- Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool (Christ's) 1812-1827
- Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich (St John's) Prime Minister 1827-1828
- Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (Trinity) Prime Minister 1830-1834
- William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (Trinity) Prime Minister 1834, 1835-1841
- George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen (Trinity) Prime Minister 1852-1855
- Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (St John's) Prime Minister 1855-1858, 1859-1865
- Arthur Balfour (Trinity) Prime Minister 1902-1905
- Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Trinity) Prime Minister 1905-1908
- Stanley Baldwin (Trinity) Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937
Signatories of the American Declaration of Independence
- Thomas Lynch, Jr. (Gonville and Caius)
- Arthur Middleton (St John's)
- Thomas Nelson, Jr. (Trinity)
Soviet spies
- Anthony Blunt (Trinity)
- Guy Burgess (Trinity)
- Kim Philby (Trinity)
- Donald Maclean (Trinity Hall)
- John Cairncross (Trinity)
Other political figures
- Nathaniel Bacon (Sidney Sussex) Early American rebel
- Subhash Chandra Bose (Fitzwilliam) Indian independence leader
- Richard Austen Butler (Pembroke)
- Alistair Campbell (Caius) Press Secretary and Director of Communications & Strategy under Tony Blair
- William Cecil (St. John's) chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I
- Charles Clarke (King's)
- Kenneth Clarke (Caius)
- Abba Eban (Pembroke) Israeli stateman
- Anthony Giddens Sociologist, propagator of "Third Way" social theory & political agenda, advisor to Tony Blair
- Nick Griffin (Downing) Leader of the British National Party
- Michael Howard (Peterhouse)
- Norman Lamont (Fitzwilliam)
- Louis Mountbatten (Christ's) Last Viceroy and first Governor-General of India
- David Owen (Sidney Sussex) Co-founder of the Social Democratic Party (UK)
- Charles Stewart Parnell (Magdalene) Leader of the Irish Nationalists
- Michael Portillo (Peterhouse)
- Chris Smith (Pembroke)
- Sir Francis Walsingham (King's) Head of the Elizabethan Secret Service
- William Wilberforce (St. John's) Slavery abolitionist
- John Winthrop (Trinity) Founder and first Governor of Massachusetts
Clergy and religious leaders
- Thomas Cranmer (Jesus)
- Rowan Williams (Christ's)
Novelists, playwrights, memoirists and critics
- Peter Ackroyd (Clare)
- Douglas Adams (St John's)
- Clive Bell (Trinity)
- A. S. Byatt (Newnham)
- Margaret Drabble (Newnham)
- Tibor Fischer
- E. M. Forster (King's)
- Edmund Gosse (Trinity)
- Leslie Halliwell (Sidney Sussex)
- David Hare (Jesus)
- Robert Harris (Selwyn)
- Nick Hornby
- Charles Kingsley (Magdalene)
- Christopher Marlowe (Corpus Christi)
- A. A. Milne (Trinity)
- Nicholas Monsarrat (Trinity)
- Samuel Pepys (Magdalene)
- J.B. Priestley
- Simon May
- Vladimir Nabokov (Trinity)
- Helen Oyeyemi (Corpus Christi)
- Salman Rushdie (King's)
- Edward Rutherfurd
- Tom Sharpe (Pembroke)
- James Shirley (Sidney Sussex)
- Zadie Smith (King's)
- C. P. Snow (Christ's)
- Laurence Sterne (Jesus)
- Lytton Strachey (Trinity)
- William Makepeace Thackeray (Trinity)
- Leonard Woolf (Trinity)
Poets
- Rupert Brooke (King's)
- Lord Byron (Trinity)
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- John Dryden (Trinity)
- Thomas Gray (Pembroke)
- A.E. Housman (Trinity)
- Ted Hughes (Pembroke)
- John Milton (Christ's)
- Sylvia Plath (Newnham)
- Siegfried Sassoon (Clare)
- Edmund Spenser (Pembroke)
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson (Trinity)
- William Wordsworth (St John's)
Actors, directors, comedians and musicians
- Tim Brooke-Taylor (Pembroke)
- Graham Chapman (Emmanuel)
- John Cleese (Downing)
- Sacha Baron Cohen, aka Ali G (Christ's)
- Peter Cook (Pembroke)
- Richard Eyre (Peterhouse)
- Trent Ford
- Nick Drake (Fitzwilliam)
- Stephen Fry (Queens')
- Peter Hall (St. Catherine's)
- Nick Hancock (Homerton)
- The Hollow Men comedy troupe
- Nicholas Hytner (Trinity Hall)
- Charles Hart (Robinson)
- Eric Idle (Pembroke)
- Derek Jacobi (St. John's)
- Humphrey Jennings (Pembroke)
- Griff Rhys Jones (Emmanuel)
- Hugh Laurie (Selwyn)
- James Mason (Peterhouse)
- Ian McKellen (St Catharine's)
- Sam Mendes (Peterhouse)
- Thandie Newton (Downing)
- Michael Redgrave (Magdalene)
- Tony Slattery (Trinity Hall)
- Richard Stilgoe (Clare)
- Emma Thompson (Newnham)
- Ralph Vaughan Williams (Trinity)
- Rachel Weisz (Trinity Hall)
Scientists, technologists and mathematicians
- John Couch Adams (St.John's)
- Lord Adrian (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Ross Anderson
- Edward Appleton (St John's) Nobel Prize winner
- Philip Warren Anderson (Churchill) Nobel Prize winner
- Francis Aston (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Charles Babbage (Peterhouse)
- Charles Barkla (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Simon Baron-Cohen (Trinity)
- Patrick Blackett (Magdalene / Kings) Nobel Prize winner
- Niels Bohr (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Hermann Bondi (Trinity)
- Max Born (Nobel Prize winner
- Lawrence Bragg (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- William Henry Bragg (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Sydney Brenner (King's) Nobel Prize winner
- James Chadwick (Caius) Nobel Prize winner
- Ernst Chain (Fitzwilliam) Nobel Prize winner
- Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Sir John Douglas Cockcroft (St John's) Nobel Prize winner
- Arthur Holly Compton Nobel Prize winner
- Allan Cormack (St John's) Nobel Prize winner
- Francis Crick (Caius / Churchill) Nobel Prize winner
- Henry Dale (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Charles Darwin (Christ's)
- Jared Diamond (Trinity)
- Paul Dirac (St John's) Nobel Prize winner
- John Flamsteed
- Howard Florey (Caius) Nobel Prize winner
- Dian Fossey
- William Fowler (Pembroke) Nobel Prize winner
- William Gilbert (St John's)
- Walter Gilbert (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Thomas Gold (Trinity)
- Jane Goodall (Newnham / Darwin)
- Paul Greengard Nobel Prize winner
- William Harvey (Caius)
- Stephen Hawking (Trinity Hall, Gonville & Caius)
- William Heberden (St. John's)
- John Herschel (St. John's)
- Antony Hewish (Caius / Churchill) Nobel Prize winner
- A. V. Hill (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Alan Hodgkin (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Dorothy Hodgkin (Newnham / Girton) Nobel Prize winner
- Frederick Hopkins (Trinity / Emmanuel) Nobel Prize winner
- Fred Hoyle (Emmanuel)
- Tim Hunt (Clare) Nobel Prize winner
- Andrew Huxley (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Brian Josephson (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Pyotr Kapitsa (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- John Kendrew (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Aaron Klug (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Georges J.F. Kohler Nobel Prize winner
- Hans Krebs Nobel Prize winner
- Louis Leakey
- Archer Martin (Peterhouse) Nobel Prize winner
- Alan MacDiarmid (Sidney Sussex) Nobel Prize winner
- Cesar Milstein (Fitzwilliam) Nobel Prize winner
- Peter Mitchell (Jesus) Nobel Prize winner
- Samuel Morland (Magdalene)
- Nevill Mott (Caius / St John's) Nobel Prize winner
- Isaac Newton (Trinity)
- Ronald Norrish (Emmanuel) Nobel Prize winner
- Jeremiah Ostriker
- Roger Penrose (St. John's)
- Max Perutz (Peterhouse) Nobel Prize winner
- John Pople (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- George Porter (Emmanuel) Nobel Prize winner
- Rodney Porter (Pembroke) Nobel Prize winner
- Cecil Powell (Sidney Sussex) Nobel Prize winner
- Norman F. Ramsey (Clare) Nobel Prize winner
- Lord Rayleigh (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Martin Rees (Trinity)
- Owen Richardson (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Ernest Rutherford (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Martin Ryle (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Abdus Salam (St John's) Nobel Prize winner
- Frederick Sanger (St John's College) winner of two Nobel Prizes
- Charles Sherrington (Caius) Nobel Prize winner
- John Maynard Smith (Trinity)
- C.P. Snow (Christ's)
- George Gabriel Stokes (Pembroke)
- John Sulston (Pembroke) Nobel Prize winner
- James Joseph Sylvester (St. John's)
- Richard Synge (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (Fitzwilliam) Nobel Prize winner
- Brook Taylor (St. John's)
- George Paget Thomson (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- J. J. Thomson (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- Alexander Todd (Christ's) Nobel Prize winner
- Alan Turing (King's)
- John Walker (Sidney Sussex) Nobel Prize winner
- Ernest Walton (Trinity) Nobel Prize winner
- James D. Watson (Clare) Nobel Prize winner
- Steven Weinberg Nobel Prize winner
- Frank Whittle (Peterhouse)
- Andrew Wiles (Clare)
- Maurice Wilkes (St. John's)
- Maurice Wilkins (St John's) Nobel Prize winner
- Charles Wilson (Sidney Sussex) Nobel Prize winner
- John Venn (Caius)
See also List of all Nobel Prize winners from Cambridge University
Philosophers
- Sir Francis Bacon (Trinity)
- Simon Blackburn (Trinity)
- Desiderius Erasmus (Queens')
- G. E. Moore (Trinity)
- Bertrand Russell (Trinity)
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (Trinity)
Artists and Architects
- Christopher Alexander (Trinity)
- Peter Eisenman
- Antony Gormley (Trinity)
Educationalists
- Henry Dunster (Magdalene) First president of Harvard
- John Harvard (Emmanuel) Founder of Harvard
Economists
- R. G. D. Allen (Sidney Sussex)
- John Maynard Keynes (King's)
- Thomas Malthus (Jesus)
- Alfred Marshall
- Amartya Sen (Trinity)
- Arthur Cecil Pigou
- Joan Robinson (Girton)
Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders
- John Browne (St. John's) CEO of British Petroleum
- Ray Dolby (Pembroke) audio technologies inventor and founder of Dolby
- Hermann Hauser electronics entrepreneur
- Andy Hopper (Corpus Christi) electronics entrepreneur, academic
- Michael Lynch (Christ's) software and internet entrepreneur
- David Sainsbury (King's) Sainsbury's supermarket chain
- Martin Sorrell (Christ's) founder of WPP, the world's second largest advertising group
- John Sperling (King's) education billionaire, founder of the University of Phoenix
- Tony Wilson (Jesus) music and youth culture entrepreneur
Legal Experts
- Karl Hudson-Phillips (Selwyn) Trinidad & Tobago legal advisor and politician
- Lawrence Lessig (Trinity) leading US cyberlaw expert, founder of the Creative Commons movement, free software advocate
Historians
- Lord Acton (Trinity)
- Herbert Butterfield (Peterhouse)
- Geoffrey Elton (Clare)
- Richard J. Evans
- Orlando Figes (Caius)
- Thomas Babington Macaulay (Trinity)
- Joseph Needham (Caius)
- Jack Plumb (Christ's)
- Simon Schama (Christ's)
- David Starkey (Fitzwilliam)
- George Macaulay Trevelyan (Trinity)
Journalists and TV personalities
- Clive Anderson (Selwyn)
- David Attenborough (Clare's)
- Bamber Gascoigne
- Andrew Gowers (Caius)
- Johann Hari (King's)
- Arianna Huffington (Girton)
- Konnie Huq (Robinson)
- Clive James (Pembroke)
- Bill Oddie (Pembroke)
- Jeremy Paxman (St Catharine's)
- Andrew Rawnsley (Sidney Sussex)
- Alan Rusbridger (Magdalene)
- John Simpson (Magdalene)
- Carol Vorderman (Sidney Sussex)
- Richard Whiteley (Christ's)
- Peregrine Worsthorne (Peterhouse)
Sportsmen and women
- Harold Abrahams (Caius) Olympian sprinter, long jumper
- Mike Atherton (Downing) Cricketer
- Gavin Hastings (Magdalene) Rugby player
- George Mallory (Magdalene) Mountaineer
- Peter May (Pembroke) Cricketer
- Wavell Wakefield (Pembroke) Rugby player
- H. de Winton and J. C. Thring (Trinity) Formalized rules of association football (soccer)
- Deng Yaping Table tennis player