RE: British inventions that foreigners have taken credit for
In 2002, the BBC undertook a poll in which it asked members of the Great British public to vote on the Greatest Britons of the last 1000 years.
Obviously, many people voted for people such as Shakespeare and Elizabeth I - even though those two were never British, as Britain didn't come into existence until England and Scotland unified together in 1707 but Wales was already united with England, but the country was still know as "England."
Anyway, here's the info -
In 2002, the BBC conducted a vote to discover the 100 Greatest Britons of all time. The poll resulted in some unlikely candidates including Guy Fawkes, Aleister Crowley, Johnny Rotten, and King Richard III. It also included two living Irish nationals (Bono and Bob Geldof), who are not British, and James Connolly, the Irish nationalist who was shot by the British in 1916 (although Connolly was born in Scotland). Some Irish people have complained about the BBC's habit of including Irish nationals in "British" lists and more recently e-mail campaigns to the BBC have registered the displeasure of Irish people at being referred to as British (ALL of Ireland was part of Britain between 1801 and 1922. Now only Northern Ireland is part of Britain). Sir Ernest Shackleton and the Duke of Wellington were born in Ireland when the whole island was part of the United Kingdom (before 1922 and the Anglo-Irish Treaty). (Wellington, however, certainly regarded himself as English, observing that because Jesus was born in a stable it did not make him a horse.) As Ireland was never part of Britain, but the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (which clearly shows Britain and Ireland to be separate entities), it may be technically incorrect to refer to them as being British.
There was also controversy over the descriptor "British" being applied to many people born before the foundation of the British state under the Acts of Union 1707. For example William Shakespeare and Elizabeth I were never "British", but rather English.
The highest-placed Scottish entry was Alexander Fleming in 20th place, with the highest Welsh entry Owain Glyndŵr in 23rd. The only Briton of British Asian ethnicity on the list was Freddie Mercury.
There was also some controversy and complaints over the method of voting for the top ten, with large scale organised multiple phone votes being identified as being placed by students at Churchill College and Brunel University for their namesakes, which gave these two figures far more votes than any other candidates.
The resulting series, Great Britons, included individual programmes on the top ten, with viewers having further opportunities to vote after each programme. It concluded with a debate.
Due to the nature of the poll used to select and rank the Britons, the results do not pretend to be an objective assessment. They are as follows:
100 Greatest Britons (no1 at the top, no100 at the bottom)
Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Prime Minister during World War II
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), engineer, creator of Great Western Railway and other significant works
Diana, Princess of Wales (1961-1997), first wife of HRH Charles, Prince of Wales (1981-1996) and mother of Princes William & Harry of Wales.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), naturalist, originator of the theory of evolution through natural selection and author of The Origin of Species.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright, thought of by many as the greatest of all writers in the English language.
Sir Isaac Newton, physicist
Queen Elizabeth I of England, monarch
John Lennon (1940-1980), of The Beatles, musician
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, naval commander
Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector
Sir Ernest Shackleton, polar explorer
Captain James Cook, explorer
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts
Alfred the Great, King of Wessex
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, military commander and statesman
Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister
Michael Crawford, actor
Queen Victoria, monarch
Sir Paul McCartney, of The Beatles musician
Sir Alexander Fleming, pharmaceutical innovator
Alan Turing, pioneer of computing
Michael Faraday, scientist
Owain Glyndŵr, Prince of Wales
Queen Elizabeth II, monarch
Professor Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist
William Tyndale, English translator of the Bible
Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette
William Wilberforce, humanitarian
David Bowie, musician
Guy Fawkes, English revolutionary
Leonard Cheshire, Baron Cheshire, aviator and charity organiser
Eric Morecambe, comedian
David Beckham, footballer
Thomas Paine, political philosopher
Boudica, leader of Celtic resistance to the Roman Empire
Sir Steve Redgrave, Olympic rower
Sir Thomas More, English lawyer and politician
William Blake, author and printer
John Harrison, clock designer
King Henry VIII of England, monarch
Charles Dickens, author
Sir Frank Whittle, jet engine inventor
John Peel, broadcaster
John Logie Baird, television pioneer
Aneurin Bevan, politician
Boy George, musician
Sir Douglas Bader, aviator and charity campaigner
Sir William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland
Sir Francis Drake, English naval commander
John Wesley, Methodist leader
King Arthur, semi-mythical Celtic monarch
Florence Nightingale, nurse and charity campaigner
T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Arabist and soldier
Sir Robert Falcon Scott, polar explorer
Enoch Powell, politician
Sir Cliff Richard, musician
Alexander Graham Bell, telephone pioneer
Freddie Mercury, musician
Dame Julie Andrews, actress and singer
Sir Edward Elgar, composer
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Queen consort
George Harrison, of The Beatles musician
Sir David Attenborough, broadcaster
James Connolly, Irish revolutionary
George Stephenson, railway pioneer
Sir Charlie Chaplin, comic actor
Tony Blair, Prime Minister
William Caxton, English printer
Bobby Moore, footballer
Jane Austen, author
William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army
King Henry V of England, monarch
Aleister Crowley, mystic
Robert I, King of Scots
Bob Geldof, Irish musician
The Unknown Warrior, soldier of the Great War
Robbie Williams, musician and former member of Take That
Edward Jenner, pioneer of vaccination
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd George, prime minister
Charles Babbage, mathematician and pioneer of computing
Geoffrey Chaucer, English author
King Richard III of England, monarch
J.K. Rowling, author
James Watt, developer of the steam engine
Sir Richard Branson, businessman and adventurer
Bono, Irish musician
John Lydon (Johnny Rotten), musician
Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, military commander
Donald Campbell, water speed world record challenger
King Henry II of England, monarch
James Clerk Maxwell, physicist
J.R.R. Tolkien, author and linguistics professor
Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer
King Edward I of England, monarch
Sir Barnes Wallis, aviation technology pioneer
Richard Burton, actor
Tony Benn, politician
David Livingstone, missionary and explorer
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, internet pioneer
Marie Stopes, promoter of birth control
wikipedia.org
