The Most Famous

EXTREMISTS from United Kingdom

This page contains a list of the greatest British Extremists. The pantheon dataset contains 283 Extremists, 23 of which were born in United Kingdom. This makes United Kingdom the birth place of the 2nd most number of Extremists.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary British Extremists of all time. This list of famous British Extremists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of British Extremists.

1. Sawney Bean (1600 - 1600)

With an HPI of 68.72, Sawney Bean is the most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 22 different languages on wikipedia.

Alexander "Sawney" Bean (sometimes also given as Sandy Bane, etc.) is a legendary figure, said to have been the head of a 45-member clan in Scotland in the 16th century that murdered and cannibalised over 1,000 people in 25 years. According to the legend, Bean and his clan members were eventually caught by a search party sent by King James VI, and were executed for their heinous crimes. The story appeared in The Newgate Calendar, a sensationalised crime catalogue loosely connected with Newgate Prison in London. It has since passed into folklore and become a part of the Edinburgh tourism circuit.

2. Emperor Norton (1818 - 1880)

With an HPI of 66.46, Emperor Norton is the 2nd most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 37 different languages.

Joshua Abraham Norton (February 4, 1818 – January 8, 1880) was a resident of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 declared himself "Emperor of these United States" in a proclamation that he signed "Norton I., Emperor of the United States". Commonly known as Emperor Norton, he took the secondary title "Protector of Mexico" in 1866. Born in England and raised in South Africa, Norton left Cape Town in late 1845, sailing from Liverpool to Boston in early 1846 and eventually arriving in San Francisco in late 1849. After a brief period of prosperity, Norton made a business gambit in late 1852 that played out poorly, ultimately forcing him to declare bankruptcy in 1856. Norton proclaimed himself "Emperor of these United States" in September 1859, a role he played for the rest of his life. Norton had no formal political power but was treated deferentially in San Francisco and elsewhere in California, and currency issued in his name was honored in some of the establishments he frequented. Some considered Norton to be insane or eccentric, but residents of San Francisco and the city's larger Northern California orbit enjoyed his imperial presence and took note of his frequent newspaper proclamations. Norton received free ferry and train passage and a variety of favors, such as help with rent and free meals, from well-placed friends and sympathizers. Some of the city's merchants capitalized on his notoriety by selling souvenirs bearing his image. He died January 8, 1880. Norton was the basis for characters created by Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christopher Moore, Morris/ René Goscinny, Selma Lagerlöf, Neil Gaiman, Mircea Cărtărescu and Charles Bukowski.

3. John Haigh (1909 - 1949)

With an HPI of 65.85, John Haigh is the 3rd most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

John George Haigh ( HEYG; 24 July 1909 – 10 August 1949), commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English serial killer convicted for the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. Haigh battered to death or shot his victims and disposed of their bodies using sulphuric acid before forging their signatures so he could sell their possessions and collect large sums of money. His actions were the subject of the television film A Is for Acid.

4. John Christie (1899 - 1953)

With an HPI of 65.18, John Christie is the 4th most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

John Reginald Halliday Christie (8 April 1899 – 15 July 1953) was an English serial killer and serial rapist active during the 1940s and early 1950s. He murdered at least eight people—including his wife Ethel—by strangling them inside his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London. The bodies of three of his victims were found in a wallpaper-covered kitchen alcove soon after he had moved out of Rillington Place during March 1953. The remains of two more victims were discovered in the garden, and his wife's body was found beneath the floorboards in the front room. Christie was arrested and convicted of his wife's murder, for which he was hanged. Two of Christie's victims were Beryl Evans and her baby daughter Geraldine, who, along with Beryl's husband Timothy Evans, were tenants at 10 Rillington Place during 1948–49. Evans was charged with both murders, found guilty of the murder of his daughter and hanged in 1950. Christie was a major prosecution witness; when his own crimes were discovered three years later, serious doubts were raised about the integrity of Evans' conviction. Christie himself subsequently admitted killing Beryl, but not Geraldine; it is now generally accepted that Christie murdered both victims and that police mishandling of the original inquiry allowed Christie to escape detection, which enabled him to commit a further four murders. In 2004 the High Court acknowledged that Evans did not murder either his wife or his child.

5. Harold Shipman (1946 - 2004)

With an HPI of 63.50, Harold Shipman is the 5th most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Harold Frederick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004), known to acquaintances as Fred Shipman, was an English doctor in general practice and serial killer. He is considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history, with an estimated 250 victims over roughly 30 years. On 31 January 2000, Shipman was convicted of murdering 15 patients under his care. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order. On 13 January 2004, one day before his 58th birthday, Shipman hanged himself in his cell at HM Prison Wakefield, West Yorkshire. The Shipman Inquiry, a two-year-long investigation of all deaths certified by Shipman, chaired by Dame Janet Smith, examined Shipman's crimes. It revealed Shipman targeted vulnerable elderly people who trusted him as their doctor, killing them with either a fatal dose of drugs or prescribing an abnormal amount. As of 2025 Shipman, who has been nicknamed "Dr. Death" and the "Angel of Death", is the only British doctor to have been convicted of murdering patients, although other doctors have been acquitted of similar crimes or convicted of lesser charges. Shipman's case has often been compared to that of doctor John Bodkin Adams; some nurses, such as Beverley Allitt and Lucy Letby, have also been convicted of murdering patients in their care.

6. Dennis Nilsen (1945 - 2018)

With an HPI of 62.19, Dennis Nilsen is the 6th most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Dennis Andrew Nilsen (23 November 1945 – 12 May 2018) was a Scottish serial killer and necrophile who murdered at least twelve young men and boys between 1978 and 1983. Convicted at the Old Bailey of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder, Nilsen was sentenced to life imprisonment on 4 November 1983, with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of 25 years; this recommendation was later changed to a whole life tariff in December 1994. In his later years, Nilsen was imprisoned at HM Prison Full Sutton in the East Riding of Yorkshire. All of Nilsen's murders were committed at the two North London addresses where he lived between 1978 and 1983. His victims would be lured to these addresses through deception and killed by strangulation, sometimes accompanied by drowning. Following each murder, Nilsen would perform a ritual in which he bathed and dressed the victim's body, which he retained for extended periods of time, before dissecting and disposing of the remains by burning them in a bonfire or flushing them down a toilet. Nilsen became known as the Muswell Hill Murderer, as he committed his later murders in the Muswell Hill district of North London. He died at York Hospital on 12 May 2018 of a pulmonary embolism and a retroperitoneal haemorrhage, which occurred following surgery to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm.

7. Fred West (1941 - 1995)

With an HPI of 61.87, Fred West is the 7th most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Frederick Walter Stephen West (29 September 1941 – 1 January 1995) was an English serial killer, who committed at least twelve murders between 1967 and 1987 in Gloucestershire, England—the majority with his second wife, Rose West. The victims were girls and young women. At least eight of the murders involved the Wests' sexual gratification and included rape, bondage, torture, and mutilation; the victims' dismembered bodies were typically buried in the cellar or garden of the West residence in Gloucester, which became known as the "House of Horrors". Fred is known to have committed at least two murders on his own; Rose is known to have murdered Fred's stepdaughter, Charmaine. The couple were arrested and charged in 1994. Fred fatally asphyxiated himself while detained on remand at HM Prison Birmingham on 1 January 1995, at which time he and Rose were jointly charged with nine murders, and he with three further murders. In November 1995, Rose was convicted of ten murders and sentenced to ten life terms with a whole life order.

8. John Adams (1767 - 1829)

With an HPI of 61.63, John Adams is the 8th most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

John Adams, known as Jack Adams (4 July 1767– 5 March 1829), was the last survivor of the Bounty mutineers who settled on Pitcairn Island in January 1790, the year after the mutiny. His real name was John Adams, but he used the name Alexander Smith until he was discovered in 1808 by Captain Mayhew Folger of the American whaling ship Topaz. His children used the surname "Adams".

9. Peter Sutcliffe (1946 - 2020)

With an HPI of 61.24, Peter Sutcliffe is the 9th most famous British Extremist. His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980.: 144 Press reports dubbed him the Yorkshire Ripper, an allusion to the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. Sutcliffe was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of his murders took place in Manchester; all the others took place in West Yorkshire. Criminal psychologist David Holmes characterised Sutcliffe as being an "extremely callous, sexually sadistic serial killer". Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appears to have shifted his focus to red-light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes and the perceived ambivalent attitude of police to prostitutes' safety. After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, he was transferred to the custody of West Yorkshire Police, who questioned him about the killings. Sutcliffe confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. At his trial he pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan. The search for Sutcliffe was one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in British history. West Yorkshire Police faced heavy and sustained criticism for their failure to catch Sutcliffe despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of their five-year investigation. Owing to the sensational nature of the case, investigators handled an exceptional amount of information, some of it misleading including hoax correspondence purporting to be from the "Ripper". Following Sutcliffe's conviction, the government ordered a review of the Ripper investigation, conducted by the Inspector of Constabulary Lawrence Byford, known as the "Byford Report". The findings were made fully public in 2006, and confirmed the validity of the criticism of the force. The report led to changes to investigative procedures that were adopted across British police forces. Since his conviction, Sutcliffe has been linked to a number of other unsolved crimes. Sutcliffe was transferred from prison to Broadmoor Hospital in March 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The High Court dismissed an appeal by Sutcliffe in 2010, confirming that he would serve a whole life order and never be released from custody. In August 2016, it was ruled that Sutcliffe was mentally fit to be returned to prison, and he was transferred that month to HM Prison Frankland. In 2020, Sutcliffe died in hospital from diabetes-related complications and COVID-19.

10. Mary Bell (b. 1957)

With an HPI of 60.49, Mary Bell is the 10th most famous British Extremist. Her biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Mary Flora Bell (born 26 May 1957) is an English woman who, as a juvenile, killed two preschool-age boys in Scotswood, an inner suburb of Newcastle upon Tyne, in 1968. Bell committed her first killing when she was ten years old. In both instances, Bell informed her victim that he had a sore throat, which she would massage before proceeding to strangle him. Bell was convicted of manslaughter in relation to both killings in December 1968, in a trial held at Newcastle Assizes when she was 11 years old, and in which her actions were judged to have been committed under diminished responsibility. She is Britain's youngest female killer and was diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder prior to her trial. Her alleged accomplice in at least one of the killings, 13-year-old Norma Joyce Bell (no relation), was acquitted of all charges. Bell was released from custody in 1980, at the age of 23. A lifelong court order granted her anonymity, which has since been extended to protect the identity of her daughter and granddaughter. She has since lived under a series of pseudonyms.

People

Pantheon has 23 people classified as British extremists born between 1600 and 1990. Of these 23, 6 (26.09%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living British extremists include Mary Bell, Tommy Robinson, and Colin Pitchfork. The most famous deceased British extremists include Sawney Bean, Emperor Norton, and John Haigh. As of April 2024, 23 new British extremists have been added to Pantheon including Sawney Bean, Emperor Norton, and John Haigh.