The latest update of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography adds biographies of 238 people who left their mark on the UK, and who died in the year 2021.
The actor Tony Armatrading (1961–2021) launched his acting career with the BBC’s Black British drama Empire Road in 1979 and performed with the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company before moving to Los Angeles in 1999, where he taught as well as acted. He was born at 44 Lordswood Road, Harborne. At the time of his birth the family was living at 22 Coralie Street. He attended the Central Grammar School in Birmingham, where sporting success came in rugby and he became a keen supporter of Birmingham City FC. Extra-curricular activities took in ice skating and drama, which led to backstage work at the Birmingham Rep on leaving school. His sister is the singer Joan Armatrading.
The British-Pakistani anti-deportation activist Anwar Ditta (1953–2021) was forced to campaign against the Home Office for several years in the 1970s and 1980s to be reunited with her children, who were born in Pakistan. She was born at the City Hospital, 77 Dudley Road, Birmingham. Her father, Allah Ditta, migrated in the 1950s from Pakistan to Birmingham, where he was a bus conductor and a foreman in a glass factory among other jobs.
Norman Bailey (1933–2021), a bass-baritone often associated with Richard Wagner’s operas, would later record The Flying Dutchman with Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the opera’s title role. He was born at Grosvenor Road Maternity Home, 53 Grosvenor Road, Handsworth. At the time of his birth the family lived at 14 Epwell Road, Perry Barr.
The executive director of the Society of Editors, Bob Satchwell (1948–2021), started in journalism as a reporter for the Lancashire Evening Post before moving to Fleet Street as an editor and landing at the Cambridge Evening News, which he edited from 1984 until 1998. He was born at 54 Beeton Road, Winson Green.
The geographer David Marshall Smith (1936–2021) challenged disciplinary boundaries while revealing systemic patterns of deprivation through his research into spatial inequality. He was born at 262 Vicarage Road, King’s Heath. At the time of his birth the family lived at Garden Reach, High Street, Solihull Lodge. Smith attended Solihull School.
The motorsport commentator Murray Walker (1923–2021) was appointed OBE in 1996 for services to broadcasting. He is perhaps remembered most for his encyclopaedic memory for statistics and his catchy on-air enthusiasm, making him the ‘voice of motorsport’. He was born at 214 Reddings Lane, Hall Green. His father was a works rider for the Birmingham manufacturer Norton. Aged eighteen, Walker completed a business scholarship with Dunlop Rubber Company in Birmingham.
The Scottish-born footballer Bertie Auld (1938–2021), one of Celtic’s ‘Lisbon Lions’ (winners of the 1967 European Cup final), won a total of thirteen major honours with Celtic as a player. He was sold in 1961 for £15,000 to Birmingham City FC, for whom he would play 126 games. He married Elizabeth Mary MacLachlan at St Andrew’s Church of England in Bordesley, Birmingham (which gave its name to the Birmingham Football Club football ground), in 1963.
They join around 3,000 people with Birmingham connections in the dictionary, including the literary scholar Edward Arber and the actor and theatre manager Richard Yates.
Other prominent figures in the new edition include Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (1921-2021), the husband and consort of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch (whose own entry will be published next year); politicians Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby (1930-2021), Austin Mitchell (1934-2021), and Sir David Amess (1952-2021); entrepreneurs Sir Clive Sinclair (1940-2021) and Sir David Barclay (1934-2021); Nobel prize-winner Antony Hewish (1924-2021); actors Sir Antony Sher (1949-2021) and Helen McCrory (1968-2021); footballers Jimmy Greaves (1940-2021) and Ian St John (1938-2021); drummer Charlie Watts (1941-2021); journalist Katharine Whitehorn (1928-2021); and charity fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore (1920-2021).
A full list of new subjects is available from the dictionary.
The Oxford DNB is the national record of people who have shaped British history, worldwide, from prehistory to the year 2021. From June 2025 the dictionary includes biographies of more than 63,000 individuals, written by over 14,000 contributors, and with more than 12,000 portrait images.