List of alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

This is a selective list of notable alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge sorted into chronological order. Please note that some of the alumni noted hereafter are connected to Trinity through honorary degrees. Not all studied at the College:

* George Gascoigne 1525-1577 Poet, dramatist - 'Jocasta', 'The Glasse of Government'
* Adam Loftus 1533-1605 Archbishop of Armargh and Dublin, Lord Chancellor of Ireland
* Sir Edward Coke 1552-1634 Lawyer, politician; Chief Justice of the King's Bench
* Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626 Lawyer, philosopher; Lord Chancellor
* Sir Henry Spelman 1562-1641 Antiquary - 'Reliquiae Spelmannianae'
* Sir John Coke 1563-1644 politician
* Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex 1566-1601 Soldier, courtier to Elizabeth I; executed for rebellion
* John Winthrop 1587/8-1649 Founder and first Governor of Massachusetts
* Giles Fletcher 1588-1623 Poet - 'Christ's Victory' and 'Triumph'
* George Herbert 1593-1633 Poet
* Thomas Randolph 1605-1635 Poet, dramatist
* Nathaniel Eaton 1609-1674 First schoolmaster at Harvard
* Sir John Suckling 1609-1642 Poet, dramatist
* John Pell 1610-1685 Mathematician
* Abraham Cowley 1618-1667 Poet, dramatist - The Mistress
* Andrew Marvell 1621-1678 Poet -'Horatian Ode', 'The Rehearsal Transpros'd'; MP (Hull)
* George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham 1628-1687 Wit, politician, dramatist - 'The Rehearsal'; member of the 'Cabal'
* John Ray 1627-1705 Naturalist; created the principles of plant classification
* John Dryden 1631-1700 Poet Laureate -'Absalom and Achitophel'; Translator of Virgil
* Francis Willughby 1635-1672 Naturalist
* Sir Isaac Newton 1642-1727 Mathematician, physicist; MP (Cambridge University)
* George Jeffreys, 1st Baron Jeffreys 1645-1689 Judge - 'Bloody Assizes'; Lord Chancellor
* Nathaniel Lee 1649-1692 Dramatist - "The Rival Queens"
* Charles Montagu, 1st Duke of Manchester (1656-1722) Whig statesman
* Charles Montagu, 1st Earl of Halifax 1661-1715 Founded Bank of England, 1694; Chancellor of Exchequer
* Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset 1662-1748 Politician and Whig Grandee
* George Montague-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax 1716-1771 Secretary of State
* John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich 1718-1792 First Lord of the Admiralty; is claimed to have invented the 'sandwich'
* Richard Cumberland 1732-1811 Playwright - The Brothers, The West Indian
* Thomas Nelson 1738-1789 Signatory of the American Declaration of Independence
* Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine 1750-1823 Lord Chancellor, jurist
* George Crabbe 1754-1832 Poet; did not matriculate
* Richard Porson 1759-1808 Classical scholar
* Spencer Perceval 1762-1812 Prime Minister 1809-1812 (Tory); assassinated
* Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey 1764-1845 Prime Minister 1830-1834 (Whig); Great Reform Act (1832)
* Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford 1765-1802 Whig aristocrat
* James Scarlett, 1st Baron Abinger 1769-1844 Judge, Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer
* John Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst 1772-1863 Lawyer; Lord Chancellor 1827-1830; 1834-1835; 1841-1846
* William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne 1779-1848 Prime Minister 1834, 1835-1841 (Whig)
* Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne 1780-1863 Whig statesman
* Charles Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham 1781-1851 lawyer, Lord Chancellor 1846-1850
* John Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl Spencer 1782-1845 Known as Lord Althorp; Chancellor of the Exchequer
* Nicholas Conyngham Tindal 1776-1786 Celebrated lawyer and judge
* Henry Goulburn 1784-1856 Chancellor of the Exchequer
* Adam Sedgwick 1785-1873 Geologist
* George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron 1788-1824 Poet - `She Walks in Beauty', Don Juan
* Charles Babbage 1791-1871 Mathematician; Built the forerunner of modern computers (transferred to Peterhouse college before graduating)
* Constantine Henry Phipps, 1st Marquess of Normanby 1797-1863 Politician
* James Yorke Scarlett 1799-1871 British general and hero of the Crimean War
* Thomas Macaulay 1800-1859 Historian, essayist
* William Fox Talbot 1800-1877 Inventor of photography
* Sir George Airy 1801-1895 Astronomer, geophysicist
* William Smith O'Brien 1803-1864 Irish Nationalist
* Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton 1803-1873 Novelist - The Last Days of Pompeii; politician
* James Challis 1803-1882 Astronomer; twice observed Neptune without noting it, before its discovery
* Frederick Maurice 1805-1872 Theologian, writer, Christian Socialist
* Augustus De Morgan 1806-1871 Mathematician; symbolic logic
* Richard Chenevix Trench 1807-1888 Poet, Archbishop of Dublin; Theorist of English Language
* James Spedding 1808-1881 Scholar; editor of Bacon's Works
* Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton 1809-1885 Politician, man of letters
* Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson 1809-1892 Poet - Maud, In Memoriam
* Edward FitzGerald 1809-1883 Poet - Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
* William M. Thackeray 1811-1863 Novelist - Vanity Fair, Henry Esmond (dropped out after second year)
* Tom Taylor 1817-1880 Scottish dramatist; editor of Punch
* Thomas Francis Wade 1818-1895 Diplomat; invented Wade-Giles Chinese transliteration
* John Manners, 7th Duke of Rutland (also known as Lord John Manners) 1818-1906 Conservative statesman
* Charles Astor Bristed 1820-1874 American author and scholar
* Arthur Cayley 1821-1895 Mathematician; non-Euclidean geometry, invented matrices
* Sir Francis Galton 1822-1911 Scientist; meteorology, heredity
* Brooke Westcott 1825-1901 Canon of Westminster, Bishop of Durham
* Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby 1826-1893 Foreign Secretary
* William Waddington 1826-1894 French Prime Minister 1879; archaeologist
* Sir William Vernon Harcourt 1827-1904 Liberal statesman; home secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer
* Hugh Childers 1827-1896 Australian statesman, then British Chancellor of the Exchequer
* Joseph Barber Lightfoot 1828-1889 Bishop of Durham; theologian
* Edward White Benson 1829-1896 Archbishop of Canterbury, 1883-1896
* James Clerk Maxwell 1831-1879 Physicist; electromagnetism
* H. de Winton and J. C. Thring, created the first formal set of rules for Association football (The Cambridge Rules)
* Bishop Hale, first Bishop of Perth and, later, Bishop of Brisbane, social and educational pioneer
* Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire (also known as Marquess of Hartington) 1833-1908; politician
* John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton 1834-1902 Historian
* Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 1836-1908 Prime Minister 1905-1908 (Liberal)
* Sir Michael Foster 1836-1907 Physiologist; MP (London University)
* Henry Sidgwick 1838-1900 Philosopher, major proponent of women's colleges
* Sir George Otto Trevelyan 1838-1928 Historian; MP; Father of G. M. Trevelyan
* T. J. Cobden Sanderson 1840-1922 Bookbinder; Arts and Crafts Movement pioneer.
* Sir Richard Jebb 1841-1905 Greek scholar
* King Edward VII 1841-1910 Reigned 1901-1910
* Handley Moule 1841-1920 Bishop of Durham; theologian
* Sir Frederick Pollock 1845-1937 Jurist
* Henry Hyndman 1842-1921 English writer and politician
* Edmund Gosse 1845-1928 Poet, critic - On Viol and Flute
* Arthur Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour 1848-1930 Prime Minister 1902-1905 (Conservative)
* Frederic William Maitland 1850-1906 Legal historian
* Albert Grey, 4th Earl Grey 1851-1917 Governor-General of Canada 1904-1911
* Sir Charles Villiers Stanford 1852-1924 Composer, organist
* Sir James Frazer 1854-1941 Anthropologist; writer - "The Golden Bough"
* Charles Plumpton Wilson (1859-1938), England footballer
* A. N. Whitehead 1861-1947 Philosopher, mathematician
* John Haden Badley 1865-1967 Educationalist, Founder (1893) and Headmaster (1893-1935) Bedales School
* George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon 1866-1923 Egyptologist; funded the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb
* Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon 1866-1941 Administrator; Viceroy of India
* Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley 1867-1947 Prime Minister 1923-24, 1924-29, 1935-37 (Conservative)
* Robert Erskine Childers 1870-1922 Writer, Irish Nationalist - "The Riddle of The Sands"
* Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872-1958 Composer - "Sea Symphony", "Pilgrim's Progress"
* Prince Ranjitsinhji 1872-1933 Cricketer; Indian Prince
* G. E. Moore 1873-1958 Philosopher
* Bertrand Russell 1872-1970 Philosopher
* Aleister Crowley 1875-1947 Writer and 'Magician'; "the wickedest man alive"
* Mohammed Iqbal 1875-1938 Islamic poet and philosopher
* Geoffrey Winthrop Young 1876-1958) Noted Mountaineer & Author
* Charles Rolls 1877-1910 Co-founder of Rolls-Royce; aviator
* Sir James Jeans 1877-1946 Astronomer, mathematician; stellar evolution
* G. H. Hardy 1877-1947 Mathematician; "A Mathematician's Apology"
* Warwick Deeping 1877-1950 Novelist
* Sir Sarat Kumar Ghosh 1878-1962, Indian jurist, Chief Justice of Rajasthan, Kashmir and Jaipur
* Lytton Strachey 1880-1932 Biographer - Eminent Victorians; Bloomsbury Group
* Leonard Woolf 1880-1969 Writer; husband of Virginia; Bloomsbury Group
* Clive Bell 1881-1964 Art and literary critic; husband of Vanessa
* Alfred Radcliffe-Brown 1881-1955 Social anthropologist
* Roland Gwynne 1882-1971 Politician and lover of suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.
* A. A. Milne 1882-1956 Writer - "Winnie-the-Pooh"
* Sir Arthur Eddington 1882-1944 Astronomer
* Baron Kishichiro Okura 1882-1963 Japanese playboy and motor racing enthusiast
* John Edensor Littlewood 1885-1977 Mathematician; Fourier Series, Zeta Function
* St. John Philby 1885-1960 Explorer of Arabia; father of Kim
* Thomas Eckersley 1886-1959 Theoretical physicist and expert on radio waves
* Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor 1886-1975 Physicist, mathematician; Fluid dynamics, crystals
* C. D. Broad 1887-1971 Philosopher
* Srinivasa Ramanujan 1887-1920 Mathematician; analytic number theory, elliptic integrals
* Sydney Chapman 1888-1970 Mathematician, geophysicist; kinetic theory, geomagnetism
* Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951 Philosopher
* Jawaharlal Nehru 1889-1964 First Prime Minister of India, 1949-1964
* Edward Hallet Carr 1892-1982 writer and international relations theorist
* Maxwell Woosnam 1892-1965 Olympic and Wimbledon lawn tennis champion and England national football team captain.
* Charles Hawker 1894-1938 Australian politician
* King George VI 1895-1952 Reigned 1936-1952
* Edward Arthur Milne 1896-1950 Mathematician
* Basanta Kumar De, 1897-1975, railway officer (2nd Indian Commercial Traffic Manager [Chief Commercial Manager] of B.N.R.)
* Vladimir Nabokov 1899-1977 Russian and English novelist - "Lolita"
* W.A.H. Rushton 1901-1980 Physiologist, one time president of the Society for Psychical Research
* Christopher Hinton, Baron Hinton of Bankside 1901-1983 Nuclear engineer; constructed Calder Hall, the first large scale reactor
* George 'Gubby' Allen 1902-1989 Cricketer - captained England; played in Bodyline series
* Frank Plumpton Ramsey 1903-1930 Philosopher, mathematician, economist
* Otto Frisch 1904-1979 Nuclear physicist; first used the term 'nuclear fission'
* Erskine Hamilton Childers 1905-1974 President of the Irish Republic, 1973-74
* Sir Stuart Milner-Barry, 1906-1995, chess player, World War II codebreaker and civil servant
* John Lehmann 1907-1987 Poet, man of letters; inaugurated "The London Magazine"
* Anthony Blunt 1907-1983 Soviet spy; art historian
* William George Penney 1909-1991 Nuclear physicist
* Sir Peter Scott 1909-1989 Artist, ornithologist; Olympic sailor (1936)
* Nicholas Monsarrat 1910-1979 Novelist - "The Cruel Sea", "Three Corvettes"
* Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild 1910-1990 Zoologist, suspected Soviet sympathizer
* Guy Burgess 1910-1963 Soviet spy and traitor
* Kim Philby 1911-1988 Double agent; communist
* Enoch Powell 1912-1998 Statesman; Minister of Health, 1960-3
* Michael Greenberg 1914- Foreign Affairs Economist U.S. Foreign Economic Administration; Soviet spy
* Robin Woods 1914-1997 Dean of Windsor and Bishop of Worcester
* Frederick James Erroll, 1st Baron Erroll of Hale 1914-2000 British Minister
* David Stirling 1915-1990, Founder of the Special Air Service
* Michael Whitney Straight 1916-2004 US magazine publisher, presidential speechwriter, Soviet spy
* Cedric Austen Bardell Smith 1917-2002 Statistician and geneticist
* William Thomas Tutte 1917-2002 Bletchley Park codebreaker
* George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe 1918-2007 Statesman
* James H. Wilkinson 1919-1986 Mathematician
* William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw 1918-1999 Statesman; Home Secretary, 1979-83
* John Robinson 1919-1983 Theologian; Bishop of Woolwich, Dean of Trinity
* Alexander Ramsay of Mar 1919-2001 great grandson of Queen Victoria
* Hermann Bondi 1919-2005 Mathematician and cosmologist
* Anthony Nutting 1920-1999 Politician and diplomat; Arabist
* Thomas Gold 1920-2004 Astrophysicist
* John Maynard Smith 1920-2004 Evolutionary biologist and geneticist
* John Donaldson, Baron Donaldson of Lymington 1920–2005 Master of the Rolls
* John Stott born 1921 Evangelical Church Leader
* Raymond Williams 1921-1988 Marxist critic, novelist - "The Country and the City"
* Freeman Dyson born 1923 Physicist, proponent of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, Templeton Prize winner
* Anthony & Peter Shaffer born 1926 (Anthony died 2001) Dramatists
* Dennis William Sciama 1926-1999 Physicist; Played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War.
* Sir Michael Atiyah born 1929 Mathematician, Fields Medal and Abel Prize winner
* Douglas Hurd born 1930 Conservative politician, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary
* John Polkinghorne born 1930 Physicist, religious thinker, Templeton Prize winner
* Douglas Crawford born 1939
* Ian Fells Energy adviser and broadcaster
* Anand Panyarachun born 1932 Prime Minister of Thailand, 1991-1992 and again in 1992
* Christopher Alexander born 1936, architect, author of "The Timeless Way of Building" and father of the design patterns movement
* John Tusa born 1936, managing director of BBC World Service
* Ian Hacking born 1936 Canadian philosopher
* Jared Diamond born 1937 leading US physiologist and biogeographer, Pulitzer Prize winner
* Peter Llewellyn Gwynn-Jones born 1940 Garter Principal King of Arms 1995-
* Stephen Frears born 1941 Film director
* Simon Blackburn born 1944 Philosopher
* Michael Gurstein born 1944 Canadian Community Informatician
* Rajiv Gandhi 1944-1989 Prime Minister of India, 1984-1989
* Jonathan King born 1944 Pop impresario
* Vilayanur Ramachandran born 1947 Psychologist, Neuroscientist
* HRH The Prince of Wales born 1948
* Antony Gormley born 1950 Sculptor, best known for "Angel of the North" 1968-71
* Andy Taylor born 1951 Co-manager, Iron Maiden and co-founder of Sanctuary Records
* Rod Smallwood born 195? Co-manager, Iron Maiden and co-founder of Sanctuary Records
* Lee Hsien Loong born 1952 Prime Minister of Singapore, 2004-present
* Lawrence Lessig born 1961 leading US cyberlaw expert, founder of the Creative Commons movement, and free software advocate
* Vanessa Feltz born 1962, journalist and broadcaster
* Timothy Gowers born 1963 Mathematician, Fields Medal winner
* Nicholas Patrick born 1964 NASA astronaut
* India Knight, born 1965, author and journalist
* Rahul Gandhi born 1970 Indian politician, son of Rajiv Gandhi