Our selection of historic birthdates in July, including Diana Princess of Wales, Arthur James Balfour and Cecil Rhodes (pictured above).
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| 1 July. | 1961 | Diana, Princess of Wales, affectionately remembered as the Queen of Hearts, mother of Princes William and Harry. | |
| 2 July. | 1489 | Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII, burnt at the stake following Mary’s accession to the throne for refusing to return to the old faith. | |
| 3 July. | 1728 | Robert Adam, Edinburgh University educated, architect and interior designer, who together with his brothers, toured Britain redesigning country houses e.g. Syon Park, Harewood, etc., with an ‘Adamite frippery’. | |
| 4 July. | 1845 | Thomas Barnado, Dublin born evangelist who founded homes for the destitute children with financial support from the banker Robert Barclay. | |
| 5 July. | 1853 | Cecil Rhodes, Hertfordshire born colonialist, financier and statesman of Southern Africa, so influential that they named a country after him …Rhodesia, before it was changed to Zimbabwe. | |
| 6 July. | 1849 | Alfred Kemper, London born mathematician and author of the popular ‘How to Draw a Straight Line’. | |
| 7 July. | 1940 | Ringo Starr, drummer with the legendary Liverpool pop group The Beatles, and more significantly, the voice of Thomas the Tank Engine. | |
| 8 July. | 1851 | Sir Arthur John Evans, Oxford educated archaeologist who excavated the Bronze Age city of Knossos in Crete. | |
| 9 July. | 1901 | Barbara Cartland, Birmingham-born romantic writer responsible for over 600 best-selling books, step grandmother of Diana, Princess of Wales. | |
| 10 July. | 1723 | Sir William Blackstone, English jurist – ‘It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer’. | |
| 11 July. | 1274 | Robert I, King of Scotland, also known as Robert the Bruce, who seized the throne in 1306 and forced England to recognise Scottish independence in 1328. | |
| 12 July. | 1730 | Josiah Wedgwood, Staffordshire potter and industrialist who, from his Etruria factory transformed pottery design and manufacture. | |
| 13 July. | 1811 | George Gilbert Scott, English architect responsible for the Albert Memorial and St. Pancras Station in London. | |
| 14 July. | 1858 | Emmeline Pankhurst, Manchester born suffragette who was imprisoned in her efforts to gain the vote for British women. | |
| 15 July. | 1573 | Inigo Jones, London architect whose best known buildings are the Queen’s House in Greenwich and the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall. | |
| 16 July. | 1723 | Sir Joshua Reynolds, English portrait painter and first president of the Royal Academy. | |
| 17 July. | 1827 | Sir Frederick Augustus Abel, London born chemist and explosive specialist, co-inventor of cordite, as approved by the British Army. | |
| 18 July. | 1720 | Reverend Gilbert White, English naturalist who wrote The Natural History and Antiquities of Selbourne. | |
| 19 July. | 1896 | A J Cronin, graduated in medicine at Glasgow in 1919, went on to use this grounding for writing his Scottish novels Dr Finlay’s Casebook. | |
| 20 July. | 1889 | John Reith, Scottish engineer and first director general of the BBC, architect of public service broadcasting as we know it …’Auntie’. | |
| 21 July. | 1934 | Jonathan Miller, London born multi-talented TV, film and theatre director, author, editor, presenter, Research Fellow, curator, etc.. | |
| 22 July. | 1926 | Bryan Forbes, actor, director and producer, founded Beaver Films with Sir Richard Attenborough in 1959. | |
| 23 July. | 1886 | Arthur Whitten Brown, Glasgow born aviator, who as navigator with John Alcock made the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in a Vickers-Vimy biplane on 14 June 1919. | |
| 24 July. | 1929 | Peter Yates, British film director of Summer Holiday, Bullitt and Krull fame. | |
| 25 July. | 1848 | Arthur James Balfour, statesman and Conservative Prime Minister, as Foreign Secretary 1916-18 his Balfour Declaration promised support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. | |
| 26 July. | 1856 | George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist who ‘conquered England by his wit’. Nobel prize winner in 1925. | |
| 27 July. | 1870 | Hilaire Belloc, MP, poet and author, born in France he became a British subject in 1902, best remembered for his nonsensical verse for children. | |
| 28 July. | 1866 | Beatrix Potter, author and illustrator, the characters that she created remain classics of children’s literature …Peter Rabbit, Samuel Whiskers, Squirrel Nutkin, and friends. | |
| 29 July. | 1913 | Baron Jo Grimond, St. Andrews born leader of the Liberal Party, thought by some to be ‘The best Prime Minister Britain never had’. | |
| 30 July. | 1818 | Emily Brontë, novelist, one of the three Bronte sisters, her only novel Wuthering Heights tells a tale of love and revenge set in the remote wilds of her native Yorkshire. | |
| 31 July. | 1929 | Lynne Reid Banks, London born author, best known for the L-Shaped Room and the children’s book The Indian in the Cupboard. | |
