List of people from Manchester

This is a list of people from Manchester, a city in North West England. The demonym of Manchester is Mancunian or Manc. This list is arranged alphabetically by surname. For people from Greater Manchester see List of people from Greater Manchester.

A–F

 * Daniel Adamson (1820–1890) – engineer born in Durham who designed the Manchester Ship Canal; one of the directors of the Manchester chamber of commerce; Justice of the Peace for Cheshire and Manchester; buried in Withington
 * Chris Addison – stand-up comedian, writer and actor
 * Mark Addy (1840–1890) – Manchester-born Albert Medal recipient
 * Caroline Aherne (1963–2016) – BAFTA Award-winning actress, comedian and writer, The Mrs Merton Show
 * William Harrison Ainsworth – historical novelist born in Manchester
 * Sir John Alcock – aviator who, with fellow British aviator Arthur Brown, made the first nonstop transatlantic flight
 * Adam Anderson –  synthesist, one half of synth-pop duo Hurts
 * Don Arden – Cheetham Hill-born music manager and businessman, who oversaw the careers of rock groups Small Faces, Electric Light Orchestra and Black Sabbath
 * Anthony Arthur (born 1973) – Olympic weightlifter (1996 Summer Olympics)
 * George Arthurs (1875–1944), songwriter and author
 * Rob Atha – table football player
 * Mike Atherton – former England cricket captain and commentator
 * Norman Beaker – born Norman Hume in 1950 in Longsight, blues guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, band leader and record producer, officially recognised and inducted as a Legend in the Blues Hall of Fame in 2017.
 * William Worby Beaumont (1848–1929) – automotive engineer and inventor
 * Max Beesley – English actor and musician
 * Niamh Blackshaw – actress, known for portraying Juliet Nightingale in Hollyoaks
 * Stan Bowles – born and brought up in Collyhurst; Manchester City, QPR, Nottingham Forest and England International footballer in the 1970s
 * Maud Boyd (1867–1929) – actress and operatic singer
 * Edward Brotherton (1814–1866), English Swedenborgian and educational reform campaigner
 * Joe Brown – born in Ardwick, climber and mountaineer
 * Wes Brown – former Manchester United footballer
 * Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) – Manchester-born and educated author, poet, playwright, musician, linguist, translator and critic, known for novel A Clockwork Orange
 * Darren Campbell – former sprinter representing Great Britain
 * Thomas George Cassell – YouTuber and Twitch streamer
 * John Cassidy – Irish-born sculptor and painter who lived in Manchester
 * Tom Chantrell – designer of many film posters including The Sound of Music and Star Wars
 * Sir Humphrey Chetham – merchant and benefactor of Chetham's Library; born in Crumpsall
 * Saira Choudhry (born 1982), actress, born in Cheetham Hill
 * Stanley Chow – artist and illustrator
 * Oliver Claffey (born 1990) –  professional wrestler
 * Richard Cobden (1804–1865) – Sussex-born industrialist who moved to Manchester, where he was politically active
 * Kenneth Colley – actor who played Admiral Piett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi
 * Roy Collins (1934–2009) – cricketer who played for Lancashire and Cheshire; born in Clayton
 * Verona Conway (1910–1986), plant ecologist
 * George Cooke (1826–1862), cricketer
 * Mary Corkling, artist and food reformer, was born at Withington, Manchester, in 1850.
 * Lisa Cross (born 1978) – IFBB professional bodybuilder
 * Kevin Cummins –  award-winning professional photographer, responsible for iconic Joy Division photographs and for charting the rise of punk rock and Britpop, born in Withington
 * Peter Cundall (1927–2021) – horticulturist and television presenter; born in Manchester
 * Ian Curtis (1956–1980) – musician and singer in Joy Division
 * Mark Davies – Roman Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury
 * Aaron Davis (born 1990) – better known by his stage name Bugzy Malone, rapper and actor, first artist in the grime genre from Manchester to commercially succeed in the UK
 * Les Dawson – comedian, born in Collyhurst (1931–1993)
 * Arthur Delaney – painter influenced by L. S. Lowry
 * Lee Dixon – former professional footballer and ITV Sport football pundit
 * DJ Semtex – disc jockey and presenter for BBC Radio 1Xtra digital radio station, presenting the flagship hip-hop show Friday Nights
 * Robert Donat – film and stage actor; known for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor
 * Edith Escombe – fiction writer and essayist
 * Rachel Fairburn – popular comedian and one half of the well known true crime serial killer comedy podcast All Killa No Filla
 * Judy Finnigan – television presenter and columnist; usually co-presents with her husband, Richard Madeley; they are collectively known as Richard and Judy
 * Wayne Fontana –  singer with The Mindbenders
 * Norman Foster –  architect; founder and chairman of Foster and Partners studios; raised in Levenshulme
 * Dean Furman (born 1988) – professional footballer

G–M

 * Liam Gallagher – lead singer of Manchester band Oasis
 * Noel Gallagher – songwriter and lead guitarist for High Flying Birds and formerly Oasis
 * George Garrett – submarine pioneer who built Resurgam; brought up in Moss Side
 * Michael Bisping –  UFC Middleweight Champion
 * Max George – member of boy band the Wanted
 * Andy Gibb – singer, teen idol and actor; born in Stretford
 * Barry Gibb – singer and musician, member of the Bee Gees; brought up in Chorlton-cum-Hardy
 * Maurice Gibb – singer and musician, member of the Bee Gees; brought up in Chorlton-cum-Hardy
 * Robin Gibb –  singer, member of the Bee Gees; brought up in Chorlton-cum-Hardy
 * Jimmy Golder – professional association footballer
 * Jimi Goodwin – bassist, vocalist and guitarist for the Doves
 * Holliday Grainger – actress; known for portraying Lucrezia Borgia in Showtime's The Borgias
 * Trevor Griffiths – dramatist, co-writer of screenplay for the film Reds; born in Ancoats
 * Nick Grimshaw – Manchester-born Radio 1 DJ
 * Andrew Hall – Cheshire cricketer
 * Arthur Harden – Manchester-born Nobel Prize–winning biochemist
 * Benjamin Heywood (1793–1865) – prominent Manchester citizen, philanthropist and politician
 * Oliver Heywood – banker and philanthropist
 * Bernard Hill – film, stage and television actor, known for playing Yosser Hughes in Boys from the Blackstuff and roles in blockbuster films, including Titanic, The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and True Crime
 * Ray Honeyford – headmaster and writer, known for highlighting the failures of multiculturalism in Bradford
 * Keith Hopwood – Herman's Hermits guitarist, born in Davyhulme
 * Shotty Horroh – well known rapper, singer and actor
 * Myra Hindley – Gorton-born serial killer who, along with her accomplice, Ian Brady, claimed the lives of five victims in Manchester in the 1960s
 * Peter Hook – bassist of the bands Joy Division and New Order
 * Mick Hucknall – lead singer of the band Simply Red
 * Nat Jacobs – amateur and professional boxer
 * Howard Jacobson – Man Booker Prize-winning British Jewish author and journalist, best known for writing comic novels that often revolve around the dilemmas of British Jewish characters
 * Davy Jones – actor; singer of the band The Monkees
 * Michelle Keegan – actress on Coronation Street
 * Brian Kidd – football coach; assistant manager at Manchester City since December 2009; former player; assistant manager to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United in the 1990s; member of the Manchester United team that won the European Cup in 1968; born in Collyhurst
 * Frank "Foo Foo" Lammar – drag queen, born in Ancoats
 * Harold Lever – Labour politician and Baron Lever
 * Emmanuel Levy (1900–1986) – painter, teacher and art critic
 * Martin Lewis – Withington-born financial journalist who founded MoneySavingExpert.com
 * Harvey Lisberg – music and sporting manager who discovered Herman's Hermits
 * David Lloyd George – born in Chorlton-in-Medlock; British Prime Minister during the First World War; member of the Liberal Party
 * Sunny Lowry – Longsight-born swimmer who was the first British woman to swim the English Channel
 * Bernard Manning – Ancoats-born stand-up comedian
 * Sir Ernest Marples – Postmaster-General and Minister of Transport; born in Levenshulme
 * Johnny Marr – songwriter, guitarist, keyboardist, harmonica player and singer, rose to fame in the 1980s as the guitarist in The Smiths
 * Ian McShane – actor who grew up in Manchester
 * Peter Mellor (born 1947) – English-born American footballer and coach
 * Mohyeldeen Mohammad – Islamist activist who studied in Saudi Arabia prior to his deportation
 * Steven Patrick Morrissey – singer-songwriter in The Smiths, writer and poet. Born in Davyhulme, the singer rose to fame in the 1980s as the flamboyant frontman of rock band The Smiths
 * Daniel Moult – concert organist, organ tutor and animateur, ensemble player and presenter of films about music
 * Gary Mounfield – "Mani", bassist, formerly of The Stone Roses and later in Primal Scream

N–Z

 * Doug Naylor – comedy writer, known for creating the comedy series Red Dwarf
 * Matt O'Connor –  gender equality activist and found of Fathers 4 Justice
 * Nigel Osborne – composer, teacher and aid worker
 * Jason Orange – singer, songwriter, dancer, former member of Take That
 * Emmeline Pankhurst – suffragette, born in Moss Side
 * Duncan Perry – cricketer
 * Anshel Pfeffer – journalist
 * Karl Pilkington – podcaster, author and television presenter; known for his work with Ricky Gervais
 * Fee Plumley – digital artist
 * John Charles Polanyi – chemist, brought up in Manchester; won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics
 * Simon N. Powell (born 1955) – born in Manchester; cancer researcher and radiation oncologist
 * Thomas de Quincey (1785–1859) – born in Manchester; author and intellectual; known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821)
 * Marcus Rashford – footballer; plays for Manchester United and the England national team
 * Lee Rigby – of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers; originally from Middleton, Greater Manchester; Lee, whilst off-duty and walking back to barracks, was killed by two Islamic extremists on 27 May 2013 as a terror attack
 * Marc Riley – musician; alternative rock critic and radio DJ on BBC 6 Music; former member of the Fall; had his own record label, In-Tape; also worked as a record plugger
 * Andy Rourke – bass guitarist best known for being a former member of the Smiths
 * Lee Rourke – novelist best known for The Canal, Vulgar Things and Glitch
 * James Rowley –  cricketer
 * Shaun Ryder – vocalist and songwriter with the Happy Mondays who became famous in the Madchester era
 * Peter Saville – Manchester-born artist and designer, best known for his work with Factory Records
 * Ceallach Spellman – actor and presenter
 * John Squire –  guitarist with the Stone Roses
 * Paul Stenning –  author, brought up in Davyhulme
 * Nobby Stiles – born in Collyhurst, former football midfielder Stiles, Bobby Charlton and Ian Callaghan are the only Englishmen to have won both World and European Cups
 * Bernard Sumner – singer-songwriter, guitarist, keyboard player and producer, best known as a founding member of two bands, Joy Division and New Order
 * John Thaw – actor; known for his roles in The Sweeney, Inspector Morse and Kavanagh QC; born in Longsight, brought up in Burnage
 * Katie Thistleton – CBBC presenter and Radio 1 DJ
 * John Thomas – recipient of the Victoria Cross
 * Edmund Thomson – cricketer and British Army officer
 * J. J. Thomson – physicist and Nobel laureate; credited with the discovery of the electron and of isotopes, and the invention of the mass spectrometer; awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the electron and his work on the conduction of electricity in gases
 * Shayne Ward – singer who won the second series of The X Factor
 * Mabel Tylecote –  adult educationnist
 * Simon Webbe –  singer/songwriter. Member of boyband Blue
 * Danny Webber – footballer, formerly of Manchester United and Sheffield United
 * Danny Welbeck – footballer who plays for Brighton & Hove Albion F.C.
 * Sir Joseph Whitworth
 * Andy Williams – drummer and vocalist of the Doves
 * Jez Williams – guitarist/songwriter of the Doves
 * Tony Wilson –  co-founder of Factory Records and Granada Reports reporter
 * Michael Wood – historian and broadcaster; has presented numerous television documentary series, and made over 80 documentary films
 * Alan Wren – known as Reni; drummer of The Stone Roses
 * Katie Zelem – footballer for England