Famous People from North Shields

For a working town on the north bank of the Tyne, North Shields has produced a remarkable number of notable people, from musicians and a Hollywood director to an architect who reshaped Newcastle and the man who invented Plasticine. Here is our guide to some of the town's most famous sons and daughters. (We have kept to people with a genuine North Shields connection, so a few names often claimed for the town, who actually hail from Tynemouth, Hexham or Newcastle, do not appear.)

Musicians

The town's biggest name today is Sam Fender, the singer-songwriter born in North Shields in 1994, who was discovered playing in a Fish Quay pub and went on to three number-one albums, the Mercury Prize and sold-out homecoming shows at St James' Park. Our full profile tells his North Shields story.

He is far from the town's only musical export. Neil Tennant, the singer and lyricist of the Pet Shop Boys, was born in North Shields in 1954. Hilton Valentine, founding guitarist of The Animals, was born in the town in 1943 and played the unforgettable opening of "The House of the Rising Sun"; he is honoured with a local blue plaque and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The folk-rock band Lindisfarne has deep North Shields roots too: Rod Clements, its bassist and the writer of the hit "Meet Me on the Corner", was born here in 1947, and the band's founder Alan Hull, though born in Newcastle, made his home in North Shields and died in the town in 1995.

Stage and screen

North Shields gave Hollywood one of its most successful directors in Tony Scott, born in the town in 1944 and the younger brother of Sir Ridley Scott. His films included Top Gun, Crimson Tide and True Romance. The town also produced the playwright Tom Hadaway, born in 1923, who worked on the Fish Quay and drew on its people and dialect for television dramas including When the Boat Comes In, and the actor and writer Shaun Prendergast.

Perhaps the most surprising screen connection is Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy. Born in Lancashire, he spent several years of his boyhood, around the late 1890s and early 1900s, living at Dockwray Square in North Shields. A statue and plaque in the square now mark the spot.

Builders, inventors and reformers

North Shields has shaped the wider world in quieter ways too. John Dobson, the architect behind neoclassical Newcastle and its great Central Station, was born at High Chirton in North Shields in 1787. William Harbutt, born in the town in 1844, was an art teacher who invented Plasticine. And in the seventeenth century Ralph Gardiner (his name is also spelled Gardner locally), who lived at Chirton, waged a famous campaign against Newcastle's monopoly over trade on the Tyne, setting out his case in a celebrated 1655 book.

The town is also woven into the story of Sir James Knott, the shipowner and philanthropist who built the Prince Line into one of the world's largest shipping companies. Though born just up-river at Howdon, he was educated in North Shields, and the landmark Knott's Flats overlooking the mouth of the Tyne were built in 1938 as a memorial to him.

A life that moved a nation

Finally, North Shields was the birthplace of Jonny Kennedy, born in 1966, whose life with the skin condition epidermolysis bullosa was the subject of the acclaimed 2004 Channel 4 documentary The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off. The film raised awareness of the condition and hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity, and remains a deeply moving portrait of courage.

Explore the town

To walk in their footsteps, see our guides to the North Shields maritime heritage trail and Georgian North Shields, and raise a glass at the Low Lights Tavern, where Sam Fender's story began.