Famous UCL alumni

Phonicsdude

Paul Abdou - Guitarist and songwriter for Pantheon. The best rock n roll band that ever existed.

Reply 3

Objet trouvé

Was just looking at the BBC news website and found an article featuring a quote from Sir Digby Jones, director general of the CBI and top capitalist. Remember being told that in the 70's he used to piss everyone off at student debates and enrage the general student population. Look where he is now!

Anyway, that made me interested in other famous alumni. The ones I could find were:

Brett Anderson - Suede
Alexander Graham Bell - Inventor of the Telephone
Rabbi Lionel Blue - Writer and Broadcaster
Coldplay - The Entire Band
Francis Crick - Discovered DNA
Jonathan Dimbleby - Broadcaster
Mahatma Gandhi - Indian Politician
David Gower - Cricketer
Jonathan Miller - Writer and Director
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi - Artist and Sculptor
Marie Stopes - Birth Control Pioneer
Victoria Barnsley – Harper Collins
Digby Jones – Confederation of British Industry
Mark Lawson – Writer and Broadcaster
Christopher Nolan – Film Director
Robert Browning – Poet
Ros Wright – Serious Fraud Squad
Alex Comfort – Author ‘The Joy of Sex’
David Baddiel – Comedian
Ricky Gervais – Comedian/Actor
Raj Persaud – Pychiatrist
Jonathan Ross - Broadcaster

Anyone got any more? I wouldn't mind being on that list someday!

didn't johnathan dimbleby go to ucl as well?

Reply 4

Objet trouvé

OP

Phonicsdude

Paul Abdou - Guitarist and songwriter for Pantheon. The best rock n roll band that ever existed.

There was a page on the UCL website but its down.
You missed out Jeremy Bentham - Most sensible legal theorist ever. He was also the inventer of jogging

Named after the Panthéon as in the Paris momunment?

and no, The Strokes already hold that title. Sorry.

Reply 5

Onearmedbandit

17

Charles Darwin?

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the current Prime Minister of japan is also UCL alumni

Reply 6

futureaussiecto

13

Onearmedbandit

Charles Darwin?

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the current Prime Minister of japan is also UCL alumni

didnt he go cambridge?

Reply 7

Objet trouvé

OP

No, he went to UCL.

I remember because they told us on that tour that he had a secret tunnel for bodies.

Well remembered, mike!

Reply 8

Objet trouvé

No, he went to UCL.

I remember because they told us on that tour that he had a secret tunnel for bodies.

Well remembered, mike!

were they the ones under gower street?

Reply 9

sierraleone

There's a really long list on the wikipedia site I think.

I have to say the musical alumni they've produced is very impressive.
Band members from Suede, Elastica, Coldplay, My Vitriol etc etc

Digby Jones did a talk at my school last year, he's one big fella!

Reply 10

yep, here's the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_College_London_people#Famous_alumni

Reply 11

Onearmedbandit

17

How could we forget Woolf? :eek:

Reply 12

President_Ben

15

Ghandi. Tagore. There are many.

Reply 13

lawgrad

6

I can remember the famous people who studied law at UCL:
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Lord Woolf (former Chief Justice of England)
- Lord Goldsmith (Attorney-General)
- Sir Ti-Liang Yang (former Chief Justice of Hong Kong)
- Dr AS Anand (former Chief Justice of India)
- Chaim Herzog (former President of Israel)
- various Supreme Court Justices (e.g. Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Sierra Leone).

I think there are many others which have not been mentioned, e.g.:

The Science people:
- Joesph Lister (doctor)
- Ambrose Fleming (inventor)

The Mathematicians (both are Fields Medalists):
- Alan Baker
- Klaus Roth

Reply 14

Onearmedbandit

17

Hey lawgrad from what I hear you're fast on the way to becoming a glittering UCL alumnus yourself :biggrin:

Reply 15

Zenith

I don't think Darwin studied here. No doubt I would've been told by now seeing as he is the single most important figure in the course I'm doing. I'm pretty sure he just lived in the Darwin building at some stage, or perhaps worked here for a bit.

(that and I know he did theology at cambridge)

Reply 16

Notable academics

* Chimen Abramsky
* A. J. Ayer Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Logic (1946–59)
* A. S. Byatt Lecturer / Senior Lecturer in English and American Literature (1972–83); winner of the 1990 Booker Prize
* Sir William Henry Bragg Quain Professor of Physics (1915–25); winner of the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics
* Philip Dawid
* Ronald Dworkin
* J. B. S. Haldane Professor of Genetics (1933–57)
* Mitchell Glickstein
* Sir Hermann Gollancz
* Ted Honderich
* Victor Horsley
* A. E. Housman
* Andrew Huxley
* Norman Lloyd Johnson
* Steve Jones Professor of Genetics
* Peter Kirstein
* Basil Markesinis
* John Maynard Smith Lecturer in Zoology (1952–65)
* Peter Medawar Professor of Zoology (1952-61); winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
* Egon Pearson
* Karl Pearson
* Sir William Ramsay Professor of Inorganic Chemistry (1887–1913); winner of the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
* Janet Radcliffe Richards British feminist philosopher and bioethicist
* Stefan Reif Professor of Hebrew, University of Cambridge
* Stephen Spender
* John Sutherland
* Salvador Moncada

[edit]

Famous alumni
[edit]

Artists

* Martin Creed — Conceptual artist; winner of the 2001 Turner Prize
* Antony Gormley — Sculptor; winner of the 1994 Turner Prize; creator of the Angel of the North
* Eileen Gray — Lacquer artist and designer
* Augustus John — Painter
* Sir Eduardo Paolozzi — Sculptor and artist
* Sir Stanley Spencer — Painter
* Tomoko Takahashi — Installation artist; shortlisted for the 2000 Turner Prize
* Rachel Whiteread — Sculptor; winner of the 1993 Turner Prize

[edit]

Business-related

* Victoria Barnsley — Editor-in-Chief at HarperCollins
* John Bishop — Senior Vice-President, UBS
* Gaynor Coley — Finance Director, Eden Project
* Digby Jones — Director-General, Confederation of British Industry
* Edward Walker-Arnott — Governor, Wellcome Trust

[edit]

Film and television

* David Baddiel — Comedian and television presenter
* Jeremy Bowen — Journalist and broadcaster
* Andrew Davenmport — Co-creator of the Teletubbies
* Jonathan Dimbleby — Writer and television presenter
* Ricky Gervais — Comedian / actor, co-writer and director of The Office
* Amy Jenkins — Creator of This Life
* Christopher Nolan — Director
* Raj Persaud — Psychiatrist and broadcaster
* Jonathan Ross — Presenter

[edit]

Journalists

* Patrick Blower — Cartoonist, The Evening Standard
* Nicholas de Jongh — Drama Critic, The London Evening Standard
* Nicholas Garland — First and current political cartoonist, The Daily Telegraph
* AA Gill — Columnist, The Sunday Times
* Mark Lawson — Columnist, The Guardian; Radio and Television Presenter
* Vivienne Parry — Columnist, The News of the World
* Jeremy Warner — Business Editor, The Independent
* Michael White — Political Editor, The Guardian
* Petronella Wyatt — Writer, The Spectator

[edit]

Lawyers

* Justice A.S. Anand — Chief Justice of India (1998-2001)
* Lord Goldsmith
* Justice Gabriel Bach — Former Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel
* Edwin Glasgow QC — Member of Bloody Sunday inquiry
* Simon Li — High Court Judge and former Deputy Attorney General, Hong Kong
* Leonard Sainer — Solicitor and retailer
* Judge Sam Sinnathuray — Judge of the Supreme Court, Singapore
* Lord Woolf — Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
* Sir T L Yang — Chief Justice of Hong Kong

[edit]

Miscellaneous

* Lewis Evans — Scientific instrument collector and businessman
* Ernest Symons — Civil servant

[edit]

Musicians

* Brett Anderson — Suede
* Jon Buckland — Coldplay
* Will Champion — Coldplay
* Justine Frischmann — Elastica
* Chris Martin — Coldplay
* Tim Rice-Oxley — Keane
* Simon Ratcliffe — Basement Jaxx
* Benjamin Zander — Conductor, Boston Philarmonic Orchestra
* Som Wardner — My Vitriol
* Ravi Kesavaram — My Vitriol
* Carolyn Bannister — My Vitriol

[edit]

Politicians

* Mahatma Gandhi
* Chaim Herzog
* Hirobumi Ito
* Jomo Kenyatta
* Junichiro Koizumi
* Baroness Shreela Flather — First female Asian peer
* Lord McNally — Liberal Democrat Home Office Shadow Spokersperson, House of Lords
* Jenny Tonge — Liberal Democrat Shadow International Development Secretary.

[edit]

Scientists, Mathematicians, Statisticians

* Alexander Graham Bell
* Alex Comfort
* Francis Crick
* Roland Dobbs
* John Ambrose Fleming
* John Fox (statistician)
* William Stanley Jevons
* Norman Lloyd Johnson
* Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister
* William Ramsay
* David Spiegelhalter
* Heinz Wolff

[edit]

Writers

* Rabindranath Tagore – Nobel Prize Winner in Literature
* Raymond Briggs
* Robert Browning
* Michael Burleigh
* G. K. Chesterton
* Alex Comfort
* David Crystal
* Ken Follet
* David Lodge
* Jonathan Miller
* Gladys Mitchell
* Bel Mooney
* Blake Morrison
* Ernest Satow – after whom the Chair of Japanese Law at UCL is named
* Marie Stopes
* Ken Wiwa
* Mukul Raj Anand - Pioneer of the English novel in India

Reply 17

futureaussiecto

13

Objet trouvé

No, he went to UCL.

I remember because they told us on that tour that he had a secret tunnel for bodies.

Well remembered, mike!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_university#Selected_alumni

and Cambridge too!

Reply 18

Phonicsdude

19

Pantheon dont actually exist yet. But their spirit do.
And they will be better than the strokes.
They will be more intelligent. more rocknroll, cooler and be more original.
They will be nearly as good as Radiohead.
And they will invent walking quickly.

Reply 19

Xanthe