From Nobel Prize-winners and Prime Ministers to authors and architects, former students and Fellows of St John's have excelled in many areas of public and academic life.
Adams is best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which lampoons modern society with biting humour and pessimism. He foresaw AI, smartphones, e-books, online language translation (the site BabelFish was named after the small leechlike creature in the Guide), and the digital interconnectedness of all humans. Initially writing comedy sketches and Doctor Who scripts, he later received so much fan mail that he composed a form letter for reply. The College Archives hold his papers, and the College appeared (thinly veiled) in his works.
.png)
By the time Adams graduated as 'Senior Wrangler' – top of the mathematics Tripos – he had already become aware that something was causing Uranus to move curiously. He suspected the presence of a hitherto unknown planet was exerting a gravitational force, and went on to predict the position of this body by calculation in 1845. The following year Neptune was 'discovered', within two degrees of the calculated location. This was the first planet to be discovered by mathematical means. The Royal Society awarded Adams the Copley Medal for his work.
Renowned composer, conductor and pianist, Adès is best known for his operas The Exterminating Angel, The Tempest and Powder her Face, which have been performed more than 200 times worldwide. Adès regularly conducts the Boston and London Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw, and many international festivals have been dedicated to his music. Awarded the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Opera recording and the 2015 Léonie Sonning Music Prize, he was made a CBE for services to music in 2018.
While studying at St John's, Andrew earned Blues for rugby and cricket and followed this by playing for Nottingham, London Wasps and Newcastle Falcons. He played in three Rugby World Cups and was capped for England 71 times, also receiving five caps for the British and Irish Lions. At the end of his playing career, Andrews became the director of Newcastle Falcons, and subsequently the director of elite rugby at the RFU. He was inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2017.
Starting out in management consultancy, Anson rose to be president of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca in 2012. She left six years later, however, to rescue a struggling biotech start-up, Redx, to which she has brought her corporate experience and has made it her mission as CEO to prove that a small UK company can be a player on the world stage alongside giants. The firm focuses on developing drugs that will treat cancers which currently have very low survival rated. In 2018 she was also elected to the Board of the Bio Industry Association.
Appleton received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1947 for contributions to the knowledge of the ionosphere, which led to the development of radar. He had become interested in radio signals while serving in the Royal Engineers during the First World War. He pursued this interest after the war as an Assistant Demonstrator at the Cavendish Laboratory, before becoming Professor of Physics at King's College London and then Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge. He was Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh from 1949-65.
Ball's theoretical work on the mechanics of materials has bridged the fields of Applied Mathematics, Physics and Materials Science, proving that the equations of nonlinear elasticity for many substances can be solved and investigating the phase transitions of solids and the structure of liquid crystals. He lectured at Heriot-Watt University before becoming Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was its President from 2021-25. He was awarded a Royal Medal from the Society.
Balon and fellow Johnians, Jon Wright and Richard Reed, gave up their jobs in 1998 to found Innocent Drinks, producing smoothies made entirely from natural fresh fruit. 'Chief Squeezer' Balon knew about the drinks market from a stint at Virgin Cola and focused on sales. By 2011 Innocent was Europe's best-selling smoothie, while the company retained an ethical ethos, donating 10% of annual profits to charity. After selling out to Coca-Cola in 2013, the co-founders founded JamJar Investments, backing firms like Deliveroo and Graze.
Author of eight books, Bates explores sexism and gender inequality in her writing. In Men Who Hate Women, she went undercover to investigate secretive misogynist networks, extremism and incels. She founded the Everyday Sexism Project, which collects testimonies of gender inequality, allowing survivors’ stories to be heard, raising awareness of sexism and helping to drive change. She writes for The Guardian and The New York Times and has presented and advised on BBC documentaries. She has a British Empire Medal for services to gender equality.
Beaton is probably one of the most recognisable names in the world of photography and design. After studying history, art, and architecture at St John's College, he set up his own photography studio in London and worked for Vogue and Vanity Fair. His photographs of the royal family brought worldwide acclaim, and were pivotal in reshaping the public's perception of them. Beaton also designed costumes for productions of Gigi and My Fair Lady, each of which won him an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.
St John’s is founded on the legacy of Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509). A valuable pawn at the Lancastrian Court, by 13 she had been widowed by her second husband, Edmund Tudor (half-brother to Henry VI), and given birth to her only child. Crowned Henry VII after the Battle of Bosworth Field, he awarded his mother a level of legal and social independence that was denied to female contemporaries. Her portrait presides in Hall, her illuminated Book of Hours is in the Library and the College bears the Beaufort motto "Souvent me souviens".
Bentley is one of the great figures of classical scholarship. An expert in textual criticism, he studied Ancient Greek and Latin Literature. He lectured at Oxford and was keeper of the Royal Library. He is best known for his Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, a groundbreaking academic discovery that proved that letters allegedly written by Phalaris (Sicilian tyrant of the 6th century BCE) were in fact the work of a Greek sophist of the 2nd century CE. He was Master of Trinity College in 1700-30, one of its most controversial leaders.
Brasher had led two Arctic expeditions before the age of 22 and was reserve for Hillary's expedition to climb Everest. But he made his name as an athlete, running as one of Roger Bannister's pacemakers when he broke the four-minute-mile in 1954 and winning gold in the 3,000m steeplechase at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, earning himself 'UK Sportsman of the Year'. He made a career in journalism, but also competed in marathons and in 1981 co-founded the London Marathon. He was given a CBE and the Sports Industry Lifetime Achievement Award.
Brearley captained the England cricket team in 31 of his 39 Test matches in 1977-81. He had given up a lectureship in Philosophy at Newcastle to become captain of Middlesex, leading them to four county championships over a decade. In the 1981 Ashes, his leadership skills came to the fore: with England 1-0 down after two Tests, he was brought in and spurred his team to three wins. On retiring from cricket, he trained as a psychoanalyst. He has written The Art of Captaincy, On Form and Turning Over the Pebbles: A Life in Cricket and in the Mind.
While studying Natural Sciences at St John's, Browne joined BP as a university apprentice in 1966. He rose to become Group Chief Executive from 1995 to 2007, leading the company through a period of significant growth and transformation. His landmark speech at Stanford University in 1997 established BP as a global leader in the way it thought about, and sought to address, climate change. Browne now chairs BeyondNetZero, a climate growth equity venture, and SparkCognition, an artificial intelligence tech company. He was made a life peer in 2001.
Buffini is deputy chair of the BBC Board and chair of the BBC Commercial Board. With Sir Graham Wrigley, he was a founding partner of Permira, the global private equity firm. He was chairman and managing partner until 2010, overseeing many acquisitions including Homebase and the AA. In 2020 he was appointed chair of the Culture Recovery Fund, which ensures the survival of the UK’s culturally significant assets. He has made longstanding contributions to the Arts and the voluntary and charitable sector and joined the BBC Board in 2022.
Burghley was the leading adviser to Elizabeth I for 40 years, successively her Principal Secretary and Lord Treasurer. It was unprecedented in English history, and has never been matched since. He had arrived at St John's at the age of 14, just as the College's patron John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, fell from royal favour. in 1559 he was elected Chancellor of the University. In later life he came to regard the time that he spent in Cambridge as a crucial, formative phase in his life. The committee room in College is named after him.
After graduating in 1859, Butler ran a sheep farm in New Zealand. Erewhon (1872), a satirical novel about a utopian society, made his name as a writer. He turned to non-fiction, publishing diverse thinking on religion, science, travel and evolution. Ex Voto (1888) confirmed him as art critic and pioneer in the field of photography, a relatively new art form. The Way of All Flesh, published posthumously in 1903, secured his reputation as a great figure in Victorian literature. The Samuel Butler Room and postgraduate SBR Society bear his name.
Butterworth is a British playwright, screenwriter and film director. His plays include Mojo, Jerusalem and The Ferryman. He has also written for numerous films including Edge of Tomorrow, Spectre, Ford v Ferrari and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. He has won numerous awards for his work on stage and screen, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of LIterature.
Castlereagh was Chief Secretary for Ireland under Pitt the Younger, at the time of the 1800 Act of Union of Ireland with Britain, President of the East India Board of Control and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. As Napoleon swept into Russia in 1812, he was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. A supporter of Wellington, he was Britain's leading diplomat at the Congress of Vienna that looked to redraw Europe's borders in the months leading up to Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo. A room in College is named after him.
Better known by his pen name Jin Yong, Cha was a Hong Kong novelist and co-founder of Ming Pao, a Chinese-language newspaper. He authored 15 novels and became one of the most popular Chinese writers of all time, with over 100 million copies sold globally. Cha’s novels are esteemed for their literary quality and universal appeal and have been adapted into numerous TV dramas, films and video games. Cha received his DPhil at St John's at age 86 and the Cha Stone stands as a memorial to him in the College gardens.
At St John's, Clarkson won the Members' Prize for a Latin Essay in 1785, the subject being 'anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare?' ('is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?'). He met William Wilberforce the following year, and helped to spearhead the abolitionist struggle at home and abroad. The British Parliament passed a bill abolishing the slave trade in 1807.
Cockcroft won the Nobel Prize in Physics with Ernest Walton for the pioneering 1932 experiment in which they transformed the nucleus of a lithium atom by bombarding it with high-energy particles. This feat, inaccurately dubbed “splitting” the atom, provided the basis for nuclear fission. He was also Junior Bursar at St John’s. In the Second World War he worked on army radar systems and later oversaw the construction of the first proton accelerator at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment. In 1959 he was the first Master of Churchill College.
In 1985 Corfield founded Frame Technology Corporation, and developed its key product, FrameMaker, which was one of the first WYSIWYG document editors and became the market leader in technical publishing. Corfield sold the software to Adobe in 1995. Aside from his work in technology, Corfield is an ultrarunner, competing in some of the toughest races around the globe, and has climbed Everest. In the College, Corfield Court is named after him, and within the University he was the first major donor to the Centre for Mathematical Sciences.
A South African who lectured in nuclear physics at Tufts University, USA, Cormack had a side interest in tomography (the use of waves for imaging sections of objects) and published the theoretical mathematics of CT scanning in 1963-64. However, it was seven years before these calculations were used in the construction of the first CT scanner, which took a series of x-rays from different angles for compilation into a 3D image – now a vital technique in medical diagnostics. It earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1979.
Only a year after graduating, Corrin debuted on television in Grantchester and has since become a household name for an outstanding portrayal of Princess Diana in the fourth season of the Netflix drama The Crown, for which Corrin won a Golden Globe. Stage roles have included Orlando, which debuted to rave reviews in the West End, while films include Lady Chatterley's Lover and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Daniel was Disney Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge, researching megaliths and chamber tombs. He studied at St John's and remained here as a Fellow. In the Second World War he utilised his archeological skills for RAF photo reconaissance work. Keen to popularise archaeology, he presented the BBC's Buried Treasure and its Animal,Vegetable, Mineral? game show, with another famous archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler. Daniel won Television Personality of the Year in 1955. In Cambridge there is the Glyn Daniel Laboratory for Archaeogenetics.
Darwin studied Classics and Mathematics at St John's followed by Medicine at Edinburgh, working as a physician for over 50 years. Alongside this, he wrote extensively on the concept of evolutionary theory (formalised and developed by his grandson Charles), and his poetry, often reflecting his love of Botany, was praised by Wordsworth. As a social reformer, he believed that women should be afforded a good education and published the influential A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education (1797). He also campaigned for the abolition of slavery.
An engineer by training, Davies is a renowned competitive yachtswoman, who turned her sailing passion into a profession. In 2009 she achieved fourth place in her first Vendée Globe race, a punishing solo global circumnavigation, and has since taken part in three more Globe and two Ocean races (team circumnavigations). These races cover up to 24,000 nautical miles and require expert navigation and survival skills. Her voyages raise money for Initiatives-Cœur, a French medical charity providing funding for children's heart procedures.
Best known for his roles in Outnumbered, Not Going Out, Fleabag and Mock the Week, Dennis has become a well-known face on British television. He studied Geography at St John's, performing at Footlights for the first time at the end of his second year and then joining up with Steve Punt, with whom he formed the Punt and Dennis comedy double act. On graduating, he spent six years marketing Lynx deodorant at Unilever before branching into acting and writing professionally.
Credited with founding quantum electrodynamics, Dirac arrived at St John's for his PhD in 1923 and a decade later (having joined the Fellowship) he won the Nobel Prize (jointly with Schrödinger) for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory. He predicted the existence of anti-matter and formulated the relativistic equation for the electron. A room in College is named after him and his gown still hangs in the Master's Lodge.
Egan is an American novelist and journalist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for A Visit From the Goon Squad, a satire on the decaying American music industry, whose 13 chapters include one told by PowerPoint. She was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for Manhattan Beach, a New York Times bestseller about an Irish family in Brooklyn during the Great Depression and Second World War. Her journalism often probes difficult and harrowing topics, such as the 2023 report in The New Yorker on homelessness in New York City.
Fairfax, nicknamed Black Tom due to his swarthy complexion, joined the parliamentary forces in the Civil War. A key figure at Marston Moor in 1644, he was given command of the New Model Army, with Cromwell as his deputy, and won the Battle of Naseby. Under his leadership, his troops were well disciplined and civilians and prisoners were treated fairly. He avoided participation in the trial and execution of Charles I, retiring to his estates in the interregnum, and headed the Commission sent by Parliament in 1660 to invite Charles II to return.
Fisher studied at Cambridge in the 1480s, becoming a Fellow of Michaelhouse and later Chancellor. As confessor to Lady Margaret Beaufort, he persuaded her to found Christ's (1505) and St John's prior to her death in 1509. He oversaw the College's establishment in 1511 and was instrumental in its early development. His opposition to Henry VIII's divorce and supremacy of the Church in England led to Fisher's execution for treason. He was canonised in 1935. Some of his books are in the Library and the Fisher Building was named after him.
Fraser was sworn in as a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2023 and appointed Chair of the Law Commission for England and Wales. Called to the Bar in 1989, he specialised in international arbitration, technology, engineering and construction disputes. Appointed QC in 2009, he was a judge of the Technology and Construction Court and Commercial Court within the High Court from 2015. He gave the Common Issues judgment against the Post Office in 2019, the landmark moment in setting right the major miscarriage of justice against sub-postmasters.
While studying Natural Sciences at St John's, Fuchs was inspired by his Tutor, Sir James Wordie, to become an explorer: together they travelled to Greenland for Fuchs's first expedition in 1929. Fuchs made history when he successfully led the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1955–58, crossing the Antarctic via the South Pole in 99 days. On his return he became director of the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge.
Aberdeen negotiated the final coalition against Napoleon prior to his appointment as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under Wellington (1828-30) and under Peel (1841-46). He oversaw the ending of the First Opium War, with the Treaty of Nanking ceding Hong Kong to Britain: part of the island was named Aberdeen in his honour. In 1852 he became Prime Minister, heading a fragile coalition of Whigs and Peelites. Reluctantly drawn into the Crimean War, he was blamed for the failings of the campaign, which brought down his government in 1855.
One of the world's most cited human geographers, Harvey began by publishing Explanations in Geography, the definitive text on using scientific methodology in his subject, before moving on to research and write extensively on Marx's Das Kapital, exploring how capitalism interacts with geography in our cities. He has held professorships at John Hopkins, Oxford and City University, New York.
While studying Theology at St John's, Hauer-King was already keen to pursue an acting career and made his first venture into musical theatre in Rent at the ADC Theatre. Since then he has starred in a wide range of film and television productions. He is best known for his role as Prince Eric in Disney's live-action reimagining of The Little Mermaid. He has also starred in Little Women, World on Fire and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
An internationally distinguished geochemist, Henderson is Professor of Earth Sciences at Oxford. His research into the deposited layers that form stalactites and stalagmites has been influential in advancing our understanding of climate change and the oceans. As Chief Scientific Adviser and Director General for Science and Analysis at DEFRA, he is responsible for overseeing the quality of evidence that the department relies on for policy decisions. He advises ministers and sets the priorities for scientific research and evidence-gathering.
Hennessy started his career as a journalist, writing political pieces for The Times, Financial Times and The Economist. He was a regular presenter on BBC current affairs programmes from the 1980s. In 1986 he co-founded the Institute of Contemporary British History and began his academic career, specialising in the history of UK government. He was appointed professor at Queen Mary University of London. In the 2010s he interviewed senior politicians about their life and times for Radio 4's Reflections series. He was made a life peer in 2010.
In Europe during the English Civil War, Hobbes met Galileo, Descartes and other great philosophers. His Leviathan sought a rational grounding for the authority of the state based on people's desire to avoid natural anarchy. He set out an unpopular rationale for an unaccountable sovereign, but in doing so defined 'social contact theory', addressing a world where people give up freedoms to an authority in order to have basic rights guaranteed. He questioned who should carry this authority and the part that religion plays – still relevant today.
Howells was one of the great 20th-century English choral composers. He was acting Organist of St John’s during the Second World War and was closely associated with the College for many decades. His experience at the College provided inspiration for a great deal of the church music he went on to write: he saw a need and desire for new music in the Anglican liturgy of a high quality that would be sought after and performed. He composed church music throughout his life and was made an Honorary Fellow of the College in 1962.
One of the 20th-century's most creative and controversial scientists, Hoyle is widely remembered as a populariser of science and as the man who coined the phrase 'Big Bang'. He was also a science fiction author. Academically, his most significant work was in the field of stellar nucleosynthesis, the production of chemical elements inside stars. He was a Fellow of St John's from 1939 and the University's Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy from 1958, as well as Director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy from 1967.
Hunt is a television executive working as creative director at Apple Inc. and chair of the British Film Institute. Before joining Apple, she was chief creative officer of Channel 4, where she led a 'creative renaissance', with commissions including Bad Sisters, Sherlock and Gogglebox and award-winning coverage of the 2012 London Paralympic Games. She is the only person to have run three UK terrestrial broadcast channels, having also been controller of BBC One and director of programmes at Channel 5. In 2023 she was awarded an OBE.
With an extraordinary talent and versatility across stage, film, and television, Jacobi is one of the most respected actors of his generation. Soon after graduating he was spotted by Laurence Olivier and launched into Shakespearean roles, with a legendary Hamlet at the Old Vic in 1977. Film credits include Gladiator and The King's Speech, while television includes Frasier and Cadfael. Over seven decades on stage and screen, he has won two Olivier Awards, a BAFTA, Primetime Emmys and a Golden Globe and has knighthoods from the UK and Denmark.
At age eight Keenlyside began singing with the St John's College Choir, returning to St John's a decade later to study Anthropology and Zoology. While his love of Zoology remains, a career in music was always on the cards: after studying at the Royal Northern College of Music, he embarked on a prestigious international career as a baritone, performing in a wide variety of operas and concerts worldwide. Famed for his Macbeth and his Billy Budd, he created the role of Prospero in the 2004 premiere of Thomas Ades’ The Tempest at Covent Garden.
As the Chief Scientific Adviser (2000-07), King raised awareness of the need for governments to act on climate change, and was then appointed Special Representative for Climate Change from 2013 to 2017. In 2015 he led the launch of Mission Innovation, a collaborative R&D programme between 22 countries to deliver post-fossil-fuel-era technologies. His recent work aims to alert nations to the dangers of the escalating climate crisis and the urgent need for a committed programme of 'climate repair'. He was a Fellow of St John's in 1988-95.
King was Governor of the Bank of England for a turbulent decade, overseeing the bank during the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing recession. He joined St John's as a Fellow in 1972, and has lectured in Economics at Birmingham, Harvard, MIT and LSE. He became Chief Economist at the Bank of England in 1991, was a founder member of its Monetary Policy Committee, and collaborated in attempts to reorganise institutions like the International Monetary Fund to avoid the recurrence of financial crises like that suffered in Argentina or Mexico.
After studying Chemical Engineering at St John's, Kumar reignited his interest in medical research as a management consultant to the healthcare sector. He revived the fortunes of the Papworth Trust disability charity in the 1990s and founded a medical devices start-up. Appointed chief executive of CRUK in 2007, he promoted the charity as a driving force for change, enabling a shift to embrace commercialism while maintaining outstanding fundamental discovery science. He now leads GRAIL Europe, a biotech firm looking at early cancer screening.
Macintyre is a historian, author and journalist, focusing on espionage and war. His best-sellers include Operation Mincemeat (disguising the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943), A Spy Among Friends (about Kim Philby) and Rogue Heroes (history of the SAS), all of which have been adapted for screen or film. Using exclusive interviews, classified documents and rigorous archival research, he presents information that enriches our understanding of pivotal events in modern history. He is an associate editor and weekly columnist for The Times.
From 2004 Makin was chief executive officer of BTG plc, a global healthcare firm developing products for minimally invasive procedures, specialty pharmaceuticals and vascular diseases. She led BTG through a strategic repositioning and period of transformational growth. When awarded a DBE in 2014, she was cited as a role model for Women in Business and Women in Science. She is now chair of Halma plc, a group of safety equipment companies. The first ever Women’s Captain of the College's boat club, Makin has a boat named after her in College.
Marshall was one of the founders of neoclassical Economics. His greatest contribution to the subject can be found in his Principles of Economics (1890), which introduced a number of key concepts to Economics, such as the elasticity of demand and consumer's surplus.
After a degree in mechanical engineering, Marwala came to St John's for a PhD in computational intelligence. In his academic career, he has developed applications of artificial intelligence (AI) for engineering, computer science, finance and healthcare. As Vice-Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, he improved the institution's global rankings. In his capacity as rector of the United Nations University and UN Under-Secretary-General, he has urged governments to harness AI to address inequality and climate change.
Maskin is Adams University Professor and Professor of Economics and Mathematics at Harvard. His research has branched into game theory, contract theory, social choice theory and political economy. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 2007 for his work on mechanism design theory, a specialized form of game theory that attempts to maximize gain for all parties within markets. It takes a desired outcome of a cooperative situation and works out the rules under which the situation should operate in order to achieve that outcome.
McIlwham is a senior diplomat and the first female Johnian to become an Ambassador. Her first posting was in Sarajevo, a city rebuilding itself after a brutal war. She became Ambassador in 2009 aged just 35, assigned to Albania. She worked in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, on loan to the US government and the European Commission. Back in the UK, she was private secretary to the Duke of Sussex, oversaw the UK’s vaccine negotiations during the COVID-19 pandemic and ran the foreign affairs team at Number 10, advising two Prime Ministers.
While training as a medic at St John's College, Miller joined the Footlights student comedy society. On graduating he starred in Beyond the Fringe and was soon producing stage plays (with Laurence Olivier in The Merchant of Venice). He presented television series (The Body in Question drew on his medical expertise), produced operas (setting Rigoletto in 1950s Manhattan) and directed Shakespearean plays for the BBC (notably the Taming of the Shrew starring John Cleese). In the late 1980s he led a revival at the Old Vic as its artistic director.
Morton served as Bishop of Durham during turbulent times. A Fellow at St John's from 1592, he rose through the Church, demonstrating his moderate Calvinism through disputations with Catholics and the publication of polemical pamphlets against papal authority. Failing in a bid to become Master of St John's, he was then appointed successively Bishop of Chester, Coventry and Lichfield, and Durham (from 1632). When Parliament revolted, Morton was one of 12 bishops impeached and imprisoned, although his advanced age saved him from the Tower.
After studying Mathematics at St John's, Mott returned to Cambridge in 1930 to work on collision theory and nuclear problems at the Cavendish Laboratory. Moving to Bristol, he investigated the properties of metals and semiconductors. He headed the Cavendish from 1954 and was Master of Gonville & Caius in 1959-66. Around this time he began his most ground-breaking work, investigating the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors, for which he jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977.
Newman entered St John’s in 1915, though his studies were interrupted by war work in 1916-19. He became a Fellow of St John’s in 1923 and lectured in mathematics. His work on combinatorial topology revolutionized the field. He wrote just one book Elements of the topology of plane sets of points, published in 1939. In 1942 he joined the Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley Park, working with Turing in designing and building code-breaking machines, culminating in the ‘Colossus’.
While at St John’s, Ogunṣeitan directed, acted in and co-produced the first all-black, all-female production on a Cambridge stage, Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. She co-founded FLY, a community and activism group for global majority women and non-binary students. After graduating, she worked in public health before moving into the creative arts where she combines her passion for advocacy with the medium of creative storytelling.
Palmerston was a British statesman known for his wit and patriotism, who served as the first Liberal prime minister from 1855 to 1858 and 1859 to 1865, when he died in office. A Whig prior to the formation of the Liberal Party, he became foreign secretary in 1830 and dominated foreign policy for decades at the height of Britain's imperial ambitions, bringing India under the Crown in 1858. In College, the Fisher Building's main hall is named after him and students of Human, Social and Political Sciences (HSPS) join the Palmerston Society.
Parsons designed and built the Turbinia, the first turbine-driven vessel, in 1894. His work led to the turbine becoming the main mode of electricity generation in power stations and of propulsion in large ships. A room in College is named after him.
Peacock was the founding director of the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium, formed in April 2020 to provide SARS-CoV-2 genomes towards the UK pandemic response. Its work was at the cutting edge of genome sequencing science and its findings were vital in informing the response to COVID-19 and preparing the world for future pandemics. Peacock is Professor of Microbiology and Public Health at Cambridge and was elected Master of Churchill College in 2024. Her advice to women embarking on their careers is "Why not you?".
Penrose was Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford. He researched the mathematical physics of general relativity and cosmology, proving that black holes can arise from the gravitational collapse of dying stars. He was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020. He also invented twistor theory, popularised the Penrose Triangle, and discovered aperiodic Penrose tilings, which exhibit fivefold rotational symmetry. In College, an example of Penrose tiling can be seen outside the Library and a bi-annual Penrose Lecture is held.
A historian of art and architecture, Pevsner left his lectureship in Germany in 1933 as the Nazis took power. He was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge and a Fellow at St John's in 1949, and published the immense 46-volume Buildings of England between 1951 and 1974. The series, later known as the Pevsner Architectural Guides, became the bible on English architecture with detailed descriptions and lively commentary.
Phelps rowed in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics in the women’s eight. A member of the GB Rowing Team from 1991, she was world champion and three times silver medallist in the women’s lightweight coxless fours and indoor rowing world champion (lightweight) and world record holder in 1992-94. Since retiring from competitive rowing, she has remained involved in sport through leadership in British and European Rowing and Olympic Associations. She works to advance gender equality in sport and co-chairs the International Working Group on Women and Sport.
On graduating from St John's, Picardo put his master's in Mechanical Engineering to use for Redbull's F1 Racing team, but then took an MBA and worked in management consultancy and venture capitalism. In 2013 he became the second employee at Deliveroo, quickly learning skills in sales, marketing, operations and customer service: he saw sales rise from £400,000 to £6 billion. He is now an active investor in over 80 companies and advises Management Boards on fundraising, growth and strategy. In College, he is a member of the Development Board.
Pountney is a renowned opera director, noted for his radical theatrical interpretations and world premieres, including Toussaint by David Blake (1977) and Kommilitonen! by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, for which he also wrote the libretto (2011). He has been Director of Productions for Scottish National Opera and English National Opera, and Artistic Director for Welsh National Opera, as well as working at opera houses across the world, notably the Vienna State Opera and La Scala.
Quiller-Couch, famous for compiling The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 anthology, was King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge from 1912, with a Fellowship at Jesus and an office in the Divinity School, where the Literary Professors lectured before the Faculty of English was set up. (This is now part of St John's and the room is named after Quiller-Couch). His lectures were published in On the Art of Writing, a foundation stone of literary criticism. Writing as 'Q', he set many of his novels in his native Cornwall.
Reed and two other Johnians, Jon Wright and Adam Balon, gave up their day jobs in 1998 to found Innocent Drinks, producing smoothies made entirely from natural fresh fruit. 'Boss Hog' Reed was an entrepreneurial teenager and then worked in advertising, so he focused on the marketing. By 2011 Innocent was Europe's best-selling smoothie, while the company retained an ethical ethos, donating 10% of annual profits to charity. After selling out to Coca-Cola in 2013, the co-founders founded JamJar Investments, backing firms like Deliveroo and Graze.
Renfrew radically changed the nature of archaeological enquiry. Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice, co-written with Paul Bahn, is a key reference for students. His research on prehistoric civilizations focused on the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of the Cyclades. At St John's as a student and Research Fellow, he was Disney Professor of Archaeology from 1981 and founding director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. He was Master of Jesus from 1986 to 1997 and was made a life peer in 1991.
Ritter, most famous for playing Martin Goodman in Channel 4's Friday Night Dinner, studied Modern and Medieval Languages at St John's. He trained as an actor in Germany before returning to the UK to work at the Royal National Theatre. He starred in many film and television productions, including Quantam of Solace, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Vera and Chernobyl. He was nominated for a Tony Award, a BAFTA and twice for an Olivier Award. Operation Mincemeat, his last performance, was dedicated to his memory when released.
Viscount Goderich served as Prime Minister between 1827 and 1828, following the death in office of George Canning. Prior to this he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and later he returned to high government office under Lord Grey and Sir Robert Peel.
%2520CROPPED.png)
Abdus Salam, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London, worked on grand unified theory, supersymmetry and electroweak theory. He won a Nobel Prize in Physics for contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including the prediction of the weak neutral current. As scientific adviser to the Pakistan government, he was at the forefront of scientific advancement – promoting and developing the country’s research infrastructure and its use of nuclear energy.
%2520cropped.png)
Sanger arrived at St John's in 1936 to study Natural Sciences. His work on amino acid sequences and protein structures, particularly insulin, earned him a Nobel Prize in 1958, followed by a second in 1980 (jointly with Walter Gilbert) for his work in sequencing DNA. Regarded as the father of genomics, his research underpinned our understanding of genetics. He is one of only four people to have received two Nobel prizes, and the only person to have been awarded the prize twice for Chemistry. The Sanger Institute in Cambridge is named after him.
After working as a quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs, Shah returned to St John's for a PhD in Machine Learning. He spent some time as a researcher at NASA before co-founding Wayve, a start-up bringing scalable artificial intelligence to mobile robotics, starting with self-driving cars. Shah is now founder adviser to CHARM Therapeutics, which uses AI to aid drug discovery for therapeutic needs. He hosts the Three Sigma Stories Podcasts, which explore diverse pathways to success.
.jpeg)
From studying under street lamps as a child in India, Singh came to Cambridge on a full scholarship and rose to lead the world’s biggest democracy. An economist at the International Monetary Fund, he went on to head India’s Central Bank and Finance Ministry before a decade as Prime Minister. He was credited with masterminding the economic growth that pulled India out of financial crisis and lifted tens of millions of Indians out of poverty. Indian PhD students can apply for Dr Manmohan Singh Scholarships to enable them to study at Cambridge.
Slater is the first woman to be British High Commissioner to Jamaica. Her diplomatic career has recently included postings as Deputy High Commissioner in Singapore / Southeast Asia Regional Director of Trade and Investment, and as Consul-General in Istanbul / HM Trade Commissioner for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, covering 14 markets. She has also worked in South Africa, the USA, India and Australia, and while in London headed the Nuclear Policy Section in the Non-Proliferation Department.
Following PhDs in both Chemistry and Law, Stapleton was admitted as a barrister to the High Court of Australia in 1984 and has held professorial positions at the Australian National University and the University of Oxford, among other institutions. Her research interests lie in tort law, compensation schemes, causation and general legal reasoning, and her work has been influential in recent legal reviews in Australia and the USA. She was a Visiting Fellow at St John's in 2011-12 and was Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, from 2016 to 2022.
Sarah Teather became the first female Johnian MP in 2003 when she won the Brent East by-election for the Liberal Democrats. In opposition, she served on the Lib Dem front bench in various portfolios. In 2010 she was elected for Brent Central and became Minister of State for Children and Families in the coalition government until 2012. Vocal in support of human rights, she campaigned against the detention without charge of British citizens in Guantánamo Bay. After leaving Parliament, she directed the Jesuit Refugee Service UK for nine years.
Thomas was a prominent 18th-century physician, serving King George III from 1763, prior to the onset of the king's 'madness'. He was also the Royal College of Physician's Commissioner for 'madhouses' in 1781-82.
In 1846 Charlie Thring and Henry De Winton (from Trinity) laid the foundations of the Cambridge University Football Club – now known as the ‘oldest club in the world'. The club soon established ten simple rules for the game, known as the ‘Cambridge Rules', and pinned them to the trees around Parker’s Piece where football was – and still is – regularly played. Thring revised the rules and provided them to the newly formed Football Association (FA) in 1863. A monument to celebrate Cambridge's role in football history stands on Parker’s Piece.
Raspberry Pi co-founder and CEO Eben Upton first noticed the decreasing number of Computer Science applications when he was Director of Studies at St John’s and realised that it was due to the lack of good quality programming platforms. As well as creating Raspberry Pi computers to make computing accessible and affordable for everybody, he has also been instrumental in improving Computer Science education through the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which provides world-leading resources to support the teaching and learning of AI literacy.
Vincent was the co-founder and CEO of Leon Restaurants, which successfully built a market serving customers healthy fast food. In 2012, the government commissioned him and his co-founder to lead an independent review of school meals: The School Food Plan has improved the diet of 5 million students and is served daily across 22,000 schools. Vincent was appointed MBE in 2015 for services to school food.
Protecting the natural environment for future generations is one of Prince William's key priorities. He launched the Earthshot Prize in 2020 – a global environmental platform to discover and celebrate groundbreaking solutions to repair the planet. He founded United For Wildlife to prevent traffickers transporting or profiting from illegal wildlife products. He also focuses on social welfare, advocating for the homeless and promoting mental health charities and the importance of supporting the Armed Forces.
Walter is a human rights activist who founded the charity Women for refugee women. After beginning her career as a journalist, she became an author and has written five books dealing with feminism and the resurgance of sexism in contemporary culture, as well as a play Motherland based on the expereince of women and children in immigration detention. She has been a judge for the Booker Prize and Women's Prize for Fiction and Humanitas Visiting Professor of Women's Rights at Cambridge University.
Wilberforce was elected to Parliament in 1780, before he had even graduated from St John's. Soon he was leading the fight for the abolition of slavery, alongside fellow Johnian Thomas Clarkson; the House of Commons passed the abolition bill in 1807. He also campaigned to improve conditions in factories, for the suppression of vice and for the better observance of Sunday. He was a founding member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (later the RSPCA). A room in College is named after him and the Chapel houses his statue.
A pioneer of computing, Wilkes helped to set up Cambridge's Computer Laboratory in 1937. He designed the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), the world's first programmable computer, which successfully ran a significant program on 6 May 1949. He soon realised that he would now spend hours looking for the errors in his own programs. He co-wrote the first programming textbook The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer and was the first winner of the Kyoto Prize, computer science's most prestigious award.
Wilkins began his career in Physics, studying the luminescence of solids for the Ministry of Home Security and Aircraft Production at the start of the Second World War, before working on the separation of uranium isotopes for use in bombs (under Johnian Marcus Oliphant). This led him into the Manhattan Project in the USA. After the war, he joined the new Biophysics Unit of the Medical Research Council, and his research was crucial in the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953, for which he jointly won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1962.
Williams was appointed Dean of Westminster, Keeper of the Great Seal and Bishop of Lincoln by James I, and funded the building of a new (now 'Old') Library at St John's. Under Charles I, he fell from favour and was imprisoned in the Tower. The Lords forced his release, only for Parliament to imprison him a year later. Released on bail, he was rewarded by the king with the Archbishopric of York, although he retreated to Wales in old age. Some of his books are in the College Library: his Great Bible of 1539 is likely that of Thomas Cromwell.
Woon has had a varied and successful career, working as a lawyer, academic, politician and diplomat. Among his most prominent positions, Woon has served as a Nominated Member of the Singaporean Parliament, held multiple ambassadorships and served as Attorney-General of Singapore. He specialises in in criminal law, company law and international law, and has also published two crime novels.
'Jock' Wordie was geologist on Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition that tried to cross the Antarctic subcontinent. Wordie went on to lead five Arctic expeditions, at a time of major upheaval for the Inuit populations. He chaired the management committee of the Scott Polar Research Institute and was President of the Royal Geographic Society. He helped to plan Sir Edmund Hillary's ascent of Everest and Sir Vivian Fuchs's crossing of the Antarctic, succeeding finally where Shackleton's expedition had failed. He was Master of St John's from 1952-59.
Arguably the College’s most famous alumnus, William Wordsworth is celebrated the world over as the definitive poet of nature and the chief instigator of the literary movement known as British Romanticism. From relatively humble beginnings amid the mountainous landscape of northwest England, he went on – via Cambridge, London, France, Dorset and Germany – to return to his roots in the Lake District, where he composed some of the most memorable and enduringly popular poems in the English language. He served as Poet Laureate to Queen Victoria.
Wright and two other Johnians, Adam Balon and Richard Reed, gave up their day jobs in 1998 to found Innocent Drinks, producing smoothies made entirely from natural fresh fruit. 'Top Banana' Wright had studied manufacturing engineering and focused on production and the supply chain. By 2011 Innocent was Europe's best-selling smoothie, while the company retained an ethical ethos, donating 10% of annual profits to charity. After selling out to Coca-Cola in 2013, the co-founders founded JamJar Investments, backing firms like Deliveroo and Graze.
Wrigley was a founding partner, with Sir Damon Buffini, and member of the management board of Permira, a pioneer in the early years of global private equity. In 2006 he retrained in international development and has since worked in a variety of roles in Africa and South Asia. In 2013 he was appointed chairman of the Commonwealth Development Corporation, the UK government’s private sector development arm now known as British International Investment, investing long-term, impact-driven capital into some of the poorest countries in the world.
