Employability & Enterprise
High achieving graduates
One of the questions the Subject Centre is asked most frequently, especially by school teachers and those running open days, is “Can you tell me the names of some famous people who studied English?” We offer a few examples below and welcome additions to the list, especially of non-literary figures who demonstrate the range of career destinations of the English graduate. (Please email jane.gawthrope@rhul.ac.uk). My thanks to Simon Dowling, Head of English at Colchester Royal Grammar School, for his assistance in compiling this list.
Living
Paul Ackford
England rugby international and columnist (Kent)
Frances Barber
Actress (Bangor)
Clive Barker
Writer of Horror Fiction (Liverpool)
Debra Barr
Contestant in the BBC's The Apprentice 2009
(Royal Holloway)
Mike Baker
BBC Education
Correspondent (Emmanuel, Cambridge)
Lord Blair
Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner (Christ Church, Oxford)
Quentin Blake
Author and illustrator of children’s books (Downing, Cambridge)
Danny Boyle
Film Director
(Bangor)
Mark Ellingham
Co-founder and
publisher of the
‘Rough Guides’
(Bristol)
Gavin Esler
BBC TV journalist
(Kent)
Stephen Fry
Actor, director,
writer
(Queen’s,
Cambridge)
Charlotte Green
BBC radio newsreader
(Kent)
Colin Greenwood
Musician with
Radiohead
(Peterhouse,
Cambridge)
Susan Hill
Novelist
(King's College London)
Ian Hislop
Editor of Private
Eye
(Magdalen,
Oxford)
Natasha Kaplinksy
TV newsreader
(Oxford)
Jemima Khan
UNICEF Special Representative (Bristol)
Mark Knopfler
Guitarist and singer with Dire Straits
(Leeds)
Sally Lindsay
Actress
(Hull)
Caroline Lucas
First Green
Party MP in the
UK Parliament
(Exeter)
Alistair McGowan
Radio presenter
and TV actor
(Leeds)
Michael Morpurgo
Writer of children's fiction (King's College London)
Jennie Page (CBE)
former CEO of the Millenium Dome
(Royal Holloway)
Rosamund Pike
Actress
(Oxford)
Emma Thompson
Actor and screen writer
(Newnham, Cambridge)
Tom Wilkinson
Actor
(Kent)
Deceased
Douglas Adams
Writer of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
(St John’s College, Cambridge)
Richard Burton
Actor
(Exeter College, Oxford)
Sidney Gilliat
Film director and screen writer
(London)
Russell Harty Television broadcaster, (Exeter College, Oxford) (he “was taught by Nevill Coghill, who noted of an early essay, ‘Sex in the Canterbury Tales’, ‘Energetic and zealous but very naïve’”.)
Derek Jarman
Film-maker Painter and campaigner for homosexual rights (King’s College, London)
David Montagu
Merchant banker and Liberal peer (Trinity College, Cambridge). He studied English literature “having tried law and economics but found them too dull”.
Naomi Porter
Fashion designer, (Royal Holloway )
