55.9533° N, 3.1894° W
EDINBURGH
Most Famous People Born in Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Notable people
- 2,337
- Peak decade
- 1980s
- Median birth year
- 1919
- Most distinctive
- Botanist 3.0×
Half university town, half capital. Edinburgh's notables are unusually dense in the 1700s and 1800s — botanists, chemists, physicians, judges, and engineers — a footprint that maps almost perfectly onto the Scottish Enlightenment and the Victorian scientific establishment. The modern half adds cricketers and rugby players (grouped in the data as 'player'), but the city's intellectual tilt is still its defining feature.
One face per decade — the most globally famous figure born in Edinburgh during each.
Notable Births by Decade
Click a decade to filter the list below. Peak: 1980s with 175 notable births.
What Edinburgh Is Known For
Click any row to filter the list of people below.
Football is Edinburgh's biggest profession — 22% of all notables (509).
Edinburgh over-indexes on botanist — 3.0× the global rate.
Edinburgh under-produces politician — only 0.7× the global rate.
Profession Mix Over Time
Each band shows a profession family's share of Edinburgh's notable births by decade. Hover the chart for the breakdown at any decade.
- Sports
- Science
- Politics & Law
- Writing
- Art & Design
- Film & TV
- Other
- Filtered to 1870s Clear ×
Reginald Johnston
1874 - 1938
Finlay Currie
1878 - 1968
Ernest Torrence
1878 - 1933
Samuel Peploe
1871 - 1935
Nigel Gresley
1876 - 1941
Arthur Berriedale Keith
1879 - 1944
Chrystal Macmillan
1872 - 1937
Katharine Stewart-Murray, Duchess of Atholl
1874 - 1960
Arthur Grenfell Wauchope
1874 - 1947
Nelson Annandale
1876 - 1924
John Chancellor (colonial administrator)
1870 - 1952
Richard Bell (Arabist)
1876 - 1952
Thomas Archibald Sprague
1877 - 1958
Andrew Balfour
1873 - 1931
James Young Simpson (scientist)
1873 - 1934
Thomas Adams (architect)
1871 - 1940
Ted Ranken
1875 - 1950
Bill Struth
1875 - 1956
Ramsay Traquair (architect)
1874 - 1952
Donald MacKenzie (cinéaste)
1879 - 1972
Sir Frederick Thomson, 1st Baronet
1875 - 1935
Bobby Walker (footballer, born 1879)
1879 - 1930
Max Meldrum
1875 - 1955
William Roughead
1870 - 1952
Willie Taylor (footballer)
1870 - 1949
Anderson Gray McKendrick
1876 - 1943
John Dallas
1878 - 1942
Mabel Pryde
1871 - 1918
Jimmy Gillespie
1879 - 1943
Charles Thomson (footballer, born 1878)
1878 - 1936
William Mitchell-Thomson, 1st Baron Selsdon
1877 - 1938
William Starkweather
1879 - 1969
Donald Cameron, 25th Lochiel
1876 - 1951
Norman Stevenson
1875 - 1967
Frederick Guthrie Tait
1870 - 1900
Hilda Lorimer
1873 - 1954
Robert Murray (sport shooter)
1870 - 1948
Frances Melville
1873 - 1962
D. Nichol Smith
1875 - 1962
Molly Pearson
1876 - 1959
Louis Whirter
1873 - 1932
John Crabbie
1879 - 1937
Andrew Ross (rugby union)
1879 - 1916
Thomas Arthur Nelson
1877 - 1917
David Younger
1871 - 1900
James Bruce Jardine
1870 - 1955
C.M. Pitman
1872 - 1948
Charles Thomas Kennedy
1873 - 1907
Edwin Alexander
1870 - 1926
Hamilton Grant
1872 - 1937
Patrick Hagan
1870 - 1916
Alan Geoffrey Hotham
1876 - 1965
Reginald Henry Campbell
1877 - 1953
Charles Dunlop
1870 - 1911
T. Paterson Ross
1874 - 1957
Charles McGeehan
1878 - 1933
Tommy Allison
1875 - 1961
Robert Maxwell (golfer)
1876 - 1949
Henry Ritchie
1876 - 1958
John Frederick MacKay
1873 - 1930
Sidney Ross
Born 1870
Bill White (footballer, born 1877)
1877 - 1960
Henry (Harry) Moss Traquair
1875 - 1954
Robert Digby-Jones
1876 - 1900
John Scott (footballer, born 1872)
Born 1872
Robert Duncan Bell
1878 - 1953
Alec Kay
1879 - 1917
William Bloomfield
1873 - 1954
Bobby Marshall (footballer, born 1876)
1876 - 1931
Jack Kennedy (footballer, born 1873)
Born 1873
Edward Sprot
1872 - 1945
Jimmy Davidson (footballer, born 1873)
Born 1873
John Logan (footballer, born 1871)
1871 - 1896
Val Fitzjohn
1878 - 1934
Alex Laidlaw
1877 - 1933
Peter Jones (sport shooter)
Born 1879
Isabella Pringle
1876 - 1963
Walter Fairgrieve
1874 - 1915
D. M. Sutherland
1874 - 1951
Walter Leslie (Indian Army officer)
1876 - 1947
Tom Edmonds (footballer)
Born 1878
Arnold Blyth
Born 1870