List of people from the Isle of Wight

This is a list of notable people born in or strongly associated with the Isle of Wight, alphabetically within categories.

Born on the Isle of Wight

 * Dr Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School and immortalised in Tom Brown's Schooldays, born in Cowes
 * King Arwald, last pagan king in England and last king of the Isle of Wight, died 686
 * Lee Bradbury, ex professional footballer, currently manager of Havant and Waterlooville, born in Cowes
 * Danny Briggs, Hampshire and England cricketer
 * Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feuchères, born in St Helens
 * Craig Douglas (Terry Perkins) pop singer, born 1941 in Newport, topped the charts in 1959 with Only Sixteen
 * Arthur Percy Morris Fleming, born 1881 in Newport, electrical engineer and pioneer in the development of radio and submarine detection
 * Thomas Fleming, judge and Lord Chief Justice
 * Uffa Fox, yacht designer
 * Vivian Fuchs, Antarctic explorer
 * Marius Goring, born Newport
 * Maxwell Gray (Mary Gleed Tuttiett), novelist
 * Lauran Hibberd Slacker-pop singer, born in Newport
 * Sheila Hancock, actress, born in Blackgang
 * Robert Hooke, scientist, born in Freshwater
 * Jeremy Irons, actor, born in Cowes and raised in St Helens
 * Phill Jupitus, comedian, born in Newport
 * Mark King, born in Gurnard nr. Cowes, bass player and vocalist in pop/funk band Level 42
 * Suri Krishnamma, film director and writer, born in Shanklin
 * Cliff Michelmore, television presenter and producer born in Cowes
 * Albert Midlane, failed ironmonger, poet and hymn-writer was born in Newport
 * Anthony Minghella, film director; born in Ryde; his parents run the Minghella's Ice Cream company on the Island; his film The English Patient includes footage of Shanklin Pier; on accepting his Best Picture Oscar, he said, "This is a great day for the Isle of Wight!"
 * Loretta Minghella, charity executive and solicitor
 * Brian Murphy, actor, born in Ventnor
 * Noel Odell, geologist and mountaineer, born in St Lawrence
 * Queen Osburga, daughter of Oslac, Chief Butler of England and mother of King Alfred the Great
 * Adam Pacitti, Leader of Cultaholic, born in Ryde
 * Arthur Cecil Pigou, economist and proponent of pigouvian taxes, born in Ryde
 * Albert Pollard, historian, born in Ryde
 * Horace Rawlins, golfer, winner of the first U.S. Open in 1895
 * Jake Scrimshaw, professional footballer
 * Henry Sewell, first Prime Minister of New Zealand, born on the island in 1807 and lived there until emigrating to New Zealand at the age of 45
 * Kelly Sotherton, heptathlete, born in Newport
 * Polly Toynbee, journalist, born at Yafford
 * George Westmore, founder of Hollywood's first make-up department, born 1879 in Newport. His son Bud Westmore is credited as make-up artist on over 450 movies
 * Harry Frederick Whitchurch V.C., born in Sandown
 * Eric Charles Twelves Wilson V.C., born in Sandown in 1912

Raised on the Isle of Wight

 * E. Power Biggs, concert organist
 * Frank Cadogan Cowper, artist, raised at Lisle Court, Wootton
 * Uffa Fox, raised in Cowes
 * William Hutt, MP and colonial administrator, educated in Ryde
 * George, 2nd Earl Jellicoe, at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
 * Donna Langley, film executive and chairwoman of Universal Pictures, raised on the island.
 * Fidelis Morgan, actress and writer, raised in Bonchurch
 * Nicholas Dingley alias Razzle, drummer for Hanoi Rocks, raised in Binstead
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, raised in East Dene, Bonchurch
 * Bear Grylls, climber, youngest Briton to reach the summit of Mount Everest and live; survival expert; host of Man vs. Wild

Lived on the Isle of Wight

 * Sam Browne, soldier, retired to Ryde
 * Master Gunner Daniel Cambridge VC (later Yeoman of the Guard), stationed at Redoubt Battery, Fort Redoubt, Freshwater Bay, until 1871 (Census)
 * Julia Margaret Cameron, photographer, lived in Freshwater Bay
 * Lewis Carroll, author, lived at Sandown while working on Alice in Wonderland
 * Winston Churchill, visited Ventnor for extended periods throughout his life
 * Helen Clare, soprano singer
 * Sir Christopher Cockerell, inventor of the hovercraft, spent two years in East Cowes working on his prototypes
 * E. E. Cowper, novelist, lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
 * Frank Cowper, yachtsman and author; designed and lived at Lisle Court, Wootton
 * Charles Darwin, naturalist, lived for a period in 1867 in the Kings Head Hotel in Sandown
 * Charles Dickens, author, lived in Bonchurch for 3 months in 1849
 * King Charles I, held prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle for a year
 * Ken Dodd, comedian, had a holiday home at Freshwater Bay
 * Jack Douglas, actor from a series of Carry On films
 * Trevor Duncan, composer (known for the Dr Finlay's Casebook theme), lived in Bonchurch
 * King Ethelred the Unready, fled to the Isle of Wight in 1012 from the Danes under Sweyn Forkbeard
 * Gertrude Fenton, novelist and editor of the Carisbrooke magazine
 * Uffa Fox, yacht designer, lived in Puckaster
 * David Gascoyne, 20th-century surrealist poet
 * Pamela Green, infamous nude model of the 1950s and 1960s, lived in Yarmouth with the dambuster Douglas Webb, DFM
 * King Harold II and his brother Tostig Godwinson, have estates at Kern and Nunwell respectively
 * Jet Harris, musician with The Shadows
 * Peter de Heyno, defended the Carisbrooke Castle 1377 against French–Castilian troops
 * Robyn Hitchcock, musician, lived in Yarmouth from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and cited it in many of his works of the period
 * John Oliver Hobbes (Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie), novelist, lived part-time in Steephill, 1900–1906
 * Geoffrey Hughes, actor, lived in Newport
 * Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Samuel Raymond Jarvis died at his home, Cove Cottage in Ventnor, in 1868
 * Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, lived at St. Lawrence Hall, Ventnor
 * John Keats, poet, moved to the island in 1814; areas of Shanklin are named after him
 * Kenneth Kendall, journalist and TV presenter, lived in Cowes where his partner owned an art gallery
 * Charles Kingsley, spent childhood there
 * Marek Larwood, actor and comedian
 * Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet, spent the summer in Shanklin in 1868
 * Guglielmo Marconi did radio experiments in Alum Bay and Niton around 1900
 * Karl Marx, lodged in Ryde in the 1870s and in Ventnor in the 1880s
 * John Milne, inventor of the horizontal pendulum seismograph, retired from the Japanese Imperial College of Engineering in Shide, Isle of Wight
 * David Niven, actor, lived in Bembridge as a child
 * Isaac Pitman, invented a shorthand system, lived for a time in Sandown
 * J.B. Priestley, author, playwright and broadcaster, lived at Brook for over a decade from 1948
 * John Morgan Richards, cigarette and patent medicine entrepreneur, lived in Steephill, 1903–1918
 * Legh Richmond, preacher and writer of the religious tract The Dairyman's Daughter, curate for Yaverland and Brading
 * Frederick Riddle, viola player, died in Newport
 * John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone, Secretary of State for War in the years leading up to the First World War; MP and Justice of the Peace for the Isle of Wight
 * Michael Sheard, actor, lived in Ryde
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, poet, lived in Bonchurch
 * Shaw Taylor, television presenter, known for the catchphrase "keep 'em peeled", lived in Totland
 * Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet, lived in Farringford in Freshwater Bay
 * Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, rented a house in Seaview
 * Edward Upward, long-lived author and part of the Auden Group in the 1930s, lived in Sandown from 1961 to 2004
 * Queen Victoria, had one of her residences at Osborne House in East Cowes
 * Barnes Wallis, inventor of the bouncing bomb, lived and worked in Cowes
 * Douglas Webb, DFM air gunner with 617 Squadron on the Dambusters raid; partner of the infamous nude model Pamela Green; lived in Yarmouth

Currently resident

 * Raymond Allen, television scriptwriter best known for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, born and lives in Ryde
 * Keegan Brown, professional darts player
 * Patrick Buckland, CEO of Stainless Games, creator of Carmageddon
 * Hester Chambers, founding member of Wet Leg
 * Sarah Close, singer-songwriter and YouTuber, born and lives on the island
 * Melvyn Hayes, actor, lives in Ryde
 * David Icke, conspiracy theorist, lives in Ryde
 * Mark King, Level 42 musician
 * Dame Ellen MacArthur, sailor, based in Cowes
 * The Osbourne family have a holiday home in Yaverland
 * Dick Taylor, founding member of The Rolling Stones and the Pretty Things
 * Rhian Teasdale, founding member of Wet Leg
 * Alan Titchmarsh, author and TV presenter
 * M J Trow, author and teacher