List of British people with German ancestry
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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
- 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"
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 Prince 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), whose 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, a 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
Art
- Walter Sickert, Munich-born painter of Danish-German, English and Irish descent (son of the painter Oswald Sickert)
Commerce
- Ernest Cassel, merchant banker of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, born in Cologne[2]
- Tiny Rowland, originally Roland Walter Fuhrhop, Rhodesian-British chairman of the Lonrho conglomerate from 1962 to 1994
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]
- 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][5]
- Jenny Hanley, actress of English descent through her father, Jimmy Hanley, and Russian-Jewish and German descent through her mother Dinah Sheridan
- Derek Jacobi, actor and film director, whose great-grandfather, William Jacobi[6] emigrated from Germany to England in the 19th century[7]
- 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
- 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 John 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)[8]
Literature
- Sybille Bedford, novelist born in Charlottenburg
- 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
- 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 (also see 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
- Frederick Delius, composer born as Fritz Theodore Albert Delius in Bradford, Yorkshire to German parents
- 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
- 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
- Andrew Brons, BNP politician and former Member of European Parliament, whose great-grandfather was German[9]
- David Cameron, Conservative Party politician and former Prime Minister, who is descended from the German House of Hanover through an illegitimate line
- 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), a clerk in the General Post Office,[10] was born to German parents[11][12]
- Boris Johnson, Conservative Party politician and current Mayor of London 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)[13]
- 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[14]
- William Joyce
- Angus Robertson, SNP politician and Member of Parliament; born to a Scottish father and German mother
- Gisela Stuart (born Gisela Gschaider), Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament
Science
- Andre Geim, Soviet-born Dutch-British physicist working in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester[15]
- 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
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[16]
- Glen Roeder, former English Club football coach
See also
References
- ^ Nelson, Jinty (17 October 2002). "Timothy Reuter". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
- ^ Grunwald, Kurt (1969). "'Windsor-Cassel' – The last court Jew: Prolegomena to a biography of Sir Ernest Cassel" (PDF). Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 14 (1): 119–161. doi:10.1093/leobaeck/14.1.119.
- ^ "Julian Clary". Who Do You Think You Are?. BBC. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Richard E Grant: At 11 I caught my mother cheating with dad's best friend". Daily Mail. 20 September 2007.
- ^ "1901 England Census". Ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ Jasper Rees (15 July 2002). "Crown him with many crowns". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 4 April 2008.
- ^ "Rick Stein". Who Do You Think You Are?. BBC. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ Tozer, James; Sims, Paul (9 June 2009). "Just how British are you, Mr Brons? BNP's second new MEP has roots in Germany". Daily Mail. London. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
- ^ "1911 England Census". Ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ "1871 England Census". Ancestry.co.uk. Retrieved 13 April 2013.
- ^ "The gag's on you, my lord!". Daily Mail. London. 13 January 2013.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Professor Andre Geim, FRS (Condensed Matter Physics Group – The University of Manchester)". Archived from the original on 19 April 2012.
- ^ Hurst, Geoff & Hart, Michael (2002), 1966 and All That, Headline, p. 24