The Greatest Britons List

A poll by the BBC, asked the nation, who they thought were the Greatest Britons. The winner was Winston Churchill. The other top 100 are also listed.

Top 10 Greatest Britons

1. Winston Churchill (28.1%)
british2. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (24.6%)
british3. Princess Diana (13.9%)
british4. Charles Darwin(6.9%)
british5. William Shakespeare (6.8%)
british6. Sir Isaac Newton (5.2%)
british7. Queen Elizabeth I (4.4%)
british8. John Lennon (4.2%)
british9. Horatio Nelson (3%)
british10. Oliver Cromwell (2.8%)

Top 100 Greatest Britons in alphabetical order

– Campaigned against slavery

If you’d like to nominate anyone, please do in comments

 

Commentary on List

In a way, the BBC list would be better to be called ‘most famous Britons’. There is also an inevitable bias to those who lived recently.

From a personal perspective, I feel the Greatest 100 Britons should include great poets like John Keats and William Wordsworth. Also, I would want to include some who epitomised certain events like the First World War; perhaps Vera Brittain and Wilfred Owen.

Related pages

Eras of Britain

External links

Other Notable Britons missing out on the list

Legends of Great Briton

Categories

6 Comments

  • How John Milton’s name has been left?

  • No Ranulph Fiennes!? As the first and only man to cross both poles & climb Mount Everest he is arguably the greatest adventurer of all time. He should easily make this list, top 20 in my book. Not even an honourable mention… This list is laughable

  • What????
    Lady Di ahead of Darwin,Newton,Shakespeare???????
    Come on!

  • The Duke of Wellington, Ernest Shackleton, James Connolly, Bob Geldof and Paul Hewson (Bono) were all Irish and not from Great Briton the last time I checked!

  • What, what, what? Have we all mislaid the Goons? Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and, of course, Harry Secombe. Well, I know what I was doing in the fifties.