World-famous people from your hometown

A few names (up to you to guess the city!):

James Clerk Maxwell, the founder of the modern theory of electromagnetism, was born here, as was the engineer and telephone pioneer Alexander Graham Bell. David Hume, a philosopher, economist and historian; James Hutton, regarded as the "Father of Geology"; John Napier inventor of logarithms; Chemist and one of the founders of thermodynamics Joseph Black; pioneering medical researchers Joseph Lister and James Young Simpson; chemist and discoverer of the element nitrogen, Daniel Rutherford; mathematician and developer of the maclaurin series, Colin Maclaurin and Ian Wilmut, the geneticist involved in the cloning of Dolly the sheep.

Famous authors of the city include Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Muriel Spark, author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Ian Rankin, author of the Inspector Rebus series of crime thrillers, J. K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, Sir Walter Scott, the author of famous titles such as Rob Roy, Ivanhoe and Heart of Midlothian, Robert Louis Stevenson, creator of Treasure Island, Kidnapped and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting.

The actor Sir Sean Connery, famed as the first cinematic James Bond. Famous city artists include the portrait painters Sir Henry Raeburn, Sir David Wilkie and Allan Ramsay.
 
I live in a pretty small town - West Chester, Pennsylvania. We've only got two I know of, but several others nearby.

Bayard Rustin - civil rights leader - a great man on several levels

Bam Margera - of "Jackass" fame. Some find him to be a great entertainer - he's not my taste. But I've met him a couple times and he's a nice enough guy. And everyone between the ages of about 25-35 seems to know him and like him, so I don't let his movies and tv shows get me too negative about him.

Andrew Wyeth and the whole Wyeth clan is from Chadds Ford, just a few miles down the road - part of the community if not technically from the town.

-Ray
 
ehm...
Desiderius Erasmus, one of the great humanist philosophers of the renaissance period, his published greek and latin bibles were used by many protestants to translate the bible to their own language, he pleaded for religious tolerance and criticized many practices within the catholic church while remaining a catholic priest. He was also a great proponent of education. At one point, 10 to 20% of the books sold in Europe were authored by Erasmus.
Willem de Kooning, a painter
Rem Koolhaas, architect
Ferry Corsten, dj

and probably a few i'm forgetting.

BigTam, surely that's picturesque Bonnyrigg?
 
Uh, you really made me think who could be really world famous from the place I was born.
I hope the same province is ok for you - then I can happily give you Tiziano who is quite known.
 
Famous?

I don't consider the area I've lived for 32 years my home town but...

Sharon Tate - murdered by the Manson Family
Patricia Briggs the urban fantasy author
Chuck Palahniuk the author of the Fight Club
Mary Alice Yeskey from Ace of Cakes lived here for a while
A bunch fo NFL and MLB players
We've had our share of serial killers and Noble Prize winners too.
 
My current home town is Newcastle. I wasn't brought up here but I have lived here longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life, and its unlikely that I will ever leave here... so...

1) A couple of bands: Silverchair and Screaming Jets.
2) A tapdancer: Dein Perry
3) Miss Universe 2004 Jennifer Hawkins
4) Actress Sarah Wynter
5) Artist William Dobell

Maybe more. Newcastle is a hotbed of talent.
 
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