The 100 most influential British?

[MRT144]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Adam Smith. Here, we hang any traders. Benedict Arnold; any like him or Adam Smith.
There, you put them on a list of Most Influential.

Leave it to texas to kill the best minds they could ever aspire to offer the world. loyalty doesnt trump brilliance.

or given the typo you made, any people who would work with equities

[MRT144]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Isaac Newton should be number 1. Imagine a world without physics...

A world without nerds!

[Pekka]

Sarah Young.

[Saras]

Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough. The world needs more French-pwners than Nelson and Wellesley

[Saras]

and not to forget, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough what a family

[Sandman]

Bentham and Mill. Although, thanks to the efforts of the SNP and the Daily Mail, there won't be a Britain much longer.

[TheStinger]

Cromwell was quite influential because he really trashed the divine right of Kings business and following him the King had to be responsible to the people not GOD. Without Cromwell the US and French revolutions may not have happened.

He was a right git though

[Saras]

"put your trust in God but keep your powder dry"

[ravagon]

Originally posted by Sn00py

Rutherford was born in New Zealand, but he was still British.
So people, the question is, if you were born under British rule, can you be in the Top 10 most influential British or not? (If you were influential )

Most of his more important work was done during the 30's. We didn't gain full political independence from the mother country until '47 IIRC hence the Brits should have the right to claim him for anything prior to that date..

Similarly they should also be able to claim Chandrasekhar for his early work but probably not for the whole Nobel prize.

[FrostyBoy]

Removed Cobat
Added 3 more

Wasn't there a British guy who was the first to discover dinosaur bones and began archeology? Not very influentual, but we still have another 37 names to fulfill.

Hey don't forget, if under british rule at the time, and influenced by british culture, then I think it qualifies.

I wonder, in that case, if Ghandi would make the list?

[FrostyBoy]

Added John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham.

[TheStinger]

Edward Heath took the UK into the EEC
Alfred Hitchcock- one of the greatest directors

[Drogue]

Are we concentrating more in influence as in how they influenced others, or influence as in how much they changed Britain/the world? If the latter, really you have to look at the effect:

Without Churchill we may have ended up German
Without Henry VIII we'd have been Catholic
Without Sir Francis Drake/Elizabeth I we'd be Spanish
Without Lord Nelson we'd be French
Without King Harold (losing) we'd have remained Saxon
Without Columbus the course of the US may have been very different
Without Cromwell we'd have remained a proper Monarchy (and perhaps changed the course of the French and American Revolution)

However without Newton, we'd wait a bit longer before discovering gravity. My point is to me, having an impact isn't about discovering something that others would have discovered, it isn't about being brilliant, it's about something time-critical, where you had to be there at that time to make that difference.

[Saras]

Without 1st Marlborough Europe would have been French/Spanish

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Sandman
Bentham and Mill. Although, thanks to the efforts of the SNP and the Daily Mail, there won't be a Britain much longer.

The Daily Mail is campaigning to abolish the union?