The history of England, traced through

her greatest sons and daughters

To celebrate St. George’s Day, letters from a darkened room has compiled an inspirational Top 100 of England’s finest; men and women who have left an indelible mark on the nation and the world:

Churchmen: Anselm, Alcuin, Venerable Bede, William of Ockham, Miles Coverdale, John Tyndale, Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop Cranmer, Bishop Latimer, Bishop Ridley, Charles & John Wesley, John Bunyan, John Newton, George Fox, William Carey, David Livingstone, William and Catherine Booth, John Newman

Monarchs: Alfred the Great, Edward the Elder, Aethelstan, Edward I, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Charles II, Queen Anne

Sailors and Explorers: Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, Thomas Cook, Horatio Lord Nelson, Richard Burton, Sir Francis Chichester

Generals: Duke of Marlborough, Duke of Cumberland, Clive of India, Duke of Wellington, Field Marshall Montgomery

Politicians and Social Reformers: Freeborn John Lilburne, Oliver Cromwell, William Wilberforce, The Earl of Shaftesbury, Thomas Paine, Sir Stamford Raffles, Cecil Rhodes, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, Emmeline Pankhurst, Robert Baden-Powell, Sir Winston Churchill, Dame Cecily Saunders, Margaret Thatcher, Nigel Farage

Scientists, Engineers and Industrialists: William Caxton, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Josiah Wedgewood, James Barclay, Robert Stephenson, I K Brunel, Thomas Telford, Charles Babbage, John Venn, Charles Darwin, Michael Watts, Michael Faraday, Edward Jenner, Sir Frank Whittle, Francis Crick, Sir Stephen Hawking, Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Philosophers, Writers, Musicians and Artists: Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Thomas Tallis, Henry Purcell, John Milton, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Samuel Johnson, William Blake, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, JRR Tolkien, Sir Edward Elgar, William Walton, Sir Joshua Reynolds, JMW Turner, Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, Lucien Freud, David Hockney, Andrew Lloyd Webber