This is a list of non-fictional people from Norwich, past and present, who are identified with the UK city of Norwich through residential, historical, or cultural means, grouped by their area of notability, and in alphabetical order by surname.
Past
Norwich has long been associated with radical politics, political dissent, liberalism, nonconformism and the arts. Past names associated with the city include:
Actors and musicians
- William Crotch (1775–1847), musical infant prodigy, composer, artist, and teacher.[1]
- Richard Lewis Hearne (Mr Pastry) (1908–1979), born in Norwich, actor, comedian, producer and writer
- Ruth Madoc (1943-2022), actress, stage and television entertainer, born in Norwich
- Jane Manning (1938-2021), opera soprano, was born and raised in Norwich, and attended Norwich High School.
- Sir John Mills (1908–2005), actor born in North Elmham in Norfolk and educated at Norwich High School for Boys
- Thomas Morley (1558–1602), composer taught by William Byrd and organist at St Paul's.[2]
- Tony Sheridan (1940–2013), rock musician, born in Norwich
Artists and sculptors
- Michael Andrews (1928–1995), painter
- Artists belonging to the Norwich School of painters, including James Sillett (1764-1840), John Crome (1768–1821),[3] John Thirtle (1777-1839), John Sell Cotman, (1782–1842),[4] John Berney Crome (1794–1842), George Vincent (1796–ca.1832),[5] Joseph Stannard (1797–1830),[6] Obadiah Short (1803–1886) and Frederick Sandys (1829–1904),[7]
- Bernard Meadows (1915–2005), modernist sculptor
- Thomas Rawlins (1727–1789), Monument Mason with works in several Norwich churches.
Church people
- Rev. John Abbs (1810–1888), missionary and author of Twenty-Two years' Missionary Experience in Travancore
- Thomas Bilney (ca.1495 – 1531) an English Christian martyr, born at or near Norwich.[8]
- John Sherren Brewer (1809–1879) clergyman, historian, journalist and scholar.[9]
- John Cosin (1594–1672) an English churchman.[10]
- Robert William Bilton Hornby (1821–1884), antiquarian, priest and lord of the manor, from the City of York, ordained deacon in Norwich in 1844
- John Lambert (died 1538) Protestant martyr burnt to death at Smithfield, London.[11]
- Matthew Parker (1504–1575), archbishop of Canterbury.[12]
- John Stoughton (1807–1897) Nonconformist minister and historian.[13]
Industrialists and merchants
Science & Medicine
- Peter Barlow FRS (1776–1862) mathematician and physicist.[15]
- Jasper Blaxland (1880–1963), consultant surgeon at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital[16]
- John Caius (1510–1573), an English physician.[17]
- Edith Cavell (1865–1915), born in Swardeston, 4 miles (6.4 km) south of Norwich, a WWI nurse executed by firing squad by the Germans for helping Allied prisoners escape; buried on the east side of Norwich Cathedral
- William Cuningham (16th C), Elizabethan physician, cartographer and astrologer
- William Jackson Hooker (1785–1865), botanist and Fellow of the Royal Society.[18]
- Sir James Edward Smith (1759–1828), botanist, natural historian and one-time owner of the Linnean collection of Carl Linnaeus
- Samuel Woodward (1790–1838), geologist and antiquary.[19]
Sports people
- Connie Adam (1927-2021), fencer and first woman Freeman of Norwich.[20]
- Eileen Ash (1911-2021), the oldest ever international cricketer, and Norwich resident[21]
- Tristan Ballance (1916–1943), cricketer
- Billy Bluelight (c. 1859/1863–1949), pseudonym of William Cullum, known for his races against steam pleasure boats
- Geoffrey Colman (1892–1935), first-class cricketer and member of the Colman family
- Sir George Henry Morse (1857–1931), mountaineer and lord mayor of Norwich[22]
- Ayrton Senna (1960–1994), racing driver, lived in Norwich in the early 1980s.
Writers, poets and broadcasters
- Sarah Austin (1793–1867), translator from German and editor, born in Norwich.[23]
- Frances Catherine Barnard (1796–1869), author
- Carol Barnes (1944–2008), journalist and broadcaster, born in Norwich[24]
- Pat Barr (1934–2018), writer, born in Norwich[25]
- Elizabeth Bentley (1767–1839), author of Tales for Children in Verse, lived at 45 St Stephen's Square.
- George Borrow (1803–1881), writer and traveller, attended the Norwich King Edward VI's Grammar School. He recalls the city and conversations with the philologist William Taylor in a semi-autobiographical novel, Lavengro.[26]
- Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), medical doctor, scientist, Christian mystic, polymath, author of acclaimed works in English literature.[27] [28]
- Robert Greene (1558–1592), author of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (c. 1590).[29]
- Louisa Gurney Hoare (1784–1836), diarist and writer on education
- Julian of Norwich (1343 – after 1416), medieval Christian mystic and contemporary of Chaucer, author of The Revelations of Divine Love, the first known book in English written by a woman.[30]
- Harriet Martineau (1802–1876), daughter of a Norwich manufacturer of Huguenot descent and devout Unitarian, whose writings include Illustrations of Political Economy (1832–34). She supported the abolitionist campaign.[31]
- R. H. Mottram (1883–1971), novelist and lord mayor of Norwich
- Ross Nichols (1902–1975), poet and founder of Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids
- Amelia Opie (1769–1853), Norwich author and Quaker convert.[32]
- Henry Reeve (1813–1895) an English journalist.[33]
- Elizabeth Scott (1708–1776), poet, hymn-writer
- W. G. Sebald (1944–2001), writer, professor of German literature at the University of East Anglia
- John Palgrave Simpson (1807–1887), born in Norwich, a prolific and successful playwright
Other notable people
- William Calthorpe (1410–1494), four times Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, purchased Erpingham manor in St. Martin's at the Palace, Norwich, in 1447[34]
- Vernon Castle (1887–1918), ballroom dancer and promoter of modern dancing
- Sir Thomas Erpingham (1357–1428), an officer in the Battle of Agincourt and Knight of the Garter
- Pablo Fanque (1796–1871), the first black circus proprietor in Britain, born in Norwich
- Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845), prison reformer, philanthropist and Quaker, born at Gurney Court in Magdalen Street, portrayed on the Series E (2005) £5 banknote.[35]
- Sir Vyvyan Holt (1896–1960), diplomat, orientalist and British minister, captured during the Korean War
- Henry Johnson (1806–1910), born in Norwich, circus equestrian gymnast and acrobat
- Robert Kett (ca.1492 – 1549) , Norwich's Robin Hood, a landowner from Wymondham who led Kett's Rebellion in 1549 against corrupt Norfolk landowners and was hanged for treason at Norwich Castle.[36]
- Alfred Lungley (1905–1989), awarded the George Cross after the 1935 Quetta earthquake
- Louis Marchesi (1898–1968), founder in Norwich, in 1927, of the international charitable organisation the Round Table
- James Martineau (1805–1900), philosopher and brother to Harriet.[37]
- David Eyre Percival (1914–1985), City Architect
- Edmund Sheffield, 1st Baron Sheffield (1521–1549), murdered near the Adam and Eve pub off the Cathedral Close during Kett's Rebellion
- George Skipper (1856–1948), the architect of many buildings in the city and elsewhere
- William Smith (1756–1835), Whig politician, dissenter and abolitionist, Member of Parliament (MP) for Norwich from 1807