# List of Old Greshamians

The following is a list of notable Old Greshamians, former pupils of Gresham's School, an independent coeducational boarding school in Holt, Norfolk, England.

## Public life

* James Allan – British High Commissioner in Mauritius and ambassador to Mozambique
* Duncan Baker (born 1979) – Conservative Member of Parliament.
* Jeremy Bamber (born 1961) - British convicted mass murderer, apprehended 29 September 1985.
* Sir Eric Berthoud – British ambassador to Denmark and Poland
* Robert Brightiffe (c. 1666–1749) barrister and Member of Parliament
* Derek Bryan – Diplomat, sinologist, writer
* Erskine Childers – fourth President of Ireland
* Sir Stewart Crawford – diplomat
* Kenelm Hubert Digby (1912–2001), proposer of the notorious 1933 "King and Country" debate and later Attorney General and judge in Sarawak
* Bernard Floud – Labour politician
* Sir Cecil Graves – Director-General of the BBC
* Thomas George Greenwell – National Conservative member of parliament
* Sir Christopher Heydon – 16th century member of parliament
* Paul Howell – Conservative Member of the European Parliament for Norfolk
* Robert Lymbery - Common Serjeant of London
* Donald Maclean – diplomat and spy
* 11th Earl of Northesk – parliamentarian
* Terence O'Brien – British ambassador to Nepal, Burma and Indonesia
* John Playfair Price – diplomat, a President of the Oxford Union
* Laurance Reed – Conservative politician
* Lord Reith – first Director-General of the BBC – politician
* Wilfrid Roberts – Liberal politician
* Christian Schiller – HM Inspector of Schools
* 11th Lord Strabolgi – Labour politician
* Dr Thomas Stuttaford – Conservative politician and journalist
* C. G. H. Simon (1914–2002), Income Tax General Commissioner
* Lord Simon of Glaisdale – Conservative politician and law lord
* Lord Simon of Wythenshawe – socialist and journalist
* Sir Edward Blanshard Stamp – Lord Justice of Appeal
* Sir William Royden Stuttaford – President of the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations
* Sir Gerald Thesiger – High Court Judge
* Sir John Tusa – Director of BBC World Service
* Lord Wilson of High Wray – governor of the BBC and Lord Lieutenant of Westmorland and of Cumbria
* Sir Percy Wyn-Harris – governor of The Gambia

## Armed forces

* General Sir Terence Airey – soldier, GOC Hong Kong
* Captain Joe Baker-Cresswell – Royal Navy officer, aide-de-camp to George VI
* Peter Beck – soldier and schoolmaster
* General Sir Robert Bray – Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe
* Sir Stephen Bull, 2nd Baronet – killed on active service in Java, 1942
* Donald Cunnell – First World War fighter pilot
* Air Vice-Marshal Sir William Cushion – Royal Air Force officer and British Overseas Airways Corporation executive
* Major-General Guy Gregson – soldier
* Sir Christopher Heydon – took part in the capture of Cádiz, 1596
* General Sir William Holmes – Second World War general
* Henry Howard – Second World War commander of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
* Brigadier Julian Jefferson, British Army officer
* Major-General John Lethbridge – soldier
* Rear Admiral Martin Lucey (1920–1992), Flag Officer, Scotland and Northern Ireland and Admiral President of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich
* Major-General Patrick Marriott – Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst 2009–2012
* Rear-Admiral Brian Perowne – Chief of Fleet Support, Royal Navy
* Brigadier Sir Philip Toosey – Bridge on the River Kwai commander
* Tom Wintringham – soldier, military historian, journalist, poet, communist
* Major-General A. E. Younger – soldier
* Major General Alastair Duncan – soldier

## Church

* John Astley – 18th-century Norfolk pluralist
* Edwin Boston – founder of the Cadeby Light Railway, "the Fat Clergyman" in the books of the Rev. W. Awdry
* John Bradburne – Franciscan
* John Burrell (1762–1825), clergyman and entomologist
* John Daly – bishop of The Gambia, Accra, Korea and Taejon
* Colin Forrester-Paton – missionary and Chaplain to H.M. The Queen in Scotland
* Most Rev. David Hand – Archbishop of Papua New Guinea
* Dr John Johnson (1769–1833) – clergyman and editor
* Peter Lee – bishop of the diocese of Christ the King, Johannesburg
* William Lubbock – 18th-century divine, Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge
* Charles Abdy Marcon – Master of Marcon's Hall, Oxford, 1891 to 1918
* John Moorman – Bishop of Ripon
* Thomas Pyle – 18th-century clergyman and writer
* Herbert Reeve – Church of England missionary and clergyman in New Zealand
* Robin Woods – Dean of Windsor and Bishop of Worcester

## Medicine

* Richard Battle – plastic surgeon
* Arthur Doyne Courtenay Bell – consultant paediatrician
* Roger Carpenter – neurophysiologist
* Major-General Joseph Crowdy – Commandant of the Royal Army Medical Corps
* Michael Fordham – psychiatrist
* Douglas Gairdner, paediatrician
* Thomas Girdlestone – physician and writer
* John Grange – immunologist
* William Henry Kelson, physician, president of the Hunterian Society
* Dermod MacCarthy – paediatrician
* William Rushton FRS – physiologist
* Thomas Stuttaford – doctor and politician
* Hugh Christian Watkins – cardiologist
* Anthony Yates – rheumatologist

### Nobel Prize-winner

* Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin – Nobel Prize for Medicine, President of the Royal Society, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge

## Academics
### Arts

* John Bensusan-Butt – landscape painter
* Norman Cohn – historian
* Oliver Elton – literary critic, translator
* Boris Ford – literary critic, editor
* Alfred Gissing – biographer
* John Davy Hayward – editor and critic
* Andrew Hurrell - Professor of International Relations, Oxford University
* Michael Kitson – art historian
* James Klugmann – Communist historian
* 2nd Baron Lindsay of Birker – political scientist
* W. Wesley Pue – academic lawyer
* Sir James Maude Richards – architectural historian
* E. Clive Rouse – archaeologist
* John Saltmarsh – historian
* Brian Simon – educational historian
* Peter J N Sinclair – economist

### Sciences

* L. E. Baynes – aeronautical engineer
* Arnold Beck – electrical engineer, Professor of Engineering at Cambridge
* David Bensusan-Butt – economist
* Derek Bryan – sinologist
* Anthony Bull – transport engineer
* Sir Henry Clay, 6th Baronet – engineer
* Sir Christopher Cockerell – inventor of the hovercraft
* Nicholas Day - statistician and epidemiologist
* James Durrant - FRS Professor of Photochemistry, Imperial College
* C. H. Gimingham – botanist
* Dr Hildebrand Hervey FRS – marine biologist
* Sir John Hammond – agricultural research scientist
* Ian Hepburn, botanist and schoolteacher
* Harry Hodson – economist
* G. Evelyn Hutchinson – zoologist
* Bryan Keith-Lucas – political scientist
* David Keith-Lucas – aeronautical engineer
* David Lack – evolutionary biologist
* David Layton – economist and industrial relations specialist
* Dr Colin Leakey – botanist
* Maurice Lister – chemist
* Jonathan Partington – mathematician
* Frank Perkins – engineer
* Henry Snaith - FRS Professor of Physics, Oxford University
* Christopher Strachey – computer scientist
* Sir Owen Wansbrough-Jones – chemist, weapons research scientist
* Sir Martin Wood – engineer

## Writers
### Poets

* W. H. Auden – poet
* John Henry Colls, 18th century poet
* Andrew Jefford – poet and wine writer
* Michael Laskey – poet
* John Pudney – poet and novelist
* Sir Stephen Spender – poet

### Novelists

* John Lanchester – novelist
* Sabin Willett – novelist

### Journalists

* Matt Arnold – journalist and television presenter
* Bruce Belfrage - BBC Radio newsreader and actor
* Cedric Belfrage – journalist and author
* Mark Brayne – BBC foreign correspondent and psychotherapist
* Rupert Hamer – journalist killed in Afghanistan
* Alastair Hetherington – journalist, editor of The Guardian
* Paddy O'Connell – journalist and main presenter of BBC Radio 4's Broadcasting House
* Edmund Rogers – journalist
* Philip Pembroke Stephens – journalist
* Sir John Tusa – BBC journalist

### Other

* Maurice Ash – environmentalist writer
* Sir Christopher Heydon – 17th century writer on astrology
* Lady Flora McDonnell – children's author
* Pat Simon – wine writer and Master of Wine
* Kenneth Taylor – television scriptwriter
* William Osborne — screenwriter

## Music

* Richard Austin – conductor
* Benjamin Britten, Lord Britten of Aldeburgh – composer
* Sir Lennox Berkeley – composer
* Richard Hand – classical guitarist
* Christopher J. Monckton – organist and conductor
* Heathcote Dicken Statham – composer and organist
* George Stiles – composer
* Roderick Watkins – composer
* Hammond Witherley – singer

## Artists

* Michael Cummings – cartoonist
* Richard Chopping – book cover illustrator, painter and novelist
* William Lionel Clause, landscape artist
* Sir Philip Dowson – architect and president of the Royal Academy
* Edward Frank Gillett – sporting artist
* Robert Medley RA – artist
* Ben Nicholson, OM – artist
* Christopher Nicholson – architect
* Christopher Perkins – artist
* Humphrey Spender – photographer
* Tony Tuckson – artist
* Charles Mayes Wigg – artist

## Sport

* Giles Baring – cricketer
* Glyn Barnett – rifleman, Commonwealth Games gold medallist 2006
* Tom Bourdillon – mountaineer
* Gawain Briars – British No. 1 squash player
* 11th Earl of Northesk – Olympic medallist (skeleton, 1928)
* Andrew Corran – cricketer
* Peter Croft – cricketer and Olympic field hockey player
* Matthew Dickinson – mountaineer and adventurer
* Dennis Eagan – field hockey player, bronze medallist in the 1952 Summer Olympics
* Natasha Firman – Formula Woman racing driver
* Ralph Firman – Formula One racing driver
* Julian Jefferson – cricketer
* Richard Leman – hockey player and Olympic gold medallist
* Peter Lloyd – mountaineer
* Richard Millman - Squash national champion and coach
* Andy Mulligan – captain of Ireland and the British and Irish Lions Rugby XV
* Tom Percival (1943–1984) – powerboat racer
* Ben Pienaar – rugby union player and Junior National Champion at judo
* Harry Simmons – rugby footballer
* Pat Symonds – Formula One racing
* Nick Youngs – England rugby union footballer
* Ben Youngs – England Rugby Team, British Lion and member of Leicester Tigers and Heineken Cup medal winner
* Tom Youngs – England Rugby Team, British Lion
* Sir Percy Wyn-Harris – mountaineer

## Performing arts

* Kat Alano – model, actress
* Michael Aldridge – actor
* Bruce Belfrage – actor, news reader, politician
* Peter Brook – theatre director
* Olivia Colman (Sarah Colman) – actress
* Michael Culver – actor
* Henry Daniell – actor
* Nigel Dick – music video and film director
* Stephen Frears – film director
* Sienna Guillory – actress
* Geoffrey Gwyther – singer, actor, and song-writer
* Julian Jarrold – television and film director
* Ben Mansfield – actor
* Robert Mawdesley – actor
* Bill Mason – documentary film maker
* Paddy O'Connell – television presenter
* Miranda Raison – actress
* Sebastian Shaw – actor
* Patrick Waddington – actor
* Peter Whitbread – actor and scriptwriter

## Business

* Sir Harold Atcherley – Royal Dutch Shell executive; Chairman of Tyzack & Partners
* Randal McDonnell, 10th Earl of Antrim – Chairman of Sarasin and Partners LLP
* Sir James Dyson – inventor and entrepreneur
* Sir Nigel Foulkes –Chairman of the British Airports Authority and the Civil Aviation Authority
* Anthony Habgood – Chairman of Court, Bank of England. Chairman of Reed Elsevier and past chairman Whitbread
* Sir Robin Ibbs – banker
* Charles Kearley – property developer and art collector
* Sir Christopher Howes – chief executive of the Crown Estate
* Sir William Stuttaford – stockbroker and business man
* John L. Marden – Chairman of Wheelock and Marden Co. Ltd

## Other

* Robert Aagaard – furniture maker and founder of the youth movement Cathedral Camps
* Theodore Acland – headmaster of Norwich School
* Sir John Agnew, 6th Baronet – landowner, festivals organizer
* Sir George Anthony Agnew, 7th Baronet – landowner
* Jeremy Bamber – convicted murderer
* Bill Bell – chief legal adviser to Lloyds Bank
* Thomas Blanco White QC, British patent lawyer
* John Bradbury, 3rd Baron Bradbury
* Martin Burgess FSA – master clockmaker
* Rupert Byron, 11th Baron Byron
* Trevor Roberts, 2nd Baron Clwyd
* Anthony Coke, 6th Earl of Leicester
* Sir Weldon Dalrymple-Champneys CB DM FRCP
* David W. Doyle – CIA officer and author
* James Halman (died 1702), Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
* Christopher Newbury – Council of Europe
* John Carnegie, 12th Earl of Northesk
* Ian Proctor – yacht designer
* 8th Baron Suffield

## In fiction

Among fictional OGs, John Mortimer's television barrister Rumpole sent his son Nick to the school during the 1970s.

## Notable Gresham's masters

* Logie Bruce Lockhart – Scotland rugby footballer, headmaster
* Warin Foster Bushell – later headmaster of Michaelhouse and Birkenhead School and president of the Mathematical Association
* Antony R. Clark – headmaster since 2002, first-class cricketer
* C. V. Durell – writer of mathematics textbooks
* Graeme Fife – writer – playwright and broadcaster
* Walter Greatorex – composer
* Dalziel Llewellyn Hammick – research chemist
* John Holmes – writer of textbooks on grammar, rhetoric and astronomy
* George Howson – headmaster, 1900-1919
* Charles W. Lloyd – Master of Dulwich College
* Frank McEachran – author
* Geoffrey Shaw – organist and composer
* Patrick Thompson – Conservative Member of Parliament
* Hugh Wright – Headmaster 1985–1991, later Chairman of the Headmasters' Conference
* Professor Richard D'Aeth (later Master of Hughes Hall, Cambridge)

## Notable governors of the school

* Graham George Able, 2013–2020
* Theodore Dyke Acland
* A. C. Benson
* Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood
* Sir Richard Carew Pole, 13th Baronet
* Pauline Perry, Baroness Perry of Southwark
* Sir Angus Stirling
* David Cairns, 5th Earl Cairns
* Anthony Duckworth-Chad
* Anne, Princess Royal
* James Dyson