John Steele
After leaving The Perse, Steele trained at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst and served as an army officer for 6 years. He then became a professional rugby player, playing over 400 first class games and receiving various honours. Once his playing career was finished, Steele turned his hand to coaching, successfully leading Northampton Saints to […]
Tess Howard
Tess Howard joined The Perse in 2010 and quickly established herself as an outstanding hockey player. While at the School, she became the youngest top goal scorer in the National League for the 2016 season with Cambridge City Hockey Club. She progressed through the England age-group teams, captaining the U18 side and winning European Championship […]
Alex Coles
Alex Coles has been playing rugby since he was ten years old, representing Newmarket, Shelford and The Perse rugby clubs. While at The Perse, he was scouted by Northampton Saints and joined their Academy at the age of 13. A second-row forward, Alex played for Saints’ Under-18 side during the 2016/17 season before making his […]
Sir George Thomson
Sir George was the son of Sir J J Thomson, Professor of Physics at the University of Cambridge, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1906 for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases. Sir George left The Perse in 1910 and went to read Mathematics and Physics at Trinity College, […]
Sir William Scott Farren
Sir William Scott Farren (1892–1970) was educated at The Perse before and gaining a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics, and graduated with first-class honours in the mechanical sciences tripos of 1914. He joined British Thomson-Houston at Rugby, but within a year was persuaded to join the Royal Aircraft Factory to help […]
Ronald Norrish
Ronald Norrish was joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1967 for the study of extremely fast chemical reactions. In his penultimate year at the school, Ronald was awarded a scholarship to begin studies at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Unfortunately, the outbreak of the First World War meant that Norrish was unable to take […]
Brian Lister
Brian Lister (1926 – 2014) was one of Britain’s foremost post-war designers and builders of competition cars. After leaving The Perse, Lister began apprenticeship training at the family engineering firm George Lister and Sons, completing this in 1946. He served two years in the RAF for National Service before returning to the firm. Lister had […]
John Clarke
California-based Professor John Clarke is Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of California, Berkeley. A Professor in the Graduate School, his research concerns Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science. In 2025, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics with Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis for the discovery of macroscopic quantum […]
Mel Rodgers
Dr Mel Rodgers is a geophysicist and volcanologist at the University of South Florida. Rodgers left The Perse to study Geophysics at the University of Durham, after which she worked for a Geophysical Survey Company, ARKeX, doing airborne surveys for oil and gas exploration. She obtained her doctorate from the University of South Florida, where the […]