This is a list of notable people who have lived in Hampstead, an area of northwest London known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical, and literary associations. After 1917, and again in the 1930s, it became base to a community of avant garde artists and writers and was host to a number of émigrés and exiles from the Russian Revolution and Nazi Europe.
Amongst the people on this list who were born in Hampstead are politician Nigel Lawson, racing driver Damon Hill, actors Stephen Fry and Dirk Bogarde, singer Jon English, novelist Evelyn Waugh, and the English educator and administrator Robert Laurie Morant. Several of the people on this list, including John Constable, Eleanor Farjeon, and Hugh Gaitskell are buried in the churchyard of St John-at-Hampstead. The Hampstead post code district (NW3) includes the neighbourhoods of Frognal, Chalk Farm, Swiss Cottage, Belsize Park and parts of Primrose Hill.
Note: * indicates people born in Hampstead.
Music and dance
- Larry Adler (American harmonica player)
- Thomas Augustine Barrett aka Leslie Stuart (English composer)
- Sir Arnold Bax (English classical composer and poet)
- Arthur Bliss (English classical composer)
- Dennis Brain (English classical horn player)
- Alfred Brendel (Austrian classical pianist)
- Jonny Buckland (British guitarist and songwriter, member of Coldplay)
- Clara Butt (English contralto opera singer)
- Will Champion (English drummer and songwriter, member of Coldplay)
- Sir Edward Elgar (English classical composer)
- Frederick Delius (English classical composer)
- Jacqueline du Pré (British cellist)
- Jon English Australian singer, songwriter, musician and actor
- Marianne Faithfull (English singer-songwriter)
- Howie Payne (English singer, songwriter, music producer)
- Kathleen Ferrier (English contralto opera singer)
- Liam Gallagher (English singer and songwriter, member of Oasis)
- Tamara Karsavina (Russian ballerina)
- Hans Keller (Austrian-born violinist and musicologist)
- Frederic King (Victorian era baritone and teacher of singing)
- Stephen Kovacevich (American classical pianist and conductor)
- Nick Mason (English drummer, member of Pink Floyd)
- Tobias Matthay (English classical pianist and composer)
- John McCormack (Irish tenor opera and concert singer)
- Yehudi Menuhin (American-born classical violinist of Lithuanian Jewish origin)
- Orlando Morgan, English music teacher, composer and musicologist, at Harvard Court, Honeybourne Road.
- Jon Moss (English drummer, best known as member of Culture Club)
- Anna Pavlova (Russian ballerina)
- Paul Robeson (American classical singer and actor)
- Cecil Sharp (English composer, principal of the Hampstead Conservatoire)
- Slash * (British-American musician, guitarist for Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver)
- Sting (English rock musician, singer-songwriter)
- Harry Styles (English singer and member of One Direction)
- Jess Glynne * (English singer and songwriter)
- Sam Smith * (English pop singer and songwriter)
- Jennifer Vyvyan(English operatic soprano)
Literature
- Edwin Abbott Abbott (headmaster and theological writer)
- Eliza Acton (English poet and cook)
- Robert Aickman (English fiction writer)
- Lucy Aikin (English author and historian)
- Alfred Ainger (English biographer and critic)
- Martin Amis (British novelist)
- William Allingham (Irish poet)
- Christopher Andrewes (British academic and editor)
- John Armstrong (Scottish poet)
- Alan Ayckbourn * (British playwright)
- Joanna Baillie (Scottish poet and dramatist)
- Robert Bakewell (English geologist)
- William Bayliss (English physiologist)
- Enid Blyton (British author)
- Robert Dudley Baxter (English economist and statistician)
- Sybille Bedford (German-born English novelist, biographer, and travel writer)
- Walter Besant (English novelist and historian)
- John Betjeman (English poet)
- Basil Bunting (English poet)
- Lord Byron (English poet)
- Gilbert Cannan (British novelist and dramatist)
- Elias Canetti (Bulgarian-born modernist novelist and playwright)
- Allan Chappelow (English photographer and writer of books on George Bernard Shaw)
- Agatha Christie (British crime writer of novels, short stories and plays)
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English poet)
- Hunter Davies (British writer and journalist)
- Jean de Bosschère (after 1944: Jean de Boschère) (Belgian (French) poet, author, essayist, painter, illustrator, sculptor)
- Daphne du Maurier (English novelist and playwright; granddaughter of George du Maurier)
- George du Maurier (British novelist and cartoonist)
- Halide Edip (Turkish novelist)
- T. S. Eliot (American-born British poet, playwright, and literary critic)
- Sir William Empson (English literary critic and poet)
- Eleanor Farjeon (English writer, particularly of children's literature)
- Ian Fleming (British journalist and novelist, creator of the James Bond novels)
- Margaret Forster (English novelist)
- John Fowles (English novelist and essayist)
- Antonia Fraser (British biographer)
- Carlos Fuentes (Mexican novelist)
- John Galsworthy (English novelist and playwright; recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Literature)
- Wilfrid Wilson Gibson (English Georgian poet)
- Jane Green (English novelist and screenwriter)
- Geoffrey Grigson (English poet)
- Thom Gunn (Anglo-American poet)
- Leigh Hunt (English critic, essayist, poet)
- Aldous Huxley (English novelist and essayist)
- John Keats (English poet)
- Marghanita Laski (English novelist, playwright and critic)
- Margaret Laurence (Canadian novelist)
- D H Lawrence (English novelist, poet, and literary critic)
- John Le Carré (English novelist)
- Eddie Linden (Scottish poet and editor)
- Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand-born short story writer)
- John Mortimer * (English barrister and dramatist)
- John Middleton Murry (English essayist, novelist, and critic)
- George Orwell (British novelist and journalist)
- J. B. Priestley (English novelist, playwright, and broadcaster)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (English poet)
- Edith Sitwell (English poet and critic)
- Stephen Spender (English poet, novelist, and essayist)
- Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish novelist, poet, and essayist)
- Kate Summerscale (English non-fiction writer)
- Rabindranath Tagore (Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright)
- Alec Waugh (British novelist)
- Evelyn Waugh * (English novelist, travel writer, and biographer)
- Anna Wickham (British poet)
Theatre and film
- Simon Amstell (English comedian, television presenter, screenwriter and actor)
- Dame Peggy Ashcroft (English actress)
- Peter Barkworth (English actor)
- Dirk Bogarde * (English actor and novelist)
- Michael Byrne [English actor] Born, schooled and resided in Hampstead
- Richard Burton (Welsh actor)
- Rhys Matthew Bond (British-born actor whose family moved to Canada when he was 10 years old)
- Emilia Clarke (English actress)
- Tom Conti (Scottish actor)
- Peter Cook (English satirist, writer and comedian)
- Dame Judi Dench (English actress, widow of Michael Williams)
- Gerald du Maurier * (English actor and theatre manager)
- Stephen Fry * (English actor, screenwriter, playwright, comedian)
- Ricky Gervais (British comedian, actor, director, and writer)
- Michael Gothard (British actor)
- Laurence Harvey (British actor)
- Mamoun Hassan (Saudi-born British Film Maker)
- Jim Henson (American puppeteer and filmmaker)
- Sophie Hunter (English theatre and opera director, wife of actor Benedict Cumberbatch)
- Jeremy Irons (English actor) and Sinéad Cusack (Irish actress)
- Wolf Kahler (German actor)
- Valerie Leon (British actress and model)
- Hugh Manning (English actor)
- Helena Michell (British actress, born and raised in Hampstead)
- Margaret Nolan * (actress, artist, model)
- Peter O'Toole (Irish actor)
- Harold Pinter (British playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor)
- Karel Reisz (Czech-born British filmmaker)
- Ralph Richardson (English actor)
- Ridley Scott (British film director and producer)
- Alastair Sim (Scottish actor)
- Marie Studholme (English musical comedy actress and picture postcard beauty)
- Dame Elizabeth Taylor * (London-born British-American actress)
- Marti Webb (British actress and singer)
- Anton Walbrook (Austrian actor, also known as Adolf Wohlbrueck)
- Tom Wilkinson (British actor)
- Finty Williams (English actress, daughter of Judi Dench and Michael Williams)
- Michael Williams (English actor, late husband of Judi Dench)
Visual arts and architecture
Politics and social activism
- H.H. Asquith (British Liberal Prime Minister 1908âÂÂ1916)
- Henrietta Barnett (English social reformer and author, married to Samuel Augustus Barnett)
- Samuel Augustus Barnett (Anglican clergyman and social reformer)
- Aneurin Bevan (Welsh Labour Party politician)
- Henry Brooke (British Conservative Party politician)
- Anthony Crosland (British Labour Party politician)
- Andrew Fisher (Australian Prime Minister 1908âÂÂ1909, 1910âÂÂ1913)
- Michael Foot (British Labour Party politician and journalist)
- Charles de Gaulle (French general and statesman, President of France 1959âÂÂ1969), whose family lived at 99 Frognal for the last ten months of their English exile in the Second World War
- Hugh Gaitskell (British Labour Party politician)
- Denis Healey (British Labour Party politician)
- Louisa Gurney Hoare (writer on education)
- Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (British liberal politician and sociologist)
- Henry Hyndman (English writer and socialist politician)
- Douglas Jay (British Labour Party politician)
- Roy Jenkins (British Labour Party politician)
- Muhammad Ali Jinnah (lawyer, statesman and the founder of Pakistan)
- Lord Leverhulme (English industrialist, philanthropist, and Liberal Party politician)
- Gertrude Golda Lowy (suffragette, member of Women's Social and Political Union and Jewish League for Woman Suffrage)
- Ramsay MacDonald (British Labour politician and twice Prime Minister)
- TomáÃ
¡ Garrigue Masaryk (Czech philosopher and politician living in exile in Platts Lane during the First World War; in 1918 became first President of the Czechoslovakia)
- Temple Moore (British architect)
- Onora O'Neill (British philosopher, cross bench member of the House of Lords)
- Frank Pakenham later Lord Longford (British Labour Party politician)
- William Pitt the Elder (British Prime Minister)
- Barbara Robb (British campaigner for the elderly)
- Adrian Gilbert Scott (British architect)
- Sir Neil Shields (British Conservative Party politician and businessman)
- Harry Vane (English statesman and Member of Parliament, Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony 1636âÂÂ1637)
- Beatrice Webb (British sociologist, economist, and socialist reformer; married to Sidney Webb)
- Sidney Webb (British economist, socialist reformer and co-founder of the London School of Economics)
Science and medicine
Media, journalism, and broadcasting
Sport
Other
Notes and references