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10 Most Famous British Women

1. Queen Elizabeth II

Image by minka2507 from Pixabay

Elizabeth II was born on April 21 1926 as Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. She is Queen of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.

Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth).

She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. 

Significant events have included Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, Diamond and Platinum jubilees in 1977, 2002, 2012, and 2022, respectively.

Queen Elizabeth is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, the longest-serving female head of state, the oldest living and longest-reigning current monarch, and the oldest and longest-serving  head of state. 

2. Adele

Adele- Author; Kristopher Harris- Wikimedia

Adele Blue Adkins was born on May 5th 1988. She is an English singer and songwriter. She is one of the world’s best-selling music artists, with sales of over 120 million records. 

Her awards and nominations include fifteen Grammy Awards and twelve Brit Awards.

In 2011, 2012, and 2016, Billboard named her Artist of the Year and at the 2012 and 2016 , Adele was named Songwriter of the Year by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

Additionally, in 2012, she was listed at number five on ‘s 100 Greatest Women in Music. 

Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world in 2012, 2016, and 2022. She was appointed a  at the 2013 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to music.

Her third tour saw her break attendance records globally, including in the UK, Australia, and the US, and her album 21 has been listed in Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time (2020).

3. Queen Victoria (1819- 1901)

Queen Victoria- Author;
Alexander Bassano (1829–1913)- Wikimedia

Queen Victoria born as Alexandrina Victoria, was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. She was born on 24th May 1819 and passed away in January 1901.

Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than any previous British monarch. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.

4. Emilia Clarke

Emilia Clarke- Author; Gage Skidmore- Wikimedia

Emilia Isobel Euphemia Rose Clarke was on born 23 October 1986. She is an English actress known especially for her work on screen and stage.

She has received a number of awards and nominations. This includes an Empire Award, a Saturn Award, and in addition to nominations,  four Primetime Emmy Awards and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a 2019 place on the Time 100.

 In 2019, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

5. J.K Rowling

J. K Rowling- Author; John Mathew Smith & www.celebrity-photos.com- Wikimedia

Joanne Rowling , also known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, was born on 31st July 1965. She is a British author and philanthropist.

She wrote a seven-volume children’s fantasy series, Harry Potter, published from 1997 to 2007.

The series has been enormously successful as it has sold over 500 million copies, which  been translated into at least 70 languages, and spawned a global media franchise including films and video games. 

Rowling has won many awards and nominations for her work. For instance, she was named to the Order of the British Empire and was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature and philanthropy.

6. Amy Winehouse( 1983- 2011)

Amy Winehouse- Author; Rama- Wikimedia

Amy Jade Winehouse born on 14th September 1983 and passing away on 23rd July 2011, was an English singer and songwriter.

She was known for her deep, expressive  vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues and jazz.

Winehouse released her follow-up album, Back to Black, in 2006, which went on to become an international success and one of the best-selling albums in UK history.

At the 2007 Brit Awards it was nominated for British Album of the Year, and she received the award for British Female Solo Artist. The song “Rehab” won her a second Ivor Novello Award.

At the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008, she won five awards, tying the then record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night and becoming the first British woman to win five Grammys.

Winehouse was unfortunately plagued by drug and alcohol addiction. She died at the young age of 27 due to alcohol poisoning.  After her death, Back to Black temporarily became the UK’s best-selling album of the 21st century.

 ranked Winehouse 26th on their list of the .

7. Elizabeth Taylor (1932- 2011)

Elizabeth Taylor- Author; MGM publicity still- Wikimedia

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor  was born in February 27th, 1932 and passed away on March 23rd, 2011.

She was a British-American actress who began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and rose to become one of the most popular stars of  in the 1950s.

She then became the highest paid movie star in the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. In 1999, the American Film Institute named her the seventh-greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood cinema.

Throughout her career, Taylor’s personal life was the subject of constant media attention.

She was married eight times to seven men, converted to Judaism, endured several serious illnesses, and led a  lifestyle, which included assembling one of the most expensive private collections of jewelry in the world.

After many years of ill health, Taylor died from congestive heart failure in 2011, at the age of 79.

8. Julie Andrews

Julie Andrews- Author;
Eva Rinaldi – Wikimedia

Dame Julie Andrews   was born as Julia Elizabeth Wells on 1st October 1935. She is an English actress, singer, and author.

Throughout her career that spans over seven decades,, Andrews has won a number of awards and nominations.

This is inclusive of an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards and six Golden Globe Awards. She has also received three Tony Award nominations.

Andrews was made a  in 1991, and has been honoured with an Honorary Golden Lion, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2007, and the  in 2022.

In 2000, Andrews was made a  by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the performing arts.

In 2002, she was ranked No. 59 in the BBC’s poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. In 2003, she revisited her first Broadway success, this time as a stage director, with a revival of .

Apart from her musical career, she is also an author of children’s books and has published two autobiographies, Home: A Memoir of My Early Years (2008) and Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years (2019).

9. Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Agatha Christie- Author; Unknown- Wikimedia

Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE;  was born on 15th September 1890 and passed away on 12th  January 1976.

She was an English writer known especially for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

She also wrote the world’s longest-running play, ‘‘, which has been performed in the  since 1952, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

In 1971 Agatha was made a Dame (DBE) for her contributions to literature.

Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.

10. Anne Boleyn(1501-1536)

Anne Boleyn- Artist; Unknown- Wikimedia

Anne Boleyn was the queen of England from 1533 to 1536. She was born in 1501 and passed away on May, 1536. She was the second wife of .

The circumstances of her marriage and of her execution by beheading for treason and other charges made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that marked the start of the .

On 7th September, Boelyn  gave birth to the future Queen Elizabeth I and her husband, Henry, was disappointed to have a daughter rather than a son but hoped a son would follow and professed to love Elizabeth.

 Anne subsequently had three miscarriages unfortunately  and by March 1536, Henry was courting . In order to marry Seymour, Henry had to find reasons to end the marriage to Anne.

Henry VIII therefore had Anne investigated for  in April 1536. On 2 May, she was arrested and sent to the , where she was tried before a jury of peers, including Henry Percy, her former betrothed, and her uncle Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk.

She was convicted on 15 May and beheaded four days later. Modern historians view the charges against her, which included adultery, incest and plotting to kill the king, as unconvincing.

After her daughter, Elizabeth, was crowned as Queen in 1558, Anne became venerated as a martyr and heroine of the English Reformation, particularly through the written works of .

She has since inspired, or been mentioned in, many artistic and cultural works and retained her hold on the popular imagination.

She has been called “the most influential and important  England has ever had”, since she provided the occasion for Henry VIII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and declare the English church’s independence from the Vatican.