List of Old Greshamians

Public life

• James Allan – British High Commissioner in Mauritius and ambassador to Mozambique
• Duncan Baker – Conservative Member of Parliament.
• Sir Eric Berthoud – British ambassador to Denmark and Poland
• Robert Brightiffe barrister and Member of Parliament
• Derek Bryan – Diplomat, sinologist, writer
• Erskine Childers – President of Ireland
• Sir Stewart Crawford – diplomat
• Kenelm Hubert Digby, 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
• 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, 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 King 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
• Arthur Estcourt – First World War officer
• 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, 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

• Edwin Boston – founder of the Cadeby Light Railway, "the Fat Clergyman" in the books of the Rev. W. Awdry
• John Bradburne – Franciscan
• John Burrell, 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 – 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
• 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

• Norman Cohn – historian
• Oliver Elton – literary critic, translator
• Boris Ford – literary critic, editor
• Alfred Gissing – biographer
• John Davy Hayward – editor and critic
• 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
• 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
• The Honourable David Layton – economist and industrial relations specialist
• Dr Colin Leakey – botanist
• Maurice Lister – chemist
• Jonathan Partington – mathematician
• Frank Perkins – engineer
• Christopher Strachey – computer scientist
• Sir Owen Wansbrough-Jones – chemist, weapons research scientist
• Sir Martin Wood – engineer
• Henry Snaith - FRS Professor of Physics, Oxford University
• James Durrant - FRS Professor of Photochemistry, Imperial College

  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
• 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
• Robert Eagle – film and television writer and director
• 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

  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

  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
• 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
• Andy Mulligan – captain of Ireland and the British and Irish Lions Rugby XV
• Tom Percival – 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 – actress
• Michael Culver – actor
• Henry Daniell – actor
• Nigel Dick – music video and film director
• Stephen Frears – film director
• Sienna Guillory – actress
• Julian Jarrold – television and film director
• Ben Mansfield – actor
• Robert Mawdesley – actor
• Bill Mason – documentary film maker
• Ed Nell – radio presenter
• Paddy O'Connell – television presenter
• Joshua "JP" Patterson – cast member of Made in Chelsea
• 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
• Viscount Dunluce – Chairman of Sarasin and Partners
• Sir James Dyson – inventor and entrepreneur
• 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
• Edward Charles Fitzroy – direct descendant of King Charles II, heir to the Barony of Southampton
• Anthony Coke, 6th Earl of Leicester
• Sir Weldon Dalrymple-Champneys CB DM FRCP
• David W. Doyle – CIA officer and author
• James Halman, Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
• George Hunt Holley
• Christopher Newbury – Council of Europe
• John Carnegie, 12th Earl of Northesk
• Ian Proctor – yacht designer
• William Joseph Spratling, Grand Sword Bearer of England
• 8th Baron Suffield
• Thomas Blanco White – patent barrister

  In fiction

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
• Graeme Fife – Writer and broadcaster
• Professor Richard D'Aeth

  Notable governors of the school

• 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