Edmund Hockridge (1919-2009)
Edmund Hockridge was an internationally acclaimed singer and actor with deep roots in Peterborough.
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L P Hartley (1895-1972)
Born in Whittlesey and raised at Fletton Towers in Peterborough, L. P. Hartley became an award-winning novelist, critic and master of psychological unease. His most famous novel, The Go-Between, gave English literature one of its most enduring descriptions of the power of the past.
Old Scarlett (c.1496-1594)
Robert “Old Scarlett” was Peterborough’s long-serving Tudor sexton, remembered for tending the city’s dead and helping to inter Katharine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots. The two royal burials took place 51 years apart, making his life an extraordinary human thread running through one of the most turbulent centuries in English history.
John Clare (1793–1864)
John Clare (1793–1864) is celebrated as one of England’s finest rural poets, famed for capturing the beauty of the countryside and the voices of rural life with rare authenticity.
Walter Cornelius (c. 1923–1983)
Walter Cornelius was Peterborough’s strongman, swimming teacher, charity daredevil and unforgettable “Birdman”. Behind the homemade wings and impossible-looking feats was a Latvian refugee whose extraordinary journey carried him through occupation and war before he found a permanent home beside the River Nene.
John Fletcher (1579–1625)
Raised for part of his childhood within Peterborough’s Cathedral precincts, John Fletcher became the leading dramatist of the King’s Men after Shakespeare and one of the most successful playwrights of the Jacobean stage.
Dr Thomas James Walker (1835-1916)
A pioneering surgeon at Peterborough Infirmary, now the Museum, from 1862 to 1906.
Louis Smith
Peterborough-born Louis Smith MBE helped transform the fortunes and public profile of British men’s gymnastics, winning four Olympic medals and becoming one of the finest pommel horse specialists of his generation.
Jake Humphrey
Born in Peterborough in 1978, Jake Humphrey went from CBBC to anchoring BBC Formula One, Premier League football, and the High Performance Podcast.
Maxim (Keith Andrew Palmer)
Maxim developed his voice in the city’s reggae sound-system culture before becoming the MC and vocalist of The Prodigy.
Larry Taylor (1918–2003)
Peterborough-born Larry Taylor was one of British cinema’s dependable character actors and stunt performers, building a screen career that stretched from post-war films to international productions made in South Africa.
Katherine of Aragon (1485–1536)
A Spanish princess, Queen of England, diplomat, regent and mother of Mary I, Catherine of Aragon became one of the defining figures of Tudor history. Her burial at Peterborough in 1536 gave the city an enduring connection with a queen whose struggle changed England.
Sir Henry Hodge (1944–2009)
Born in Peterborough in 1944, Sir Henry Hodge devoted his career to making justice accessible before becoming only the third solicitor appointed as a High Court judge in England and Wales.
Paul Nicholas
Born in Peterborough, Paul Nicholas is an actor, singer, director and producer whose career has moved remarkably freely between pop music, landmark West End musicals, film, television comedy and theatre production. From playing Jesus and the Rum Tum Tugger to winning a BAFTA as Vince Pinner, he has remained a familiar presence in British entertainment for more than six decades.
Eric Dodson (1920–2000)
Born in Peterborough, Eric Dodson was a versatile British character actor whose warm, authoritative presence made him a familiar face on television and film from the 1960s through the 1980s.
James Blades (1901-1999)
From a working-class Peterborough childhood and an engineering apprenticeship to concert halls, film studios and broadcasts heard across wartime Europe, James Blades OBE transformed the place of percussion in British musical life.
George Alcock (1912–2000)
Born and raised in Peterborough, George Alcock was one of Britain’s most remarkable amateur astronomers, celebrated for discovering five comets and several bright novae with nothing more than patient observation and an extraordinary memory for the night sky.
Edith Cavell (1865–1915)
Although born in Swardeston, Norfolk, Edith Cavell’s story has strong roots in Peterborough.
Henry Royce (1863–1933)
Born in Alwalton, near Peterborough, Sir Frederick Henry Royce rose from humble beginnings to become one of Britain’s most celebrated engineers.