This is a list of notable people born in or strongly associated with the Isle of Wight, alphabetically within categories.

Born on the Isle of Wight

  • Dr Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School and immortalised in Tom Brown's Schooldays, born in Cowes
  • King Arwald, last pagan king in England and last king of the Isle of Wight, died 686
  • Lee Bradbury, ex professional footballer, currently manager of Dagenham & Redbridge, born in Cowes
  • Danny Briggs, Hampshire and England cricketer
  • Sarah Close, singer-songwriter
  • Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères, born in St Helens
  • Craig Douglas (Terry Perkins) pop singer, born 1941 in Newport, topped the charts in 1959 with Only Sixteen
  • Arthur Percy Morris Fleming, born 1881 in Newport, electrical engineer and pioneer in the development of radio and submarine detection
  • Thomas Fleming, judge and Lord Chief Justice
  • Uffa Fox, yacht designer
  • Vivian Fuchs, Antarctic explorer
  • Marius Goring, born Newport
  • Maxwell Gray (Mary Gleed Tuttiett), novelist
  • Lauran Hibberd Slacker-pop singer, born in Newport
  • Sheila Hancock, actress, born in Blackgang
  • Robert Hooke, scientist, born in Freshwater
  • Jeremy Irons, actor, born in Cowes and raised in St Helens
  • Phill Jupitus, comedian, born in Newport
  • Mark King, born in Gurnard nr. Cowes, bass player and vocalist in pop/funk band Level 42
  • Suri Krishnamma, film director and writer, born in Shanklin
  • Cliff Michelmore, television presenter and producer born in Cowes
  • Albert Midlane, failed ironmonger, poet and hymn-writer was born in Newport
  • Anthony Minghella, film director; born in Ryde; his parents run the Minghella's Ice Cream company on the Island; his film The English Patient includes footage of Shanklin Pier; on accepting his Best Picture Oscar, he said, "This is a great day for the Isle of Wight!"
  • Loretta Minghella, charity executive and solicitor
  • Brian Murphy, actor, born in Ventnor
  • Noel Odell, geologist and mountaineer, born in St Lawrence
  • Queen Osburga, daughter of Oslac, Chief Butler of England and mother of King Alfred the Great
  • Adam Pacitti, Leader of Cultaholic, born in Ryde
  • James Pellow actor and writer, born in Ryde
  • Arthur Cecil Pigou, economist and proponent of Pigouvian taxes, born in Ryde
  • Albert Pollard, historian, born in Ryde
  • Horace Rawlins, golfer, winner of the first U.S. Open in 1895
  • Jake Scrimshaw, professional footballer
  • Henry Sewell, first Prime Minister of New Zealand, born on the island in 1807 and lived there until emigrating to New Zealand at the age of 45
  • Kelly Sotherton, heptathlete, born in Newport
  • Polly Toynbee, journalist, born at Yafford
  • George Westmore, founder of Hollywood's first make-up department, born 1879 in Newport. His son Bud Westmore is credited as make-up artist on over 450 movies
  • Harry Frederick Whitchurch V.C., born in Sandown
  • Eric Charles Twelves Wilson V.C., born in Sandown in 1912

Raised on the Isle of Wight

  • E. Power Biggs, concert organist
  • Frank Cadogan Cowper, artist, raised at Lisle Court, Wootton
  • Uffa Fox, raised in Cowes
  • William Hutt, MP and colonial administrator, educated in Ryde
  • George, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
  • Donna Langley, film executive and chairwoman of Universal Pictures, raised on the island.
  • Fidelis Morgan, actress and writer, raised in Bonchurch
  • Nicholas Dingley alias Razzle, drummer for Hanoi Rocks, raised in Binstead
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, raised in East Dene, Bonchurch
  • Bear Grylls, climber, youngest Briton to reach the summit of Mount Everest and live; survival expert; host of Man vs. Wild

Lived on the Isle of Wight

  • Sam Browne, soldier, retired to Ryde
  • Master Gunner Daniel Cambridge VC (later Yeoman of the Guard), stationed at Redoubt Battery, Fort Redoubt, Freshwater Bay, until 1871 (Census)
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, photographer, lived in Freshwater Bay
  • Lewis Carroll, author, lived at Sandown while working on Alice in Wonderland
  • Winston Churchill, visited Ventnor for extended periods throughout his life
  • Helen Clare, soprano singer
  • Sir Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft, spent two years in East Cowes working on his prototypes
  • E. E. Cowper, novelist, lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
  • Frank Cowper, yachtsman and author; designed and lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
  • Charles Darwin, naturalist, lived for a period in 1867 in the Kings Head Hotel in Sandown
  • Charles Dickens, author, lived in Bonchurch for 3 months in 1849
  • King Charles I, held prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle for a year
  • Ken Dodd, comedian, had a holiday home at Freshwater Bay
  • Jack Douglas, actor from a series of Carry On films
  • Trevor Duncan, composer (known for the Dr Finlay's Casebook theme), lived in Bonchurch
  • King Ethelred the Unready, fled to the Isle of Wight in 1012 from the Danes under Sweyn Forkbeard
  • Gertrude Fenton, novelist and editor of the Carisbrooke magazine
  • Uffa Fox, yacht designer, lived in Puckaster
  • David Gascoyne, 20th-century surrealist poet
  • Pamela Green, infamous nude model of the 1950s and 1960s, lived in Yarmouth with the dambuster Douglas Webb, DFM
  • King Harold II and his brother Tostig Godwinson, have estates at Kern and Nunwell respectively
  • Jet Harris, musician with The Shadows
  • Peter de Heyno, defended the Carisbrooke Castle 1377 against French–Castilian troops
  • Robyn Hitchcock, musician, lived in Yarmouth from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and cited it in many of his works of the period
  • John Oliver Hobbes (Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie), novelist, lived part-time in Steephill, 1900–1906
  • Geoffrey Hughes, actor, lived in Newport
  • Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Samuel Raymond Jarvis died at his home, Cove Cottage in Ventnor, in 1868
  • Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, lived at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
  • John Keats, poet, moved to the island in 1814; areas of Shanklin are named after him
  • Kenneth Kendall, journalist and TV presenter, lived in Cowes where his partner owned an art gallery
  • Charles Kingsley, spent childhood there
  • Marek Larwood, actor and comedian
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, spent the summer in Shanklin in 1868
  • Guglielmo Marconi did radio experiments in Alum Bay and Niton around 1900
  • Karl Marx, lodged in Ryde in the 1870s and in Ventnor in the 1880s
  • John Milne, inventor of the horizontal pendulum seismograph, retired from the Japanese Imperial College of Engineering in Shide, Isle of Wight
  • David Niven, actor, lived in Bembridge as a child
  • Isaac Pitman, invented a shorthand system, lived for a time in Sandown
  • J.B. Priestley, author, playwright and broadcaster, lived at Brook for over a decade from 1948
  • John Morgan Richards, cigarette and patent medicine entrepreneur, lived in Steephill, 1903–1918
  • Legh Richmond, preacher and writer of the religious tract The Dairyman's Daughter, curate for Yaverland and Brading
  • Frederick Riddle, viola player, died in Newport
  • John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone, Secretary of State for War in the years leading up to the First World War; MP and Justice of the Peace for the Isle of Wight
  • Michael Sheard, actor, lived in Ryde
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, lived in Bonchurch
  • Shaw Taylor, television presenter, known for the catchphrase "keep 'em peeled", lived in Totland
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet, lived in Farringford in Freshwater Bay
  • Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, rented a house in Seaview
  • Edward Upward, long-lived author and part of the Auden Group in the 1930s, lived in Sandown from 1961 to 2004
  • Queen Victoria, had one of her residences at Osborne House in East Cowes
  • Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb, lived and worked in Cowes
  • Douglas Webb, DFM air gunner with 617 Squadron on the Dambusters raid; partner of the infamous nude model Pamela Green; lived in Yarmouth

Currently resident

  • Raymond Allen, television scriptwriter best known for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, born and lives in Ryde
  • Keegan Brown, professional darts player
  • Patrick Buckland, CEO of Stainless Games, creator of Carmageddon
  • Hester Chambers, founding member of Wet Leg
  • Sarah Close, singer-songwriter and YouTuber, born and lives on the island
  • Melvyn Hayes, actor, lives in Ryde
  • David Icke, conspiracy theorist, lives in Ryde
  • Mark King, Level 42 musician
  • Dame Ellen MacArthur, sailor, based in Cowes
  • The Osbourne family have a holiday home in Yaverland
  • Dick Taylor, founding member of The Rolling Stones and The Pretty Things
  • Rhian Teasdale, founding member of Wet Leg
  • Alan Titchmarsh, author and TV presenter
  • M J Trow, author and teacher

References