List of fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1981

This is a list of fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1981.

Fellows

 * Norman Laurence Franklin (1924–1986)
 * John Guest Phillips (1933–1987)
 * Dennis Frederick Evans (1928–1990)
 * John Adair Barker (1925–1995)
 * Michael Rex Horne (1921–2000)
 * Frank Reginald Farmer (1914–2001)
 * Fred Brown (1925–2004)
 * Autar Singh Paintal (1925–2004)
 * David John Wheeler (1927–2004)
 * Sir Ian Alexander McGregor (1922–2007)
 * Sir Robert William Kerr Honeycombe (1921–2007)
 * Sir John McGregor Hill (1921–2008)
 * Britton Chance (1913–2010)
 * John Ashworth Nelder (1924–2010)
 * Walter Plowright (1923–2010)
 * Fraser John Bergersen (1929–2011)
 * Wallace Leslie William Sargent (1935–2012)
 * Ian Butterworth (1930–2013)
 * Malcolm Roy Clarke (1930–2013)
 * Igor Rostislavovich Shafarevich (1923–2017)
 * Allan Stuart Hay (1929–2017)
 * Robert Norman Clayton (1930–2017)
 * Eric Albert Barnard (1927–2018)
 * Peter Bradshaw
 * David Maurice Brink
 * Brandon Carter
 * John Horton Conway (1937–2020)
 * Rex Malcolm Chaplin Dawson
 * Christopher Forbes Graham
 * Norman Michael Green
 * Herbert Gutfreund
 * Kenneth Charles Holmes
 * Yuet Wai Kan
 * Robert Phelan Langlands
 * Simon Hugh Piper Maddrell
 * Michael John O'Hara
 * Edward Roy Pike
 * Kenneth Alwyne Pounds
 * Sir David Allan Rees
 * Colin Bernard Reese
 * Edward Reich
 * John Clayton Taylor
 * James Dewey Watson
 * Steven Weinberg