# BBC's "100 Greatest Britons" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 21, 2002, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933 "2002-08-21T15:35:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tansu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/67e7ee/32.png) [@Tansu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tansu)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2002, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/21 "2002-08-21T22:00:54Z")
Woo! Go Sparrow! Who did you vote for, out of interest? ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/22 "2002-08-22T00:18:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astorian \* > \*\*even Gilbert and Sullivan didn’t make it… \*\* Shocking. Absolutely shocking. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/23 "2002-08-22T01:11:19Z")
As an American, maybe I don’t get to comment on this, but where’s Boethius? Without whom we would essentially not have the Bible? And hey, I didn’t know y’all had an Unknown Soldier too. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/24 "2002-08-22T01:30:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Celyn \* > \*\* **T.S. Eliot** wasn’t he from the U.S. \*\* The Brits claim “Mr. Eliot” because he was expatriate. (aha: that means he thought the USA sucked and moved to England) ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/25 "2002-08-22T01:34:53Z")
Eliot never gave up his U.S. citizenship, although he did predate Madonna in affecting an English accent. Oops, pardon me: I meant _shedding his American accent_. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/26 "2002-08-22T01:39:31Z")
Ah, but like Wellingotn and the English Public School System, he _should_ have done it. They are British, you understand. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/27 "2002-08-22T01:43:25Z")
Wellington _should_ have a spell checker, too. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/28 "2002-08-22T01:56:58Z")
Interesting to see that David Beckham is a more accomplished Briton than say C B Fry. > [@](#): > > Starting first with his achievements on the sporting field Fry was unbeaten as an England cricket captain at international level and in later years was a member of the national selection panel. In 1901 he represented his country at soccer against Ireland, and in the following year he played in the losing side, Southampton, in the F. A. Cup final. Whilst still an undergraduate at university he set the world long jump record of Twenty Three feet, five inches, which stood for over twenty one years before being beaten. In addition he played tennis and golf to provincial standard and also played rugby to a high standard for Oxford, Blackheath and the Barbarians. It ha been claimed that but for an injury sustained shortly before the inter-varsity against Cambridge he would have added a rugby ‘blue’ to his sporting honours. Other sports he excelled in were boxing, swimming, track and field athletics, hunting, fishing and sculling[rowing].Whilst accepting that one hundred years ago, sport was considered very much an amateur pursuit, C. B. Fry was certainly one of the most talented sportsman who ever lived. > > Away from the sporting spotlight Fry had many other interests. Between the First and Second World wars he was the Indian delegate to the League of Nations which was the equivalent to the body we know today as the United Nations. He wrote the technical textbook for the organisation entitled ‘A keybook of the League of Nations’. Shortly after the end of the first World war he was offered the throne of Albania, a country situated just south of present day Bosnia and Serbia, but he declined. ---
**Author:** ![Arden\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/29 "2002-08-22T02:46:57Z")
And just where the hell is Jeremy Irons, I ask you? Bah. ---
**Author:** ![widdershins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f0a364/32.png) [@widdershins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/widdershins)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/30 "2002-08-22T02:47:33Z")
Anthony Burgess? Samuel Johnson? George Orwell? Spike Milligan? John Osborne? Quinton Crisp? Thomas the Tank Engine? But modern royals made it on there, along with Boy George, Robbie Williams, and Bono? Guess the Spice Girls split their votes too many ways. At least Ringo Starr isn’t on there. ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/31 "2002-08-22T06:46:07Z")
Neither Bono nor Bob Geldof is British. I guess we have to give them James Connolly, since he was born in Scotland, but I’m not happy about it. ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/32 "2002-08-22T07:17:51Z")
Good grief. This was a _popular_ poll. While some of the names make me cring as much as anyone else here, if you ask “the man in the street” to name great Britons you’d be lucky to get many who haven’t been on the TV in the last week. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Go\_alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_alien)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/33 "2002-08-22T08:15:11Z")
**Crusoe** , you are, of course spot on. Wat it shows is the failure of the British education system to teach history and the inability to distinguish between celebrity - Diana - and substance - Edward III. **katisha** , Ted I not Ted III, mea culpa, but there were just so many Edwards, some without numbers. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/34 "2002-08-22T08:21:09Z")
However, I am glad to see one of my forebears made it on the list (though he expatriated himself to the US, so perhaps he shouldn’t be on it). ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/35 "2002-08-22T09:52:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ruadh \* > \*\*Neither Bono nor Bob Geldof is British. > > I guess we have to give them James Connolly, since he was born in Scotland, but I’m not happy about it. \*\* I could pretty much guarantee that he wouldn’t have been happy with it either 😉 ---
**Author:** ![London\_Calling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@London\_Calling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/London_Calling)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/36 "2002-08-22T10:17:44Z")
I looked at it again this morning and the more I do, the more _desperately_ bizarre it seems. ruadh mentions **James Connelly** but, in similar veins, we also have **Robert the Bruce, Owain Glyndwrn** and **William Wallace** – of whom none would, presumably, be best pleased to be referred to as ‘British’, at least in the political sense. Yet those who voted for them must surely be sympathetic…irony or humour or both ? Looking again, I can better understand the list as being _representative_ of Britain, or perhaps, of a modern perception of what Britain is – Beckham, Eric Morecambe, Boy George, John Lyndon, Andrews, Benn, Berners-Lee, Bowie, Branson, Campbell, Cheshire, Crawford, Diana, the QM, Geldof (?), (George) Harrison, Mercury, Peel, Powell, Richard, Rowling and Williams…there’s a quick 22 that make no sense to me under any other criteria – all of them 20th century and, for the most part, still living. And predominately celebs. But still, why, then, no Cleese… Perhaps also, in that representative sense, the inclusion of our Irish, Scots and Welsh friends ( 🙂 ), mentioned above, is slightly more comprehendible – I kind of like the idea of including several US ‘Founding Fathers’ though, as well as a few others: Ned Kelly, for example… Okay, nope, it doesn’t make sense. It’s all, very, very strange… Of course, the greatest abomination in the list remains the absence of any of our great chefs. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/37 "2002-08-22T10:28:14Z")
Yeah, Jamie Oliver and Keith Floyd shoulda been there. And St. Delia. ---
**Author:** ![refusal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@refusal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/refusal)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/38 "2002-08-22T10:59:26Z")
What did Henry II do? And wasn’t the royal family pretty much French at the time? It’s also sad that they have anti-immigration campaigner Enoch Powell but no black or Asian Britons (there’s Steve Redgrave but no Linford Christie or Daley Thompson, for example). And how do they know the Unknown Soldier was British? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![EggNogg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/eb8c5e/32.png) [@EggNogg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EggNogg)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/39 "2002-08-22T13:30:46Z")
Margaret Thatcher - Facist Dictator ☹ egg ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933/40 "2002-08-22T13:57:16Z")
Anyone know if any half-assed “100 Greatest Americans” list has ever been compiled? Not that I’d want to _see_ it, I am so enjoying feeling—for a few moments, at least—that the British public-at-large is just as thick-headed as us Yanks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bbcs-100-greatest-britons/124933.md?page=3)