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100 Great Britons: A Personal Selection
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Engineer, designer of the London sewerage system, relieving disease and "the great stink"
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Of course, all individuals are collectives.
I'm including Scottish-born Irishman James Connolly and Scottish parentage Jamaican-born Mary Seacole, who have both appeared in public polls of great Britons. Also Egyptian-born Dorothy Hodgkin, German-born Lucian Freud, Zanzibar-born Freddie Mercury and Somali-British athlete Mo Farah.
Darwin? He's had enough credit: let Alfred Russel Wallace get more attention.
I'm no great fan of royalty but I decided to squeeze Princess Di in. I was intending to include Elizabeth I for her "golden age", but she was no saint and her reputation is quite romanticised, inflated. Her under-rated grandfather Henry VII brought peace and prosperity but knew how to enrich himself in the process.
Cromwell? Excluded here for his treatment of the Irish.
Churchill? High marks for the defeat of Nazi Germany but he opposed votes for women, supported British imperialism and the sterilisation of people with learning and other disabilities, was a racist war criminal who couldn't understand aversion to using chemical weapons on Iraqis, etc. He was also responsible for the Gallipoli disaster in world war 1.
Nelson? A brilliant naval commander and I'm no great fan of Napoleon, but I'm not convinced about the worth of military victories on behalf of one undemocratic imperialist power over another.
McCartney, Bowie? Not my favourites but close.
I'm including Scottish-born Irishman James Connolly and Scottish parentage Jamaican-born Mary Seacole, who have both appeared in public polls of great Britons. Also Egyptian-born Dorothy Hodgkin, German-born Lucian Freud, Zanzibar-born Freddie Mercury and Somali-British athlete Mo Farah.
Darwin? He's had enough credit: let Alfred Russel Wallace get more attention.
I'm no great fan of royalty but I decided to squeeze Princess Di in. I was intending to include Elizabeth I for her "golden age", but she was no saint and her reputation is quite romanticised, inflated. Her under-rated grandfather Henry VII brought peace and prosperity but knew how to enrich himself in the process.
Cromwell? Excluded here for his treatment of the Irish.
Churchill? High marks for the defeat of Nazi Germany but he opposed votes for women, supported British imperialism and the sterilisation of people with learning and other disabilities, was a racist war criminal who couldn't understand aversion to using chemical weapons on Iraqis, etc. He was also responsible for the Gallipoli disaster in world war 1.
Nelson? A brilliant naval commander and I'm no great fan of Napoleon, but I'm not convinced about the worth of military victories on behalf of one undemocratic imperialist power over another.
McCartney, Bowie? Not my favourites but close.
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