The Greatest British Geniuses in History

Britain has produced more world-changing geniuses per capita than almost any nation in history. Newton invented calculus. Shakespeare invented modern drama. Darwin invented evolution. Turing invented the computer.

This list ranks British geniuses by IQ and influence.

Isaac Newton

b. 1643 • d. 1727 • ENG

IQ 190

Newtonian mechanics • Universal gravitation • Calculus • Newton's laws of motion • Optics • Binomial series • Principia • Newton's method

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Paul Dirac

b. 1902 • d. 1984 • ENG

IQ 190

Sharing the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics with Erwin Schrödinger "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory"

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William Shakespeare

b. 1564 • d. 1616 • GB

IQ 190

Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lyr

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Alan Turing

b. 1912 • d. 1954 • ENG

IQ 185

Cryptanalysis of the Enigma • Turing's proof • Turing machine • Turing test • Unorganised machine • Turing pattern • Turing reduction • The

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Gerald Massey

b. 1828 • d. 1907 • GB

IQ 185

The Ballad of Babe Christabel (1854), War Waits (1855), Havelock's March (1860), and A Tale of Eternity (1869)

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Humphry Davy

b. 1778 • d. 1829 • GB

IQ 185

Electrolysis, aluminium, sodium, potassium, calcium, strontium, magnesium, barium, boron, Davy lamp

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

b. 1792 • d. 1822 • ENG

IQ 185

"Ozymandias" (1818), "Ode to the West Wind" (1819), "To a Skylark" (1820), and “The Mask of Anarchy” (1819)

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Thomas Young

b. 1773 • d. 1829 • GB

IQ 185

Wave theory of light • Double-slit experiment • Astigmatism • Young–Dupré equation • Young–Helmholtz theory • Young–Laplace equation • Young

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Thomas Hobbes

b. 1588 • d. 1679 • GB

IQ 185

The Leviathan

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William Gilbert (physician)

b. 1544 • d. 1603 • GB

IQ 185

Studies of magnetism, De Magnete

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William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin

b. 1824 • d. 1907 • GB

IQ 185

Joule–Thomson effect Thomson effect (thermoelectric) Mirror galvanometer Siphon recorder Kelvin material Kelvin water dropper Kelvin wave K

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Arthur Conan Doyle

b. 1859 • d. 1930 • SCT

IQ 180

Stories of Sherlock Holmes, The Lost World

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Alexander Pope

b. 1688 • d. 1744 • GB

IQ 180

The Dunciad, The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Criticism, His translation of Homer.

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George Bernard Shaw

b. 1856 • d. 1950 • IE

IQ 180

Man and Superman (1902) Pygmalion (1912) The Doctor's Dilemma (1906) Saint Joan (1923) Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)

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Bertrand Russell

b. 1872 • d. 1970 • GB

IQ 180

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Charles Darwin

b. 1809 • d. 1882 • GB

IQ 180

The Voyage of the Beagle • On the Origin of Species • The Descent of Man

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Edward Gibbon

b. 1737 • d. 1794 • GB

IQ 180

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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Francis Ysidro Edgeworth

b. 1845 • d. 1926 • GB

IQ 180

Being the founding editor of The Economic Journal.

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George Green

b. 1793 • d. 1841 • GB

IQ 180

Green measure • Green's function • Green's identities • Green's law • Green's matrix • Green's theorem • Liouville–Green method

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George Berkeley

b. 1685 • d. 1753 • GB

IQ 180

An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision

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Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux

b. 1778 • d. 1868 • GB

IQ 180

Playing a prominent role in passing the 1832 Reform Act and 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.

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Jeremy Bentham

b. 1748 • d. 1832 • GB

IQ 180

Being the founder of modern utilitarianism

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John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh

b. 1842 • d. 1919 • GB

IQ 180

Discovery of argon

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John Stuart Mill

b. 1806 • d. 1873 • GB

IQ 180

On Liberty, The Subjection of Women

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John Locke

b. 1632 • d. 1704 • GB

IQ 180

Being known as the "Father of Liberalism"

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Joseph John Thomson

b. 1856 • d. 1940 • GB

IQ 180

Discovery of the electron

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Lord Byron

b. 1788 • d. 1824 • ENG

IQ 180

Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

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Mary Somerville

b. 1780 • d. 1872 • GB

IQ 180

Self-taught mathematician and polymath; bestselling popularizer of science; acclaimed for her translation and revision of Pierre Laplace’s g

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Oliver Heaviside

b. 1850 • d. 1925 • ENG

IQ 180

Heaviside cover-up method • Heaviside step function • Heaviside condition • Heaviside-Feynman formula • Heaviside ellipsoid • Kennelly–Heavi

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Roger Bacon

IQ 180

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Stephen Hawking

b. 1942 • d. 2018 • GB

IQ 180

Hawking radiation, A Brief History of Time, Penrose–Hawking theorems, Black hole information paradox, Micro black hole, Primordial black hol

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Thomas Wolsey

b. 1473 • d. 1530 • GB

IQ 180

Remembered second to Henry VIII, Wolsey was a seriously smart statesman who masterfully controlled the state and church - until his downfall

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Thomas Paine

b. 1737 • d. 1809 • GB

IQ 180

Common Sense (1776) and The American Crisis (1776–1783

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William Harvey

b. 1578 • d. 1657 • ENG

IQ 180

Discovering how the human bloodflow works

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Macquorn Rankine

b. 1820 • d. 1872 • GB

IQ 180

Rankine scale Laws of thermodynamics Rankine–Hugoniot relation

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William Pitt the Younger

b. 1759 • d. 1806 • GB

IQ 180

Becoming the youngest prime minister of Great Britain in 1783 at the age of 24

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Alfred Russel Wallace

b. 1823 • d. 1913 • GB

IQ 175

Co-discovery of natural selection, Pioneering work on biogeography, Wallace Line Wallace effect

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Edmond Halley

b. 1656 • d. 1742 • GB

IQ 175

For the prediction of Halley’s comet, solving the riddle of accurate navigation for all sea-going vessels and for spurring Newton into writi

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Elizabeth I

b. 1533 • d. 1603 • GB

IQ 175

Queen of England (reign: 1558 to 1603); educated by renowned scholar, Roger Ascham; as a student, she studied Greek, Latin, rhetoric, and ph

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Frederick Sanger

b. 1918 • d. 2013 • GB

IQ 175

Determining the amino acid sequence of insulin • Sanger sequencing • Sanger Centre

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George Boole

b. 1815 • d. 1864 • ENG

IQ 175

Laying the foundations for the information age

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George Stephenson

b. 1781 • d. 1848 • ENG

IQ 175

'Stephenson gauge

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Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

b. 1678 • d. 1751 • GB

IQ 175

Supporting the Jacobite rebellion of 1715

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Henry Thomas Buckle

b. 1821 • d. 1862 • GB

IQ 175

History of Civilisation in England

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Michael Faraday

b. 1791 • d. 1867 • ENG

IQ 175

Faraday's law of induction • Faraday effect • Faraday cage • Faraday constant • Faraday cup • Faraday's laws of electrolysis • Faraday's ice

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Robert Peel

b. 1788 • d. 1850 • GB

IQ 175

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Thomas Babington Macaulay

b. 1800 • d. 1859 • GB

IQ 175

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Thomas Browne

b. 1605 • d. 1682 • ENG

IQ 175

Religio Medici, Urne-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Christian Morals

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William Stanley Jevons

b. 1835 • d. 1882

IQ 175

Marginal utility theoryJevons paradox

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William Kingdon Clifford

b. 1845 • d. 1879 • GB

IQ 175

Clifford algebra

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William Whewell

b. 1794 • d. 1866 • GB

IQ 175

Coining the words scientist and physicist

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Francis Crick

b. 1916 • d. 2004 • ENG

IQ 173

DNA structure Central Dogma Consciousness Adaptor hypothesis

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Adam Smith

b. 1723 • d. 1790 • GB

IQ 170

Invisible hand theory, The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments

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Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

b. 1671 • d. 1713 • ENG

IQ 170

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Ben Jonson

b. 1572 • d. 1637 • ENG

IQ 170

Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c. 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614)

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Charles Babbage

b. 1791 • d. 1871 • GB

IQ 170

Originating the concept of a digital programmable computer.

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Christopher Hitchens

b. 1949 • d. 2011 • ENG

IQ 170

God Is Not Great and Hitch-22: A Memoir

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John Ray

b. 1627 • d. 1705 • GB

IQ 170

Being one of the earliest of the English parson-naturalists

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John Maynard Keynes

b. 1883 • d. 1946 • ENG

IQ 170

Changing the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments

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Thomas Henry Huxley

b. 1825 • d. 1895 • GB

IQ 170

Evolution, science education, agnosticism

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the greatest British genius?

Isaac Newton and William Shakespeare are the two most-cited candidates. Newton transformed physics and mathematics; Shakespeare reshaped the English language.