1. Charles Darwin - 23
2. Isambard Kingdom Brunel - 17
3. Isaac Newton - 15
4. Tim Berners-Lee - 14
5. George Stephenson - 13 (6 Nominations)
6=. William Shakespeare - 13 (3 Nominations)
6=. George Orwell - 13 (3 Nominations)
7. Winston Churchill - 12
8. Adam Smith - 10
9. William Wilberforce - 9
10. Alfred the Great - 7
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Alfred The Great
- Began the process of unifying the warring kingdoms into a single England, appointing himself the first true leader of all England.
- Successfully protected Wessex from the Vikings, preserving the country's future.
- Founded the English legal system and helped to begin putting centuries of ignorance to bed by encouraging the spread of education.
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Tim Berners-Lee
- Invented the World Wide Web
- Refused to profiteer on his invention, and instead gave it to the world as a platform for free exchange of ideas and information
- Founded the W3C Web Consortium which continues to work at preserving the quality and openness of the web for today and the future.
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Isambard Kingdom Brunel
- Pioneered iron and steam shipping, building the world's largest ship, Great Eastern.
- Built the Great Western Railway. Every station (including London Paddington), the routes of the tracks, every bridge (including Clifton Suspension Bridge)
- Built the first successful under-river tunnel (and it is still used today).
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Winston Churchill
- Made crucial use of the English language to mobilise and inspire Britain to fight fascism at all costs.
- Kept a sinking empire afloat and influential in world politics, aiding the bond between the USA and USSR which would help bring about the destruction of Nazi Germany.
- Fought with the British Army in his youth.
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Charles Darwin
- Developed and proposed the staggeringly innovative concept of Evolution by Natural Selection, fundamentally changing the way that all of humanity looks at itself and its own history, the history of the world, and our relationship to every living thing on it.
- Travelled the world, collecting fossils, live animals, dead animals and plant specimens, enriching British scientific study.
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Isaac Newton
- Developed the theory of Universal Gravitation, explaining gravity and forming the roots and an immense wealth of subsequent scientific understanding.
- His groundbreaking work in optics include the discovery of the colour spectrum and invention of the modern telescope.
- Developed the Three Laws of Motion, founding the modern study of Physics, and did about as much the same for modern Mathematics with the discovery of Calculus.
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George Orwell
- One of the world most famous anti-fascists, he took a bullet in the throat, and had himself watched by British Intelligence while volunteering against Franco's fascist regime in the Spanish War.
- Wrote nine novels, baring to the world the horrors of totalitarianism with Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four.
- One of the greatest essayists in the English language, Orwell's famous and influential essays continue to offer hope and wisdom to this day.
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William Shakespeare
- Probably the most important figure in the history of the English language, he invented some 1700 words and countless more common phrases which we all still use every single day today.
- Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, he wrote 37 plays, among them Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth, revolutionising drama to such a degree that his works today remain the benchmarks for writing for cinema, theatre and television.
- Wrote 154 sonnets which would influence the future of poetry and in particular the Romantic movement in literature.
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Adam Smith
- Wrote The Wealth of Nations, an extensive study of commerce and industry, tearing the world from medieval concepts of money and inventing modern economics (and the study of economics) in the process.
- His writings would serve as the economic driving force behind the rise and prosperity of the British empire.
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George Stephenson
- The 'Father of the Railway' broke ground in developing a string of innovative locomotives which would revolutionise travel in Britain and the world. His inventions included Stephenson's Rocket, the fastest train of its day which would influence the design of locomotive engines forever.
- Invented a safe lamp for use in mines, used locally and known affectionately as the Geordie Lamp (thus, I suppose, arguably making him the father of all Geordies).
- Like his friend Brunel, Stephenson built bridges and railways all over the country and the world, including the first railway line and service in history, between Stockton and Darlington.
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William Wilberforce
- Fought vigorously and spent wildly to bring an end to slavery. His efforts were not only successful in shutting down the British African slave trade in the 1830s, but were influential in world discourse and, more crucially, also encouraged the British government to police the global slave market to such a degree that it would eventually help to end the problem on the international stage.
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The BBC famously conducted a poll a decade or so ago, which ended up with such omnishambolic results that they can't all be addressed in one post. Princess Diana came third. We'll leave it at that.
But I wondered if the folk of TF would have a better shot at figuring out a list. Post up to ten people (in no order) who you think deserve to be among the Greatest Britons of All Time - of course you'll have more than ten but deal with it and cut it down to ten - and then after a while, if this takes off and there are enough posts, we could make a compiled list of the most frequently mentioned people.
For the purposes of this thread you can include Northern Irish people if you wish, but Ireland is off limits. Naturalised citizens are okay, provided they can be generally accepted as Britons as well as their original country of birth.
Here are my ten nominations:
William Shakespeare
Isaac Newton
Adam Smith
Thomas Paine
William Wilberforce
George Stephenson
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Charles Darwin
George Orwell
Tim Berners-Lee