WThomas Hopper Alderson GC was a British Air Raid Precautions (ARP) warden in Bridlington, and the first person to be directly awarded the George Cross shortly after its creation in 1940.
WFrancis Bacon was an Irish-born British figurative painter known for his raw, unsettling imagery. Focusing on the human form, his subjects included crucifixions, portraits of popes, self-portraits, and portraits of close friends, with abstracted figures sometimes isolated in geometrical structures. Rejecting various classifications of his work, Bacon said he strove to render "the brutality of fact." He built up a reputation as one of the giants of contemporary art with his unique style.
WAlfred Edmeades "Fred" Bestall, MBE wrote and illustrated Rupert Bear for the London Daily Express, from 1935 to 1965.
WCharity Anne Bick GM was a British civilian dispatch rider during the Second World War, and the youngest ever recipient of the George Medal, the United Kingdom's second-highest award for civilian bravery. She later served in the Women's Royal Air Force.
WThomas Eliel Fenwick Blackburn was a British poet. His work is noted for its self-examination and spiritual imagery. His memoir, A Clip of Steel (1969), portrays the effects of a childhood under a repressive clergyman father.
WBarbara Anne Castle, Baroness Castle of Blackburn,, was a British Labour Party politician who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1979, making her one of the longest-serving female MPs in British history. Regarded as one of the most significant Labour Party politicians, Castle developed a close political partnership with Prime Minister Harold Wilson and held several roles in the Cabinet. She remains to date the only woman to have held the office of First Secretary of State.
WFrederick Ernest Cleary (1905–1984) was a Chartered Surveyor and property entrepreneur from Crouch End, London. He was an environmentalist, conservationist and philanthropist. He was the founder of Haslemere Estates, a London-based development company that spearheaded projects that generally went against the grain of the time (1958-1984). For example, he was involved in restoring existing buildings rather than demolishing them. Also, he helped find alternatives to glass and concrete edifices that were known to have a much greater environmental cost. His philanthropic activities included the founding of two charitable trusts; The Cleary Foundation (1953) and The Bay Trust (1969), an environmental education charity. Within the City of London, he gained the pseudonym 'Flowering Fred' for his philanthropic activity in establishing, maintaining and enhancing over 150 green spaces in inner London. He was the author of three books Beauty and the Borough, I'll Do it Yesterday and The Flowering City.
WTimothy Corsellis was an English poet of World War II.
WKenneth James William Craik was a Scottish philosopher and psychologist.
WSir William Young Darling CBE FRSE LLD MC was the Unionist Member of Parliament in the British House of Commons for the Edinburgh South constituency from 1945 to 1957. He was a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland from 1942 to 1957.
WBrigadier-General Sir Wyndham Henry Deedes, CMG, DSO(10 March 1883 – 2 September 1956) was a British Army officer and civil administrator. He was the Chief Secretary to the British High Commissioner of the British Mandate of Palestine.
WLawrence Charles Eastman DCM, MM was an English cricketer. He played for Essex between 1920 and 1939.
WBrigadier William Harry Evans CSI CIE DSO was a lepidopterist and British Army officer who served in India. He documented the butterfly fauna of India, Burma and Ceylon in a series of articles in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. Brigadier Evans was especially interested in the taxonomy and systematics of the butterfly families Lycaenidae and Hesperiidae an example being his A revision of the Arhopala group of Oriental Lycaenidae Bull. British Mus. , Ent., vol. 5: pp. 85–141 (1957).
WRosalind Elsie Franklin was an English chemist and X-ray crystallographer whose work was central to the understanding of the molecular structures of DNA, RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Although her works on coal and viruses were appreciated in her lifetime, her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely unrecognized during her life, for which she has been variously referred to as the "wronged heroine", the "dark lady of DNA", the "forgotten heroine", a "feminist icon", and the "Sylvia Plath of molecular biology".
WEdward Maurice Berkeley Ingram CMG, OBE was a British diplomat and civil servant.
WCommander Harold Godfrey Lowe RD, RNR was the fifth officer of the RMS Titanic.
WCecil Aubrey Gwynne Manning was a British Labour Party politician.
WLieutenant Colonel Arthur Martin-Leake, was a British physician, officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps and a double recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Martin-Leake was the first of only three men to be awarded the VC twice, the others being Noel Godfrey Chavasse and Charles Upham.
WEdward Noel Mellish was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.
WMarion Patterson GM was a Scottish fire warden during World War II. She was awarded the George Medal for helping to save sailors trapped in the rubble of a bombed building. Her medal was presented by King George VI at Buckingham Palace.
WLeonard Rosoman was a British artist.
WSir Joseph Leopold Schultz, OBE was a British politician who was a dominant figure in Kingston upon Hull during the twentieth century.
WFlight Lieutenant Charles William Anderson Scott, AFC was an English aviator. He won the MacRobertson Air Race, a race from London to Melbourne, in 1934, in a time of 71 hours.
WAnthony Smith was awarded the George Cross for "outstanding gallantry and devotion to duty in conditions of the utmost danger and difficulty" on 23 February 1944 in rescuing people from a bomb damaged building in the World's End area of Chelsea, London. A chimney sweep and shoemaker by trade, he was attached to the Chelsea Division of the Civil Defence Rescue Service.
WOlga Tufnell was a British archaeologist who assisted on the excavation of the ancient city of Lachish in the 1930s. She had no formal training in archaeology, but had worked as a secretary for Flinders Petrie for a number of years before being given a field assignment. Olga then went on to join James Leslie Starkey in the expedition to find Lachish in 1929 and remained part of the team for the following seasons.
WHedley Verity was a professional cricketer who played for Yorkshire and England between 1930 and 1939. A slow left-arm orthodox bowler, he took 1,956 wickets in first-class cricket at an average of 14.90 and 144 wickets in 40 Tests at an average of 24.37. Named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1932, he is regarded as one of the most effective slow left-arm bowlers to have played cricket. Never someone who spun the ball sharply, he achieved success through the accuracy of his bowling. On pitches which made batting difficult, particularly ones affected by rain, he could be almost impossible to bat against.
WBenjamin Percy Williams was a British character actor from the 1930s to the late 1950s. During his career he appeared in 137 films. In 1954 Williams acted in the BBC Radio play Under Milk Wood that won the Prix Italia award for radio drama that year.