Our selection of historic birthdates in September, including King Henry V, Agatha Christie and Admiral Nelson (pictured above).
| 1 Sept. | 1877 | Francis Aston, Birmingham born physicist, inventor of the mass spectrograph and Nobel prize winner for chemistry in 1922. | |
| 2 Sept. | 1726 | John Howard, prison reformer who enforced standards of cleanliness throughout British prisons and official salaries for jailers. | |
| 3 Sept. | 1728 | Mathew Boulton, Birmingham engineer and industrialist who together with James Watt produced the steam engines that powered the industrial revolution and the coining machines to help pay for them. | |
| 4 Sept. | 1905 | Mary Renault (real name Mary Challans), London born novelist, author of The Bull from the Sea and The Persian Boy. | |
| 5 Sept. | 1946 | Freddie Mercury, originally Frederick Bulsara, legendary lead singer of the rock group Queen. | |
| 6 Sept. | 1892 | Sir Edward Appleton, Yorkshire physicist whose work with radio and radar waves made wireless communications possible. | |
| 7 Sept. | 1533 | Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland, she was declared illegitimate after the death of her mother Anne Boleyn and then went on to lend her name to an age, reigning for 45 years. | |
| 8 Sept. | 1157 | Richard I, also known as the “Lion Heart”, King of England for ten years who spent all but 6 months of his reign abroad either Crusading or fighting in France. | |
| 9 Sept. | 1900 | James Hilton, Lancashire writer, many of his novels made it onto the silver screen including Lost Horizon (1933) and Random Harvest (1941), perhaps best remembered for Goodbye Mr Chips (1934). | |
| 10 Sept. | 1771 | Mungo Park, Scottish explorer who traced the course of the Niger River between 1795-97 and drowned on his second African expedition during a fight with the natives. | |
| 11 Sept. | 1700 | James Thomson, a Scottish ministers son who published his first major poem Winter in 1726, the other seasons followed, now famously remembered each proms night for writing ‘Rule Britannia‘. | |
| 12 Sept. | 1852 | Herbert Henry Asquith, Yorkshire born Liberal Prime Minister who as chancellor of the Exchequer introduced the old age pension in 1908. | |
| 13 Sept. | 1894 | J(ohn) B(oynton) Priestley, author and critic, his work included The Good Companion, Angel Pavement and An Inspector Calls, his magazine articles from the 1950’s helped form the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). | |
| 14 Sept. | 1909 | Sir Peter Markam Scott, artist and ornithologist, son of Robert Falcon Scott (of the Antarctic), who through his television programs and writings helped to popularise natural history. | |
| 15 Sept. | 1890 | Agatha Christie, one of the most successful crime writer’s of all time, creator of that ‘most famous’ Belgian Hercule Poirot and spinster sleuth Miss Jane Marple. | |
| 16 Sept. | 1387 | King Henry V of England who spent much of his reign at war, defeating the French with ‘two fingers’ at Agincourt. | |
| 17 Sept. | 1929 | Sir Stirling Moss, London-born grand prix racing driver of the 1950’s and 60’s, he retired after a crash at Goodwood in 1962. | |
| 18 Sept. | 1709 | Dr Samuel Johnson, writer and lexicographer whose dictionary which first appeared in 1755, remained the established reference book of its kind for more than a century. | |
| 19 Sept. | 1839 | George Cadbury, Quaker chocolate manufacturer and social reformer, together with his brother Richard they moved their factory from Birmingham and created the model village of Bournville for their workers’. | |
| 20 Sept. | 1914 | Kenneth Moore, star of stage and screen, perhaps best remembered for his role as Douglas Bader the WW II fighter pilot in Reach for the Sky. | |
| 21 Sept. | 1756 | John Loudon MacAdam, Ayr-born engineer and inventor of the ‘tarmacadam’ or ‘tarmac’ road surface. | |
| 22 Sept. | 1791 | Michael Faraday, chemist and physicist, son of a London blacksmith his experiments in electromagnetism resulted in him making the first dynamo, he also produced the basic laws of electrolysis. | |
| 23 Sept. | 63 BC | Augustus, the first Roman emperor, the adopted son of Julius Caesar who defeated Caesar’s assassins at the Battle of Phillippi and brought stability to the Roman empire. | |
| 24 Sept. | 1717 | Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, London-born writer, mainly remembered for his letters detailing firsthand accounts of such events as the Jacobite trials following the 1745 rising and the Gordon riots. | |
| 25 Sept. | 1927 | Sir Colin Rex Davis, principal conductor of the London Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s. | |
| 26 Sept. | 1888 | T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot, poet and critic, born in St. Louis, Missouri he became a British subject in 1927 and established himself as one of the most important figures of 20th century English literature. | |
| 27 Sept. | 1792 | George Cruikshank, political cartoonist who also illustrated more than 800 books including Charles Dickens‘ Oliver Twist and Grimm’s German Popular Stories. | |
| 28 Sept. | 1769 | “Gentleman John” Jackson, boxing champion who helped to gain acceptance for boxing to be recognised as a legitimate sport in England. | |
| 29 Sept. | 1758 | Viscount Horatio Nelson, naval commander who despite loosing his right eye(1794) and right arm(1797) in the Revolutionary Wars and despite the scandal of his affair with Emma Hamilton went on to become a national hero following many victories over the French, Spanish and Danish fleets. | |
| 30 Sept. | 1788 | Lord Raglan, general who on losing his right arm at Waterloo exclaimed …”Don’t carry away that arm till I have taken off my ring”. He issued the ambiguous order that led to the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade. | |
