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Haydn Keeton served as organist and choirmaster of Peterborough Cathedral for more than 50 years. Composer, conductor and influential teacher, he trained musicians including Malcolm Sargent and Sir Thomas Armstrong and helped shape Peterborough’s remarkable musical heritage.
Charles Swift OBE served Peterborough for an extraordinary 62 years as a councillor. Railwayman, Mayor, council leader and community champion, he helped shape the expanding modern city and played a courageous role in welcoming Ugandan Asian families to Peterborough in 1972.
Peterborough-born Jake Jarman is an Olympic bronze medallist, two-time world champion and record-breaking Commonwealth gymnast. Discover his journey from a Peterborough playground to international glory and the creation of a gymnastics skill now known simply as “The Jarman”.
Peterborough-born Lauren Steadman MBE is a Paralympic triathlon champion, multiple world and European champion and five-time Paralympian. Discover her remarkable journey from teenage swimmer to Tokyo gold medallist, television personality and disability advocate.
Born in Peterborough in 1898, Sir Thomas Armstrong rose from the city’s musical traditions to become an organist, conductor, composer and Principal of the Royal Academy of Music. Discover his remarkable journey from Peterborough Cathedral to the heart of British musical life.
Born in Peterborough, Sir John Hill became one of Georgian Britain’s most colourful botanists, producing a monumental study of plants and one of the earliest medical warnings linking tobacco with cancer.
Born in Peterborough and baptised at its Cathedral, William Paley became one of Georgian Britain’s most influential philosophers and theologians, famous for the watchmaker argument that later helped shape the thinking of Charles Darwin.
Born in Peterborough and taught trombone through the Salvation Army, Don Lusher became one of Britain’s greatest big-band musicians, playing with Ted Heath, Frank Sinatra and generations of jazz legends.
Born in Peterborough, Ed Stafford became the first person to walk the entire length of the Amazon River, completing an extraordinary 860-day journey before building an international career as an explorer and television presenter.
Peterborough-born Fatima Manji is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author who rose from Jack Hunt School and regional BBC journalism to Channel 4 News, becoming Britain’s first hijab-wearing national television newsreader.
Seaxwulf was the founding abbot of Medeshamstede, the seventh-century monastery from which Peterborough Abbey, Peterborough Cathedral and ultimately the city itself developed.
After fire destroyed Peterborough Abbey in 1116, Abbot John de Sais began the monumental Norman church that became Peterborough Cathedral. Discover the man behind one of the city’s greatest buildings.
Mandell Creighton was a pioneering Victorian historian and Bishop of Peterborough from 1891 to 1897. Discover the scholar, churchman and peacemaker who helped shape modern historical study.
Lily Violet Bryant became Peterborough’s first woman councillor in 1930 and its first woman mayor in 1938, leading the city as Britain prepared for the Second World War.
Educated in Peterborough, Arthur James Robertson became an Olympic champion, international cross-country winner and 5,000 metres world-record holder before returning to a life in the city’s sporting community.
Raised and educated in Peterborough, Marjorie Pollard became an England hockey star, helped found the Women’s Cricket Association and broke new ground as the BBC’s first woman sports commentator.
Born and educated in Peterborough, Daphne Jackson became Britain’s first female Professor of Physics and created a pioneering fellowship scheme that has helped hundreds of researchers return to their careers.
Tommy Robson became one of the most loved figures in Peterborough United history, making a club-record 559 first-team appearances and building a lifelong connection with the city.
Frank Perkins helped turn a small Peterborough engineering business into one of the world’s great engine manufacturers. Discover the man, the machines and the city behind the Perkins name.
Henry Penn was the Peterborough bellfounder whose Bridge Street foundry produced more than 250 bells, including the great 1709 ring for Peterborough Cathedral. Discover the craftsman whose work still sounds across the city today.
Sergeant Thomas Hunter, the Lonely Anzac, died in Peterborough after being wounded at Pozières in 1916. Discover how the city honoured this Australian soldier with an extraordinary funeral, lasting memorials and an annual tradition of remembrance.
Mary, Queen of Scots was executed at nearby Fotheringhay in 1587 and given a magnificent royal funeral at Peterborough Cathedral, where she remained buried for 25 years.
William Tufnell Le Queux (1864–1927) was one of the most extraordinary literary figures ever to make his home in the Peterborough area.
Five UK number ones, two BRIT Awards and more than ten million records sold. The story starts with a Bretton schoolboy who wanted to play football, and a Saturday night impression of Michael Jackson.