Famous People with
Cotswold Connections

Jane Austen (1775 - 1817)

Jane Austen is perhaps the best known and best loved of Bath's many famous residents and visitors. She paid two long visits here towards the end of the eighteenth century, and from 1801 to 1806 Bath was her home.

Her intimate knowledge of the city is reflected in two of her novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, which are largely set in Bath.

J M Barrie (1860 - 1937)

J.M.Barrie author of the much loved story Peter Pan written in 1904. A wonderful fantasy of adventures about the little boy who never grew up and inspired during his stay at Stanway House at the village of Stanway in the north Cotswolds.

Between 1923 and 1932 Barrie used to spend his summers at elegant  Stanway House. He rented it from the Earl of Wemyss, whose daughter Lady Cynthia Asquith was a good friend of Barrie's.

As a great cricket enthusiast Barrie decided to get together his own team, which he cleverly named the Allahakbarries, (a pun on the Islamic term 'allahakba' and his own name). To the delight of the locals the team comprised mainly friends of Barrie who were often well known literary figures, such as H.G.Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! Barrie had a thatched cricket pavilion constructed - still to be seen to this day.

It was surely pure pleasure to watch these matches and the participants must have brought in a new spirit of 'intellectualism' to this rural part of Gloucestershire. One particularly interesting game was that played in Broadway against a team of local artists and singers who were recruited by a well known resident of that Cotswold town, the American actress Mary Anderson

John Betjeman (1906 - 1984)

John Betjeman became the most popular British poet of his age. He received countless awards and yet poetry critics have often struggled to characterize and criticize his poetry which evokes a variety of responses.

Betjeman stayed at Sezincote House in the Cotswold village of Bourton-on-the-Hill in the 1920's while he was a student at Oxford University.

This unique Indian style house was owned by the Dugdale family who Betjeman was very fond of and he was later to confess that he had enjoyed some of the best days of his life at Sezincote. Betjeman dedicated his first book of poems to Ethel Dugdale and his autobiographical poem 'Summoned by Bells' depicted the house and its occupants. The Dugdales are buried in Longborough churchyard.

Betjemen lived in the Oxfordshire town of Wantage for many years and wrote a number of poems about Wantage and the surrounding areas for example "Wantage Bells" and "On Leaving Wantage". A Betjeman Memorial Park with a statue of the poet and several displays of his better known works occupies a wooded area a short distance from Wantage Church.

Lord Bledisloe

Lord Bledisloe the Right Honourable Sir Charles Bathurst was Governor General of New Zealand from 1930 to 1935 and it was in 1935 that he was created Viscount Bledisloe of Lydney.

The Earls Bathurst have lived at their family seat at Cirencester Park, Cirencester, Gloucestershire since 1690, the park is well known to the polo playing fraternity as Ruins Polo Ground, a place where Charles the Prince of Wales has played on many occasions.

Viscount Bledisloe donated the Bledisloe Rugby Cup for the New Zealand – Australia  rugby and also 'Bledisloe Best Kept Village Competition' in Gloucestershire award.

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen

A 17th century manor house at Siddington near Cirencester is now the home of the Bowen family.

The house is the new home of flamboyant design guru Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen who moved there in April 2007 with his wife, Jackie, and their two daughters, having decided to risk all and trade their comfortable family town house in London for a "run down, unloved" Cotswold home.

Click on links for further details including information about the village of Siddington and the historic house known as 'Roberts House' - John Roberts being the leader of the persecuted Quakers in the mid 1600s.

David Cameron (1966 - )

David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is the current leader of the Conservative Party and Leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom.

Elected in 2001 as Member of Parliament for the Oxfordshire constituency of Witney.

Charles Prince of Wales

Prince Charles's country home is called Highgrove which is located a few miles from the old market town of Tetbury.

For further information about Prince Charles
For further information about Tetbury
See Cotswolds.Info Bookstore, Charles at Fifty

Marion Chesney

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Marion Chesney started her writing career while working as a fiction buyer in a bookstore in Glasgow. She doubled as a theater critic, newspaper reporter, and editor before coming to the United States in 1971. She is the widely acclaimed author of historical romances and writes the popular Agatha Raisin and Hamish Macbeth mystery series (under the name M. C. Beaton) and the Edwardian Murder Mystery series. She currently divides her time between the Cotswolds and Paris. See Cotswolds.Info Bookstore - Fiction

Winston Churchill (1874 to 1965)

Grandson to the Duke of Marlborough and born and brought up at Blenheim Palace at Woodstock in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. Buried in the church cemetary at the small village of Bladon a few miles away from Blenheim Palace.

For further details about Winston Churchill
For further details of  Blenheim Palace
For further details of the village of Woodstock
For further details of the village of Bladon

Alan Coxon

Celebrity Chef living in Evesham.

For further details about the Town of Evesham

Edward Elgar

Edward William Elgar was born on 2nd June 1857 in a small cottage in the village of Lower Broadheath, near Worcester, England. He was the fourth of seven children born to William Elgar, a piano tuner and music dealer, and his wife Ann.

The outbreak of the First World War was to alter the world. And for Elgar it was also the beginning of a time of change. Elgar wrote: "...everything good and nice and clean and fresh and sweet is far away - never to return". Although he was too old to be a soldier he composed many patriotic works in support of the war effort. The central section of his Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 was taken and, with words added, became "Land of Hope and Glory". Other works composed by Elgar during the war period included Sospiri, The Starlight Express (based on a story by Algernon Blackwood), Polonia (symphonic prelude), Une Voix dans le Dèsert, The Spirit of England and The Sanguine Fan .

Gustav Holst

A British composer who was born in Cheltenham, England in 1874 and died in London in 1934. Holst was a composer of many choral part-songs, song cycles, operas and orchestral pieces. He is perhaps best known for his orchestral suite composed during the years 1914–1916, entitled The Planets. He was a friend of Edward Elgar.

Elizabeth Hurley

Actress with a home in the village of Barnsley, 4 miles North East of Cirencester.

For further details about the market town of Cirencester

Edward Jenner (1749 - 1823)

Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire on 18 May 1749, the son of the local vicar. At the age of 14, he was apprenticed to a local surgeon and then trained in London. In 1772, he returned to Berkeley and spent most the rest of his career as a doctor in his native town.

In 1796 he carried out his now famous experiment on eight-year-old James Phipps. Jenner inserted pus taken from a cowpox pustule and inserted it into an incision on the boy's arm. He was testing his theory, drawn from the folklore of the countryside, that milkmaids who suffered the mild disease of cowpox never contracted smallpox, one of the greatest killers of the period, particularly amongst children. Jenner subsequently proved that having been inoculated with cowpox Phipps was immune to smallpox.

The Edward Jenner Museum & Conference Centre is based in Dr Jenner’s former home, The Chantry, in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. Dr Jenner lived in the house from 1785-1823. It was from this (Grade II* Listed) house that he pioneered world-changing vaccination against Smallpox.

Laurie Lee

Poet and author Laurie Lee is one of only a handful of people of whom it can truly be said: he was a legend in his own lifetime. An immensely gentle and kind man, with a great sense of humour and a tremendous appreciation of beauty, his works are read, enjoyed and admired the world over.

See details of Laurie Lee's homeplace of Slad Valley, nr Stroud See Cotswolds.Info Bookstore for - Laurie Lee Country

Mitford Sisters

Unity, Pam, Diana, Nancy and Jessica lived at the Victorian Gothic Mansion, Batsford Park, between 1916 and 1919 (famous for its Arboretum) near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire. The sixth sister, Deborah was born at Asthall Manor at Asthall village near Swinbrook in Oxfordshire.

The Mitford sisters were remarkable, in every sense of the word: funny, glamorous, intelligent, beautiful, and quirky. But their individual fates were quite different. Debo became a duchess. Jessica became a Communist. Diana married a fascist and was thrown in jail for most of World War II.

Nancy was a famous novelist (The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate); Unity a great admirer of Hitler, and Diana – 'rated more perfect than Botticelli's Venus' - married Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists. Jessica was an ardent socialist; Pamela was happiest in the country with her dogs; and Deborah, married the Duke of Devonshire, helping to re-establish Chatsworth as one of the 'Treasure Houses of England'

Algernon Freeman-Mitford, 1st Baron Redesdale

(1837 - 1916) of Batsford Park, Gloucestershire, and Birdhope Craig, Northumberland, was an English diplomat, collector and writer. He was the grandfather of the Mitford Sisters (see above).

Was responsible for the creation of Batsford Arboretum and the building of the Batsford Victorian Gothic Mansion between 1888 and 1892 to replace the former residence that had been on the site from the 17th century. The Arboretum is famous in particular for the collection of Japanese Cherries and Bamboos.

Mitford was educated at Eton College and then at Christ Church, Oxford. He entered the foreign office in 1858, and was appointed third secretary of Embassy in St Petersburg. After service in the Diplomatic Corps in Peking, Mitford went to Japan as second secretary to the British Legation. There he met Ernest Satow and wrote Tales of Old Japan (1871). He resigned in 1873.

William Morris 1834 - 1896

Well know designer, artist, socialist and founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. Studied in Oxford and lived at Kelmscott Manor in the Cotswolds from 1871 until his death. For a period he lived at Broadway Tower and had a printing press there.

For further details of the life of  William Morris
For details about Oxford
For details about Kelmscott Manor
See Cotswolds.Info Bookstore, A Life of Our Time

Stella McCartney

Fashion designer with home near Pershore.

Beatrix Potter 1866 - 1943

Whilst Beatrix Potter was visiting her cousin, Caroline Hutton at Harescombe Grange in Gloucestershire, she became fascinated by a local folk tale about John Pritchard, a tailor who had been commissioned to make a fine suit of clothes for the Mayor of Gloucester. His shop occupied 45 Westgate Street, Gloucester and is now a museum to Beatrix Potter.

Before he had been able to finish the suit, someone else mysteriously finished it for him. The only clue was a small note attached to a buttonhole, saying “No more twist”.

Beatrix Potter transformed this story into a tale about Simpkin the cat and a host of helpful mice and the The Tailor of Gloucester was published in 1903.

Author of 23 childrens books which featured animal characters such as Peter Rabbit.

J B Priestley 1894 - 1984

John Boynton Priestley, best known for "Time and the Conways" and "An Inspector Calls", was a writer of great versatility, producing essays, novels and plays, in addition to working as a journalist and broadcaster. He was born in 1894 in Bradford and served in the army during World War I before going to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his writing career began. He had a number of novels published in the 1920s and, in 1932, his first stage play, "Dangerous Corner", achieved instant acclaim. During World War II, his famous postscript broadcasts raised morale and were much envied by Winston Churchill. In the 1950's, he worked as a delegate for UNESCO and his article "Britain and the Nuclear Bomb" sparked off the formation of the CND. He married three times, his third wife being the famous archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes, with whom he lived in Alveston, near Stratford-upon-Avon for most of their long and happy marriage. Priestly died in 1984, but his plays continue to enjoy critical and commercial success.

In 1934 Priestley publishes his book - "English Journey" where he re-visits areas of the Cotswolds including Burford, Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter and Broadway. He makes a first visit to Snowhill Manor and meets the owner Charles Padget Wade.

J K Rowling 1965 -

Ms. J K Rowling was born on July 31st, 1965 in Chipping Sodbury, Gloucestershire, England. Her given name at birth was Joanne Kathleen.

Famous for writing the Harry Potter series of books.

John Singer Sargent

Leading American portrait painter in the Edwardian period. Stayed in Broadway and painted his most famous painting there.

For more details about the life of John Singer Sargent
For more details about the village of Broadway

William Shakespeare 1564 - 1616

The most famous of all Playwrights and Poets. Born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon.

For further details of the life of  William Shakespeare
For further details about Stratford-upon-Avon

F. Lagard Smith

F. LaGard Smith is the author of more than 20 books. He is the arranger and narrator of The Daily Bible™, 30 Days with Jesus, and 30 Days Through Psalms and Proverbs. For the past two decades, Smith has done most of his writing in the quiet Cotswold countryside of England while spending his time in the States teaching both law and religion at Christian universities.

William Tyndale 1494 - 1536

William Tyndale gave us our English Bible and is thought to have been born in North Nibley, Gloucestershire.

Forbidden to work in England, Tyndale translated and printed in English the New Testament and half the Old Testament between 1525 and 1535 in Germany and the Low Countries. He worked from the Greek and Hebrew original texts when knowledge of those languages in England was rare. His pocket-sized Bible translations were smuggled into England, and then ruthlessly sought out by the Church, confiscated and destroyed. Condemned as a heretic, Tyndale was strangled and burned outside Brussels in 1536.

For further information see William Tyndale

Charles Padger Wade 1883 - 1956

Charles Paget Wade was an architect, artist-craftsman and poet; today he is perhaps best remembered for the eclectic collection he amassed during his life, a collection which can be seen at Snowshill Manor, his former home in the village of Snowshill, Gloucestershire, which he gave to the National Trust in 1951.

In 1911 Wade inherited the family fortune, based on sugar estates on the island of St Kitts in the West Indies. In 1919 he purchased the estate at Snowshill Manor. He laid out Snowshill Manor Gardens from 1920 to 1923.

Starting in 1900 Wade began amassing a collection of objects from around the world that reflected his interest in craftsmanship. He housed this collection in the Manor House at Snowshill, choosing to live himself in the small cottage in the garden. He continued to add to his collection over the years.

Wade married in 1946, having met his wife when she was lost and knocked on his door at Snowshill Manor, and went to live with her in the West Indies.

He gave the estate to the National Trust in 1951.

Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet and her movie director husband, Sam Mendes, live at Church Westcote Manor in the village of Westcote, made up of Church Westcote and Nether Westcote located 3.5 miles South East of Stow-on-the-Wold.

Famous for her role in 'Titanic' and more recently amongst her many film roles, 'Enigma',  'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' and 'Finding Neverland'.  Born in Reading, Berkshire, Kate is married to film producer Sam Mendes and now lives in Church Westcote in the Cotswolds.

For further information on Stow-on-the-Wold