Westminster School - Notable Former Pupils

Notable Former Pupils

See also: List of people educated at Westminster School

The following people were educated at Westminster, amongst about 900 others listed in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

  • Richard Hakluyt (1553–1616), writer
  • Ben Jonson (1573–1637), poet and dramatist
  • Arthur Dee (1579–1651), alchemist and royal physician
  • George Herbert (1593–1633), public orator and poet
  • John Dryden (1631–1700), poet and playwright
  • John Locke (1632–1704), philosopher
  • Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), architect and scientist, co-founder of the Royal Society
  • Robert Hooke FRS (1635–1703), British scientist
  • Henry Purcell (1659–1695), composer
  • Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton (1735–1811), Prime Minister
  • Charles Wesley (1707–1788), Methodist preacher and writer of over 6,000 hymns
  • Edward Gibbon FRS (1737 – 1794), historian
  • Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), lawyer, eccentric and philosopher
  • Thomas Pinckney (1750–1828), American soldier, politician, and diplomat.
  • Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (1746–1825), ADC to Washington 1777, defeated by Jefferson in 1804 in contest for Presidency
  • Matthew Gregory "Monk" Lewis (1775–1818), novelist and dramatist
  • John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878), Prime Minister
  • FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855), lost his right arm at Waterloo, C-in-C in the Crimea who is honoured with a statue in Dean's Yard
  • Augustus Short (11 June 1802 – 5 October 1883), the first Anglican bishop of Adelaide, South Australia
  • A. A. Milne (QS) (1882–1956), author and journalist
  • Robert Southey (1774–1843), poet, historian and biographer
  • Oliver Lyttelton, 1st Viscount Chandos (1893–1972), Cabinet Minister during World War II, chaiman of the National Theatre Board
  • Hossein Ala' (1882–1964), former Prime Minister of Iran
  • Sir Adrian Boult (1889–1983), conductor
  • Edgar Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian (1889-1977) Nobel prize winner
  • Charles William Anderson Scott (1903–1946), pioneer aviator
  • Sir John Gielgud (GG) (1904–2000), actor and director
  • Charles Harvard Gibbs-Smith (1909–1981), Britain's foremost early aviation historian
  • Sir Andrew Huxley (b. 1917), Nobel prizewinning physiologist
  • Sir Peter Ustinov (1921–2004), actor, writer, director and raconteur
  • Tony Benn (born 1925), politician
  • Peter Brook (born 1925, LL 1937–1938), theatre director
  • Nigel Lawson (born 1932, WW 1945–1950), former Chancellor of the Exchequer, father of Nigella Lawson
  • Simon Gray (1936–2008, WW 1949–1954), playwright and diarist
  • Jonathan Fenby (born 1942, LL 1956-1960), journalist, author and former Editor of The Observer and South China Morning Post
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber (born 1948, QS 1960–1965), composer and producer
  • Martin Amis (born 1949), novelist
  • Stephen Poliakoff (born 1952, WW 1966–1970), director, playwright and television dramatist
  • Timothy Winter (born 1960), Shaykh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies, Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University
  • Ian Bostridge (born 1964), classical tenor
  • James Robbins (GG 1968–1972), broadcaster
  • Shane MacGowan (born 1957, AHH 1972–1973), musician
  • David Heyman (born 1961), film producer
  • Matt Frei (born 1963, RR 1978–1981), broadcaster
  • Gavin Rossdale (born 1965), musician, songwriter, lead singer with rock band Bush
  • Lucasta Miller (born 1966), writer and critic
  • Helena Bonham Carter (born 1966, LL 1982–1984), actress
  • Jason Kouchak (born 1967), pianist and composer
  • Noreena Hertz (born 1967, CC 1983-85), economist and campaigner
  • Nick Clegg (born 1967, LL), Liberal Democrat leader, MP for Sheffield Hallam, Deputy Prime Minister
  • Ruth Kelly (born 1968, DD 1984-86), Cabinet minister
  • Marcel Theroux (born 1968), novelist and broadcaster
  • Joe Cornish (born 1968), broadcaster
  • Adam Buxton (born 1969), comedian
  • Louis Theroux (born 1970), broadcaster
  • Jonathan Yeo (born 1970), artist
  • Dido Armstrong (born 1971, WW, 1987–1989), British musician under the name "Dido"
  • Martha Lane Fox (born 1973), head of Digital Public Services
  • James Reynolds (born 1974), BBC Beijing Correspondent
  • Conrad Shawcross (born 1977), artist
  • Pinny Grylls (born 1978, HH 1994–1996), documentary film-maker
  • Benjamin Yeoh (born 1978), playwright
  • Alexander Shelley (born 1979), conductor

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Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or pupils:

    “a notable prince that was called King John;
    And he ruled England with main and with might,
    For he did great wrong, and maintained little right.”
    —Unknown. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury (l. 2–4)

    “If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)