People in History: 1900 to 1945

Claimed in the inter–war period (and until her death in 1984) to be Princess Anastasia of Russia (youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II), having survived the shooting at Ekaterinburg in 1918		Anna Anderson
Britain's first woman doctor (1865) and first woman Mayor (1908)		Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Canadian newspaper magnate – Britain's Minister of Information in WWI and Minister for Aircraft Production in WWII		Lord Beaverbrook
The first voice of Britain's 'speaking clock' (1936)		Ethel Cain
Born in 1835, son of a poor Scottish weaver; became US multi–millionaire and philanthropist; owned what is now the Pullman Company; sold his steel business for $250m, 1901; funded over 3,000 libraries throughout the English–speaking world, as well as numerous educational institutions and a prize for heroism; the Carnegie Medal, for children's literature, was established in his name 17 years after his death – not by him		Andrew Carnegie
Irish diplomat, human rights activist, nationalist and poet: described as the "father of twentieth–century human rights investigations", knighted for his investigations of human rights abuses in Peru and the Congo; executed in 1916 at Pentonville prison for his attempts to gain German support for an armed uprising in Ireland		Sir Roger Casement
Edinburgh–born Irish Marxist: founder of the Irish Citizen Army (1913), and de facto leader of the 1916 Easter Rising; one of 14 executed by firing squad in May 1916 (aged 47)		James Connolly
US lawyer: a champion of liberal causes and underdogs; defended schoolteacher John T. Scopes against a (largely manufactured) charge of teaching human evolution, in the so–called 'Scopes monkey trial' of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee		Clarence Darrow
Defrocked rector who died 30 June 1937, two days after being mauled by a lion while being exhibited in its cage		Harold Davidson
Suffragette who hid in a cupboard in the House of Commons on the night of the 1911 census, so that she could give House of Commons as her address; died in June 1913, four days after being hit by George V's horse Anmer in the Derby		Emily Davison
French engineer; built the Suez Canal but failed to build the Panama Canal		Ferdinand de Lesseps
Founder of Fianna Fail, Prime Minister of Eire during WWII; born in New York of an Irish mother and Spanish father		Eamonn de Valera
'Public Enemy No. 1', shot by FBI agents in 1934		John Dillinger
French army officer, falsely accused of betraying military secrets to Germany, in 1894; defended by Emile Zola; exonerated in 1906		Alfred Dreyfus
Born Germany 1879; told as a pupil aged 10, 'You will never amount to much'; published his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 (aged 26) and General ditto in 1915; adopted Swiss nationality after WWII; declined an invitation to be President of Israel, in 1952 (following the death of Chaim Weizmann)		Albert Einstein
Moderate suffragist: President of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), 1897–1919; appointed a Dame in 1925; a statue in her honour in Parliament Square was unveiled by Theresa May, in 2018, to mark the centenary of the Representation of the People Act which gave votes to women for the first time in the UK		Millicent Fawcett
Dutch designer of German WWI aircraft; died 1939		Anthony Fokker
Founder of the American Institute of Public Opinion (1935)		George Horace Gallup
Jamaican–born black nationalist – claimed to have invented fascism; a source of great inspiration to the Nation of Islam and the Rastafari movement (some sects of which proclaim him as a prophet); founded the Black Star Line in 1919 – a shipping line that promoted the return of the African diaspora to their ancestral lands (but was imprisoned for fraud after it went bankrupt); died in London in 1940, aged 52		Marcus Garvey
Foreign Secretary at the outbreak of World War I; also an authority on ornithology (author of The Charm of Birds, 1927)		Sir Edward Grey, Viscount Grey of Fallodon
First President of the Royal British Legion		Earl Haig
Founder of the Scottish Labour Party and the first Labour MP		James Keir Hardy
US newspaper publisher (1863–1951): at the peak of his fortunes in 1935, owned 28 major newspapers and 18 magazines, along with several radio stations, movie companies, and news services; provided the inspiration for Orson Welles's Citizen Kane		William Randolph Hearst
Director of the FBI, from its foundation in 1924 until his death in 1972		J. Edgar Hoover
Brother of Aldous Huxley; Secretary of London Zoological Society 1935–42; first Secretary–General of UNESCO; died 1975		Julian Huxley
US train driver, died in 1900 (aged 37) while attempting to prevent his train running into the back of a stationary goods train near Vaughan, Mississippi (all his passengers survived)		John Luther 'Casey' Jones
Mistress of Edward VII (1898–1910), and great–grandmother of the Duchess of Cornwall (also the great–great–aunt of an Egghead)		Alice Keppel
Bolshevik leader, assassinated during Stalin's Great Purge of 1934; name adopted (during the Soviet era and later retained internationally) by the Mariinsky Ballet		Sergey Kirov
Popular Mayor of New York, 1934–45: a supporter of FDR's New Deal, guided the city out of the Depression. Instrumental in the construction of the airport that opened in 1939 and was named after him in 1947		Fiorello La Guardia
Joined the RAF under the pseudonym Ross; subject of Terence Rattigan's play Ross; used the name Thomas Edward Shaw from 1927		T. E. Lawrence
Leader of the Bolsheviks in Russia from 1903; main leader of the October Revolution (1917); first leader of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic (1917–22), and de facto first leader of the Soviet Union (1922); survived two assassination attempts in 1918; resigned from active politics December 1922 owing to health problems (resulting from the second assassination attempt)		Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
In a speech at a rally of the America First Committee, in 1941, accused the Jews, the British and the Roosevelt administration of "pressing [the USA] towards war"; added "We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction"		Charles Lindbergh
Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Cork, died in Brixton Prison in 1920 after a 37–day hunger strike		Terence McSwiney
Norwegian explorer, statesman and Nobel peace laureate: gave his name to the passports issued by the League of Nations to stateless refugees		Fridtjof Nansen
Founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (1903) – succeeded by her daughters Sylvia, Christabel and Adela		Emmeline Pankhurst
Born St. Petersburg 1885; found fame at the Ballet Russe; later formed her own company; gave her name to a dessert		Anna Pavlova
Irish teacher, barrister, writer, and one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising; read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic outside the General Post Office, following its occupation by rebel forces on Easter Monday; first of 14 to be executed by firing squad in May 1916 (age 36); his brother William (Willie) was executed next day		Patrick Pearse
US general, led an expedition to Mexico in 1916, with the objective of capturing the revolutionary leader Pancho Villa		John J. Pershing
Leader of the Latvian anarchist gang responsible for the Sidney Street Siege (1911) – real name Peter Piaktov; never caught; believed by some to have been Trotsky		Peter the Painter
Hungarian–born US publisher, endowed 21 annual prizes in journalism, literature and musical composition, first awarded in 1917		Joseph Pulitzer
Son of a Siberian peasant – held great influence at the court of Tsar Nicholas II – especially over the Tsarina – assassinated 1916		Grigori Rasputin
Keswick parson, instrumental in the founding of the National Trust; encouraged Beatrix Potter to publish		Canon H. D. Rawnsley
Russian–born Jewish secret agent, known as the Ace of Spies; said to be the model for James Bond; executed in a forest near Moscow by Soviet authorities in 1925; subject of an ITV drama series in 1983		Sidney Reilly
Joined the BBC (British Broadcasting Company Ltd.) as General Manager, 1922; became Managing Director in 1923, and first Director–General of the British Broadcasting Corporation (1927–38)		Lord (John) Reith
Appointed Minister of Information by Chamberlain, January 1940; MP for Southampton, Feb to Nov 1940; moved to Transport by Churchill in May 1940, and Minister of Works (etc.) Oct 1940; granted a peerage in 1940; sacked by Churchill (under pressure from Tory back–benchers) in 1942 following the loss of Singapore		Lord (John) Reith
Editor of the Manchester Guardian, 1872–1929, and its owner from 1907 until his death in 1932; also Liberal MP for Leigh, Lancashire (Wigan) from 1895 to 1906		C. P. Scott
Established Britain's first birth control clinic in 1921		Marie Stopes
63–year–old American schoolteacher, became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel (24 October 1901)		Annie Edson Taylor
Founder of the modern German navy (1896–1916)		Alfred von Tirpitz
Founder of the Red Army (1919), and one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution; became the first Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, but expelled from the Party in 1927; exiled and murdered in Mexico, 1940		Leon Trotsky
Member of the US House of Representatives (from Minnesota) whose name is associated with the 1919 Prohibition Act (he didn't conceive or draft the bill, but he sponsored and championed it, promoting and facilitating its passage)		Andrew Volstead
US civil rights leader, 1856–1915, middle name Taliaferro; dubbed in the title of a 1983 biography, The Wizard of Tuskegee		Booker T. Washington
Yorkshire–born founder of Britain's first department store (now a shopping centre) in Bayswater, London; nicknamed 'The Universal Provider'; shot dead at his shop in 1907 by Horace George Raynor, aged 29, who claimed to be his illegitimate son		William Whiteley
Surrey–born, Kent–based house builder, instrumental in the introduction of daylight saving time in Britain (British Summer Time)		William Willett
Senior Soviet official (head of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, or Comintern), the apparent author of a letter to the Communist Party of Great Britain, published by the Daily Mail four days before the 1924 general election, calling for increased communist agitation in Britain; considered authentic at the time, but now believed to have been a forgery – an attempt to ruin Labour's chances in the election		Grigory Zinoviev

You are here:

People in History: 1900 to 1945