Whitley Bay - Famous Residents, Past and Present

Famous Residents, Past and Present

• Gladstone Adams – inventor of the windscreen wiper and former mayor
• Michael Bridges – former Newcastle United and Sunderland football player
• Sydney Drysdale – international bowls player – skippered the men's gold medal winning fours at the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games held in Perth, Western Australia, Australia
• Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher also known as Colonel Rudolf Abel – Soviet intelligence officer (attended Whitley Bay Grammar School, now Whitley Bay High School)
• Graham Fenton – footballer
• Toby Flood – England rugby union international
• Steve Furst – comedian
• Greg Rutherford - Current Hartlepool United football player
• John Gilroy – artist of Guinness advertisement fame
• Robson Green – actor
• Denise Welch – actress, dancer and television presenter
• Tom Hadaway – playwright
• Paul Harvey – musician and Stuckist artist
• W. E. Johns – author of Biggles (c. 1925)
• Ian La Frenais – comedy writer (The Likely Lads, Porridge, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet)
• Mark Lawrence – professional darts player
• Graham Laws – Football League referee
• Nick Martin – news correspondent, Channel 4 News – born and educated in Whitley Bay
• John Middleton – actor (Emmerdale)
• Peter Ramage – Queens Park Rangers and former Newcastle United player – former pupil of Whitley Bay High School
• Lucy Ratcliffe – won the first series of the Living TV programme Britain's Next Top Model
• Andrea Riseborough – actress
• Sid Smith – writer
• Laura Spence – schoolgirl at Monkseaton High School who was at the centre of a national political row about elitism in higher education in 2000 after being rejected by Oxford University
• Andy Taylor – Duran Duran guitarist
• Steven Taylor – Newcastle United defender – former pupil at Valley Gardens Middle School
• Hilton Valentine – guitarist, The Animals
• Colin Watson – writer of detective novels televised as series 'Murder Most English' – lived for many years in Monkseaton
• Mike Williamson – Newcastle United football player
• Aileen Mills – Olympic 400m athlete – now trains athletes and is a school teacher
• Emily Hilda Young – novelist