List of British people with German ancestry

Academia

• Ralf Dahrendorf KBE, sociologist, philosopher, political scientist and liberal politician; born in Hamburg, he acquired British citizenship in 1988
• Geoffrey Elton,, historian specialising in the Tudor period, born in Tübingen, moved to Britain in 1939
• Edgar Feuchtwanger OBE, born in Munich, historian and author
• Max Müller, comparative philologist and Orientalist, born in Dessau, became professor at Oxford University in 1850
• Marius Ostrowski, political theorist and historian of ideas and ideologies, born in Frankfurt am Main, moved to Britain in 1994
• 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 CBE, 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".
• Sir Guenter Treitel, academic lawyer and expert in English contract law; emigrated on the Kindertransport in 1939

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 ; 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
• * Queen Mary of Teck, consort of George V, ; born in Kensington Palace, London, she was a member of the House of Württemberg and also a descendant of the House of Hanover.
• * Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, member of the British Royal Family by marriage, 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,, mother was a member of the House of Baden
• Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, wife of Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, OBE, and great-granddaughter of Julius Wernher
• The House of Hanover, 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 and son of Julius Wernher. The Mountbatten family also has German origin.

Art

• Frank Auerbach, artist, born in Berlin, emigrated 1939
• Lucian Freud, painter, born in Berlin, emigrated 1933
• Walter Sickert, Munich-born painter of Danish-German, English and Irish descent, emigrated 1868, son of the painter Oswald Sickert,.

Commerce

• Siegfried Bettmann, founder of motorcycle maker Triumph Engineering and car maker Triumph Motor Company, came from Bettmannsäge, emigrated 1885
• Charles Beyer, born Carl Friedrich Beyer, co-founder of railway locomotive builder Beyer, Peacock & Company, born in Plauen
• Henry Bolckow, co-founder of steelmaker Bolckow, Vaughan and Liberal MP & politician, emigrated 1827.
• Ernest Cassel, merchant banker of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, born in Cologne
• Henry Dübs, born Heinrich Dübs in Guntersblum, founder of railway locomotive builder Dübs & Company, emigrated 1842.
• John Goodman, born Johannes Gütgemann in Oberwinter, emigrated aged 19, founder of motorcycle maker Velocette
• Tiny Rowland, originally Roland Walter Fuhrhop, Rhodesian-British chairman of the Lonrho conglomerate 1962–94
• Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born in Hamburg, moved to Liverpool in 1849, co-founded shipbuilder Harland & Wolff, Conservative MP

Entertainment

• Alia Bhatt, Bollywood actress of Indian and German descent
• Simon Callow CBE, actor of English, Danish, German and French descent
• Julian Clary, comedian with a paternal great-grandfather and a maternal great-grandmother who were born in Germany.
• Sacha Baron Cohen, actor, comedian, Israeli mother born to German Jewish parents
• Ernest Cossart, actor born as Emil von Holst; brother of the composer Gustav Holst,, of German, Swedish, British, Latvian and Spanish descent
• Rupert Everett, actor, his great-great-grandmother was Augusta Clara de Schmiedern
• 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.
• Gerard Hoffnung, Jewish-German musical humourist, born in Berlin who arrived in Britain in 1939 as a Kindertransport refugee.
• Derek Jacobi CBE, actor and film director, his great-grandfather, William Jacobi emigrated from Germany in the 19th C.
• Frederick Jaeger, actor, born in Berlin, but moved to England with Adolf Hitler's rise to power
• Jodhi May, actress of French-Turkish Jewish and German descent
• Robert Morley CBE, actor, his mother, Gertrude Emily, came from a German family that had emigrated to South Africa
• Olivia Newton-John DBE, actress and singer, matrilineal granddaughter of Max Born a Nobel physicist; her mother and maternal grandparents were Jewish German.
• Soni Razdan, Bollywood actress, born to a British mother of German descent
• 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 Jon Pertwee, and his German wife, Ingeborg
• 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
• Rick Stein CBE, television presenter, chef, restaurateur, whose father, Eric Stein, was of 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 CBE, actor, writer and dramatist of Russian, German, Polish-Jewish and Ethiopian noble descent
• Gordon Warnecke, actor of Indo-Guyanese and German descent

Literature

• Sybille Bedford OBE, novelist born in Charlottenburg, west of Berlin
• John Berger, art critic and novelist, grandfather from Trieste
• Max Beerbohm, essayist, novelist and caricaturist who was of German descent; his half-brother was Herbert Beerbohm Tree, ; their father was Julius Beerbohm,.
• Ford Madox Ford, novelist emigrated in 1889; his father, Francis Hueffer, was from Germany
• Robert 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
• 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, her family settled in Britain in 1936
• John Lehmann, man of letters and editor, whose Hamburg-born grandfather, Frederick Lehmann, was a businessman who became a Liberal politician
• Patrick O'Brian CBE,, novelist and translator, the son of a physician of German descent
• Sir Nikolaus Pevsner CBE FBA, historian of art and architecture; born in Leipzig, he moved to England in 1933
• Stephen Spender CBE, poet and novelist, whose mother had German parents
• J. R. R. Tolkien CBE, writer, poet, philologist, linguist and Professor of Anglo-Saxon

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 and grandson of Liza Lehmann,
• Steuart Bedford, conductor and pianist; brother of the above David Bedford and grandson of Liza Lehmann,
• Justin Broadrick, musician known primarily for Godflesh and Jesu; maternal grandparents were German immigrants.
• Frederick Delius, composer born as Fritz Theodore Albert Delius in Bradford, Yorkshire to German parents from Bielefeld
• Georg Friedrich Handel, composer, born as Georg Friedrich Händel; settled in London in 1712
• Gustav Holst, composer of British, Swedish, Spanish, Latvian and German descent
• Bert Jansch, folk musician and descendant of a family from Hamburg, who settled in Scotland in Victorian times

News and journalism

• Matt Frei, Channel 4 broadcast journalist, born in Essen, emigrated 1973
• 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 CBE

Politics and government

• David Cameron, Conservative Party politician and former Prime Minister, he is descended from the German House of Hanover through his fourth great-grandmother Elizabeth Hay, Countess of Erroll, illegitimate daughter of King William IV
• Alf Dubs, Baron Dubs, Labour Party politician
• Eyre Crowe, former diplomat, his mother, Asta von Barby, was a German noblewoman
• Natascha Engel, Labour politician and former MP
• Nigel Farage, former UKIP & Brexit Party leader, politician, his great-grandfather Charles Justus Schrod, was born to German parents
• Anthony Gueterbock, 18th Baron Berkeley, Labour Party peer
• Wera Hobhouse, Liberal Democrat MP for Bath, emigrated 1990
• Boris Johnson, Conservative politician and former MP & Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who is descended from the royal German House of Württemberg through his German great-great-great-grandmother Karolina von Rothenburg
• Jo Johnson, Conservative politician, former MP; 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, emigrated 1867.
• Angus Robertson, SNP politician and MP; born to a Scottish father and German mother
• Alexander Stafford, Conservative politician, former MP for Rother Valley
• Gisela Stuart, Labour politician and MP, 1997 to 2017; emigrated here in 1974.

Science

• Andre Geim, Russian-born Dutch-British physicist, 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics, 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 aged of nineteen
• Sir William Herschel, 2nd Baronet,, forensic scientist; son of the above John Herschel and grandson of William Herschel
• Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, scientific adviser and physicist; son of Adolph Friedrich Lindemann, an engineer born in Baden-Baden
• Otto Metzger, German-British engineer, and inventor of an impact-extrusion process for forming seamless zinc and brass cans

Sport

• Jimmy Bullard, English former footballer
• Nicky Butt, former England international footballer
• Steve Cram, English former middle-distance runner
• Daniel Prenn, Russian-born German, Polish, and British world-top-ten tennis player
• Glenn Roeder, English former football club coach
• Emil Voigt, English athlete

Other

• William Stuart-Houston,, half-nephew of Adolf Hitler, emigrated to the USA in 1939