List of British people with German ancestry

Academia

Ralf Dahrendorf, sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and liberal politician; born in Hamburg, he acquired British citizenship in 1988

Edgar Feuchtwanger, historian and author

Timothy Reuter, historian of medieval Europe whose father was born in Germany

John Stein, professor of physiology and fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; brother of the chef Rick Stein

J. R. R. Tolkien, writer, poet, philologist, linguist and professor of Anglo-Saxon; his family had German roots but had been living in England since the 18th century; "Tolkien" derives from the German "tollkühn", meaning "foolhardy"

Aristocracy and royalty

The Astor family, originally from Walldorf but gained prominence in both America and England; the English branch holds two hereditary peerages: Viscount Astor and Baron Astor

The British Royal Family, who belong to the House of Windsor (a branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha); George V of the United Kingdom changed the name of his branch from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor in 1917; through Queen Victoria, the current royal family are also descended from the House of Hanover (see entry below)

Queen Mary of Teck, consort of George V; born in Kensington Palace, London, she was a member of the House of Württemberg (through her father Francis, Duke of Teck) and also a descendant of the House of Hanover (through her mother Prince Mary Adelaide of Cambridge)

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, member of the British Royal Family by marriage (consort of Elizabeth II), and member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg by birth

John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, referred to simply as Lord Acton, Catholic historian, politician and writer, whose mother was a scion of the noble German Dalberg family

Lady Mary Victoria Douglas-Hamilton (later Hereditary Princess of Monaco), whose mother was a member of the House of Baden

Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, wife of Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, and great-granddaughter of Julius Wernher

The House of Hanover, a German royal dynasty who produced seven British monarchs: George I, George II, George III, George IV, William IV and Victoria

Harold Augustus Wernher, 3rd Baronet, peer, grandfather of the above Natalia Grosvenor (née Phillips) and son of Julius Wernher

Art

Walter Sickert, Munich-born painter of Danish-German, English and Irish descent (son of the painter Oswald Sickert)

Commerce

Ernest Cassel, merchant banker of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, born in Cologne

Tiny Rowland, originally Roland Walter Fuhrhop, Rhodesian-British chairman of the Lonrho conglomerate from 1962 to 1994

Entertainment

Simon Callow, actor of English, Danish, German and French descent

Julian Clary, comedian with a great-grandfather (on his father's side) and a great-grandmother (on his mother's side) who were born in Germany

Ernest Cossart, actor born as Emil von Holst; brother of the composer Gustav Holst and consequently of German, Swedish, British, Latvian and Spanish descent

Rupert Everett, actor whose great-great-grandmother, Augusta Clara de Schmiedern, was a scion of the aristocratic Schmiedern family (Barons von Schmeidern)

Richard E. Grant, actor of Dutch-Afrikaner, Hungarian and half-German descent

Jenny Hanley, actress of English descent through her father, Jimmy Hanley, and Russian-Jewish and German descent through her mother Dinah Sheridan

Derek Jacobi, actor and film director, whose great-grandfather, William Jacobi emigrated from Germany to England in the 19th century

Jodhi May, actress of French-Turkish Jewish and German descent

Robert Morley, actor whose mother, Gertrude Emily (née Fass), came from a German family that had emigrated to South Africa

Carol Reed, film director and illegitimate son of Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Oliver Reed, actor who had Dutch, Lithuanian and German ancestry through his grandfather Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Enn Reitel, actor and impressionist; his family arrived as refugees from Estonia and Germany

Sean Pertwee, actor; son of actor John Pertwee and his German wife, Ingeborg (née Rhoesa)

Mark Sheppard, actor and musician, born in London of an Irish and German background

Dinah Sheridan, actress of Russian-Jewish and German descent

Claire Stansfield, actress, director, fashion designer and model of half-English and half-German descent

Herbert Beerbohm Tree, actor and theatre manager who was born as Herbert Draper Beerbohm, son of Julius Beerbohm; his father was of Dutch, Lithuanian and German origin

Iris Tree, actress, poet and artists' model; daughter of Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Viola Tree, actress; daughter of Herbert Beerbohm Tree

Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and dramatist of Russian, German, Polish-Jewish and Ethiopian noble descent

Gordon Warnecke, actor of Indo-Guyanese and German descent

Food

Rick Stein, chef, restaurateur and television presenter whose father, Eric Stein, was of German descent (an ancestor, Julius Otto Stein, emigrated from Germany in the 19th century)

Literature

Sybille Bedford, novelist born in Charlottenburg

John Berger, art critic and novelist, grandfather from Trieste

Max Beerbohm, essayist, novelist and caricaturist who was of German descent by virtue of his relationship to Herbert Beerbohm Tree, his half-brother; their father was Julius Beerbohm

Ford Madox Ford, novelist whose father, Francis Hueffer, was from Germany

Robert Graves (full name Robert von Ranke Graves), poet, novelist and scholar, whose German mother was a great-niece of the historian Leopold von Ranke

Adam Hart-Davis, historian, photographer, television presenter and scientist; son of Rupert Hart-Davis

Duff Hart-Davis, biographer and journalist, son of Rupert Hart-Davis

Rupert Hart-Davis, man of letters, publisher and editor; great-great-great grandson of King William IV and, in turn, the German House of Hanover (and other prominent German dynasties)

Frieda Hughes, poet and painter; daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath; Sylvia's father, Otto Plath, was German while her mother, Aurelia Plath, was of Austrian descent

Judith Kerr, author of children's books, born in Berlin

John Lehmann, man of letters and editor, whose Hamburg-born grandfather, Augustus Frederick Lehmann, was a businessman and Liberal politician

Patrick O'Brian (born Richard Patrick Russ), novelist and translator, the son of a physician of German descent

Stephen Spender, poet and novelist, whose mother (Violet Hilda Schuster) had German parents

J. R. R. Tolkien, writer, poet, philologist, linguist and Professor of Anglo-Saxon (also see above entry in 'Academia')

Music

Antony Beaumont, musicologist, writer, composer and conductor; born in London of Anglo-German and Greek-Romanian heritage

David Bedford, composer and musician; brother of Steuart Bedford (below) and grandson of Liza Lehmann

Steuart Bedford, conductor and pianist; brother of the above David Bedford and grandson of Liza Lehmann

Frederick Delius, composer born as Fritz Theodore Albert Delius in Bradford, Yorkshire to German parents

Gustav Holst, composer of British, Swedish, Spanish, Latvian and German descent

Bert Jansch, folk musician and descendant of a family originally from Hamburg, who had settled in Scotland during the Victorian era

News and journalism

Rachel Johnson, editor, journalist, television presenter and writer; sister of Boris and Jo Johnson, and descendant of the House of Württemberg through an illegitimate line

Laura Kuenssberg, journalist; granddaughter of Ekkehard von Kuenssberg

Politics and government

Andrew Brons, BNP politician and former Member of European Parliament, whose great-grandfather was German

David Cameron, Conservative Party politician and former Prime Minister, who is descended from the German House of Hanover through an illegitimate line

Eyre Crowe, former diplomat whose mother, Asta von Barby, was a German noblewoman

Natascha Engel, Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament (half-German and half-English descent, born in Berlin)

Nigel Farage, UKIP politician, whose great-grandfather Charles Justus Schrod (born Carl Julius Schrod), a clerk in the General Post Office, was born to German parents

Boris Johnson, Conservative Party politician and current Mayor of London who is descended from the royal German House of Württemberg (and the House of Hanover) through his German great-great-great grandmother Karolina von Rothenburg (born to Prince Paul of Württemberg and his mistress Frederike Porth)

Jo Johnson, Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament; brother of Boris and Rachel Johnson, and descendant of the House of Württemberg through an illegitimate line

Joseph Jonas, former Mayor of Sheffield and Imperial German Consul to the city

William Joyce

Angus Robertson, SNP politician and Member of Parliament; born to a Scottish father and German mother

Gisela Stuart (born Gisela Gschaider), Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament

Science

Andre Geim, Soviet-born Dutch-British physicist working in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester

John Herschel, English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and inventor; son of William Herschel, the Hanover-born astronomer who emigrated to Great Britain at the age of nineteen

William Herschel, 2nd Baronet, forensic scientist; son of the above John Herschel and grandson of William Herschel

Frederick Lindemann, scientific adviser and physicist; son of Adolph Friedrich Lindemann, an engineer born in the Palatinate

Sport

Nicky Butt, former English international footballer

Geoff Hurst, former English international footballer; his mother, Evelyn Blick, was from Gloucestershire but her family originally came from Germany

Glen Roeder, former English Club football coach