1695) Thomas Boleyn

Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, 1st Earl of Ormond, 1st Viscount Rochford KG, KB (c. 1477 – 1539), of Hever Castle in Kent. English diplomat and politician. He was the father of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, and was thus the maternal grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. By Henry VIII, he was made a Knight of the Garter in 1523 and was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Rochford in 1525, and in 1529, he was further ennobled as Earl of Wiltshire and Earl of Ormond.

 

According to Wikipedia, the sitter of this portrait (by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1533) is James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond, a maternal cousin of Thomas Boleyn's. For many other sources, however, the sitter is Thomas Boleyn.

1683) Meredith Pinxton Snyder

Meredith Pinxton Snyder (1859 – 1937). California property owner and businessman, who was mayor of Los Angeles on three occasions from 1896 through 1921, and was also on the California Industrial Accident Commission.
He was a Mason and an Elk and a member of the Jonathan Club, the Los Angeles Country Club, the Lomita Gun Club, the Knights of Pythias and the Knights Templar.

 

- "His nickname was Pinky, because of the color of his flaming red side-burns." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_P._Snyder 

 

1649) Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri (1942 – 2020). Iraqi politician, army officer and field marshal. He served as Vice Chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council until the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and was regarded as the closest advisor and deputy under President Saddam Hussein. He led the Iraqi resistance group Naqshbandi Army.
Al-Douri was the most high-profile Ba'athist official to successfully evade capture after the invasion of Iraq, and was the "king of clubs" in the infamous U.S. deck of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards. Al-Douri continued to lead elements of the Iraqi resistance such as the Naqshbandi Army against the then-occupation forces and waged an insurgency against the current regime in Baghdad. Following the execution of Saddam Hussein on 30 December 2006, al-Douri was confirmed as the new leader of the banned Iraqi Ba'ath Party on 3 January 2007.
In April 2015, the Shiite militant organization Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq claimed they had killed al-Douri and his nine bodyguards during a military operation near the Al-Alaas oil fields in Hemreen east of Tikrit. The group further alleged that his body had been transported to Baghdad to confirm its identity on 17 April 2015. Though the story was carried by the BBC, they also noted that the Iraqi Ba'ath party denied that al-Douri had died, while a Kurdish news source reported that Iraq did not have al-Douri's DNA to confirm his death. Al-Douri subsequently appeared in videos talking about events that took place after his supposed death. On 26 October 2020, news of his death was again carried by both local and international media, this time based on announcements by the Iraqi Ba-ath party and Raghad Hussein, the daughter of Saddam Hussein.

 

- "Pictures had emerged of the body of a red-haired man bearing some resemblance to Saddam's feared deputy..." https://www.straitstimes.com/world/middle-east/baath-party-tv-releases-recording-of-saddam-deputy-thought-to-be-dead

 

- "A photo supposedly taken of the dead man by soldiers involved in the operation and distributed on Twitter closely resembled al Douri, including notable red hair and a red beard." https://archive.triblive.com/news/world/report-iraqi-security-forces-kill-saddam-aide-al-douri-but-dna-will-confirm/ 

 

 

1628) James A. Reed

James Alexander Reed (1861 – 1944). American Democratic Party politician from Missouri.

Reed served as a city councilor of Kansas City from 1897 to 1898 and as prosecutor of Jackson County from 1898 to 1900. He unsuccessfully prosecuted Jesse E. James, son of the bandit Jesse James, for train robbery in 1899. He was elected Kansas City mayor from 1900 to 1904.

In 1910, he was elected to the US Senate from Missouri as a Democrat. He served in the Senate for three terms, from 1911 to 1929, when he decided to retire. Unlike many members of his party, he opposed the League of Nations. He sought and failed to receive the Democratic nomination for president. He served as chairman of the Committee on Weights and Measures from 1917 to 1921.

One of his biggest contributions to the State of Missouri came in 1913 when as a member of the Senate Banking Committee, he changed his vote to break a deadlock to pass the Federal Reserve Act, which resulted in Missouri getting 2 of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks (in St. Louis and Kansas City). Missouri is the only state with multiple headquarters of the Federal Reserve. Reed was very involved in the Senate Banking Committee's work to improve the Federal Reserve Act, including amendments to strengthen the power and independence of the Federal Reserve Board. President Wilson acknowledged the value of Reed's contributions in a letter sent to him while the bill was pending in committee.

 

- "In the spring of my senior year a little one-room law office sprang up among the sand burrs opposite the college to house a tall virile, red-headed young attorney we knew as “Jim” Reed... Soon he removed to Kansas City and eventually became for eighteen years United States senator from Missouri." http://digamoo.free.fr/ross1936.pdf

 

 

1618) Ada Nield Chew

Ada Nield Chew (1870 – 1945). Campaigning socialist and British suffragist.

She was one of 13 children and left school at the age of 11 to help her mother take care of the house and family.

In 1897 she married George Chew, an organiser of the Independent Labour Party. Their daughter (and only child), Doris, was born in the following year. Chew then became an organiser for the Women's Trade Union League in 1900, working alongside Mary Macarthur.

In the years leading up to the First World War, Chew became an active supporter of the movement for women's suffrage and became a member of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. She worked for this body as an organiser from 1911 to 1914.

After the end of the war, and the achievement of women's suffrage in 1918, Chew withdrew from any major involvement in politics, but still worked to improve the working conditions, diet and health of working-class women. She retired from the business in 1930 and undertook a round-the-world tour in 1935.

 

- "Ada’s first public appearance was made the same year: she would have made quite an impression with her handsome look and stunning red hair." https://www.greatbritishlife.co.uk/lifestyle/23252373.campaign-statue-ada-nield-chew-forgotten-suffragist/

 

- "Ada Nield Chew was very diffident about her personal appearance, but contemporaries record that she was very good-looking, with striking red hair." https://openlearnlive-s3bucket.s3.eu

 

 

 

1565) Annabelle Rankin

Dame Annabelle Jane Mary Rankin (1908 – 1986). Australian politician and diplomat. She was the first woman from Queensland elected to parliament, the first woman federal departmental minister, and the first Australian woman to be appointed head of a foreign mission.

Rankin was born in Brisbane, the daughter of state MP Colin Rankin. A member of the Liberal Party, she was elected to the Senate at the 1946 federal election, taking her seat the following year. She was the second woman elected to the Senate, after Dorothy Tangney. Rankin was the Liberal Party's chief whip from 1947 to 1950 and from 1951 to 1966; she remains the longest-serving whip in the party's history, in either chamber of parliament. In 1966, she was made Minister for Housing in the Holt government, becoming the first woman to hold a ministerial portfolio. She held that position until her retirement from politics in 1971. As High Commissioner to New Zealand from 1971 to 1974, she was the first woman to head an Australian mission overseas.

 

- "Dame Annabelle was easily recognisable from her auburn hair and warm brown eyes, and combined a cheerful, friendly demeanour with a strong, uncompromising will, and apparently tireless energy." https://waltzingmorethanmatilda.com/.../famous-names.../ 

 

- "Enid Lyons remarked that ‘Her appearance charmed me [with] her warm brown eyes, her Titian-red hair’." https://adb.anu.edu.au/.../rankin-dame-annabelle-jane-15857 

 

 

1562) William Kirkcaldy of Grange

Sir William Kirkcaldy of Grange (c. 1520 – 1573). Scottish politician and soldier who fought for the Scottish Reformation. He ended his career holding Edinburgh castle on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots and was hanged at the conclusion of a long siege.

William's father, James Kirkcaldy of Grange (died 1556), was lord high treasurer of Scotland from 1537 to 1543 and a determined opponent of Cardinal Beaton, for whose murder in 1546 William and James were partly responsible.

William Kirkcaldy married Margaret Learmonth, a sister of Sir Patrick Learmonth of Dairsie and Provost of St Andrews, and George Learmonth of Balcomie.

 

Portrait by François Clouet

 

1561) Alexander Seton, 1st Earl of Dunfermline

Alexander Seton, 1st Earl of Dunfermline (1555–1622). Scottish lawyer, judge and politician. He served as Lord President of the Court of Session from 1598 to 1604, Lord Chancellor of Scotland from 1604 to 1622 and as a Lord High Commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland.

He was the son of George Seton, 7th Lord Seton, and Isobell Hamilton. The Setons remained a Roman Catholic family after the Scottish Reformation of 1560, and continued to support Mary, Queen of Scots, after her abdication and exile in England.

 

Portrait by David Des Granges

Portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

George Seton, his daughter Margaret and his sons, by Frans Pourbus the Elder (Alexander is the boy on the right)

 

1523) Christopher Chataway

Sir Christopher John Chataway (1931 – 2014). British middle- and long-distance runner, television news broadcaster, and Conservative politician.

 

- "During his four-year international career as a runner, Chataway, nicknamed the Red Fox because of his ginger hair..." https://www.theguardian.com/.../19/sir-christopher-chataway

 

- "... with 300 metres to go, three men charged past him - the red-headed Christopher Chataway of Great Britain..." https://www.theguardian.com/.../nov/23/guardianobituaries

 

- "Chataway, his red hair bouncing with each jaunty stride, moved into the lead." https://books.google.it/books?id=fs7PCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT167...

 

 

1520) Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke

Philip Herbert, 5th Earl of Pembroke, 2nd Earl of Montgomery (1621 – 1669). English nobleman and politician. He was the son of Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, and his first wife Susan de Vere.

His father and his uncle William were the 'incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works was dedicated in 1623.

His paternal grandmother was Mary Sidney, sister of Philip and Robert Sidney.

 

 

1519) John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer

Edward John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer (1924 – 1992). British nobleman, military officer, and courtier. He was the father of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the maternal grandfather of William, Prince of Wales, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.

In 1954 Spencer and Frances Ruth Roche, the younger daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy, were married in Westminster Abbey. They had five children, but the marriage was not a happy one and, in 1967, Frances left John to be with Peter Shand Kydd, an heir to a wallpaper fortune in Australia, whom she had met the year before.

 

- "He was slim and tanned, his red hair slicked back to frame his high forehead and his well-define features." https://books.google.it/books?id=22M-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT15...

 

 

1452) John B. Felton

John Brooks Felton (1827 – 1877). American jurist and politician who served as the 14th Mayor of Oakland, California.

Felton was the son of an almshouse superintendent in Cambridge, Massachusetts and brother of Cornelius Conway Felton, a classics scholar at Harvard University and Samuel Morse Felton, Sr., a railroad executive. He graduated from Harvard in 1847 with a Bachelor's degree and briefly served as a Greek tutor before pursuing the law. He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from Cambridge University in 1853. He studied the Napoleonic code in Paris for one year and became fluent in French and Spanish.

 

- "John Felton was something of a character and a good deal of a man, with fiery red hair on the outside of his head and much genial wit and wisdom within it." https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20021719.pdf

 

 

1447) Josiah Bartlett

Josiah Bartlett (1729 – 1795). American Founding Father, physician, statesman, a delegate to the Continental Congress for New Hampshire, and a signatory to the Declaration of Independence and Articles of Confederation. He served as the first governor of New Hampshire and chief justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature.

- "Bartlett’s colleagues described him as tall, well built, with a fine figure and auburn hair." https://www.dsdi1776.com/josiah-bartlett/

 

- "The popular doctor, tall and handsome, with curly red hair..." https://books.google.it/books?id=hxs079e_uhMC&pg=PA385...

 

 

1446) Cyrus Vance

Cyrus Roberts Vance Sr. (1917 – 2002). American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980. Prior to serving in that position, he was the United States Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Johnson administration. During the Kennedy administration he was Secretary of the Army and General Counsel of the Department of Defense.

As Secretary of State, Vance approached foreign policy with an emphasis on negotiation over conflict and a special interest in arms reduction. In April 1980, he resigned in protest of Operation Eagle Claw, the secret mission to rescue American hostages in Iran. He was succeeded by Edmund Muskie.

 

- "Mr. Vance’s political engagement did not manifest itself publicly at Yale. The young man with the long red hair usually kept conversations about politics to private settings with friends..." https://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/nyregion/18vance.html

 

- "When he is not wearing his tortoise-shell glasses, Mr. Vance, with a reddish face, red hair that has mostly faded to gray, and a relaxed posture..." https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/nyregion/31vance.html

 

 

1441) George Mathews

George Mathews (1739 – 1812). American soldier and politician from the U.S. States of Virginia and Georgia. He was a brevet brigadier general in the Continental Army, the 20th and 24th Governor of Georgia, a U.S. Representative from Georgia, and the leading participant in the Patriot War of East Florida.

On the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he served as colonel of the 9th Virginia Regiment in the Continental Army. He and his entire regiment were captured on October 4, 1777, in the Battle of Germantown. Mathews spent the next four years as a prisoner of war, including two years on a British prison ship. He was brevetted brigadier general at the end of the war.

After the war, Mathews moved to the state of Georgia and was quickly elected governor of the state.

Mathews relocated to the Mississippi Territory and in 1810 was sent as a secret agent by President James Madison to annex the Spanish territory of East Florida for the United States. Mathews was unable to claim the territory peacefully, so he created an insurrectionist force that captured Ferninanda Beach and Amelia Island and turned them over to the U.S. This act, now referred to as the Patriot War of East Florida, was denounced by Spain and its allies. Madison, under political pressure, disavowed Mathews' actions. The vagueness of Madison's instructions to Mathews have led to significant debate among historians as to whether Mathews acted outside of the purview of his mandate.

 

- "... he stood straight with his head thrown back, his red hair wind-blown..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mathews_(soldier)

 

- "His features were full and bluff, his hair light red..." https://books.google.it/books?id=xHy7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA123...

 

 

1440) Carter Glass

Carter Glass (1858 – 1946), American newspaper publisher and Democratic politician. He represented Virginia in both houses of Congress and served as the United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Woodrow Wilson. He played a major role in the establishment of the U.S. financial regulatory system, helping to establish the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Glass won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1902 and became Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency in 1913. Working with President Wilson, he passed the Federal Reserve Act, which established a central banking system for the United States. Glass served as Secretary of the Treasury from 1918 until 1920, when he accepted an appointment to represent Virginia in the United States Senate. Glass was a favorite son candidate for the presidential nomination at the 1920 Democratic National Convention.

Glass served in the Senate from 1920 until his death in 1946, becoming Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1933. He also served as president pro tempore of the Senate from 1941 to 1945. He co-sponsored the 1933 Banking Act, also known as the Glass–Steagall Act, which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and enforced the separation of investment banking firms and commercial banks. 

 

- "Glass had red hair..." https://books.google.it/books?id=-iN9CgAAQBAJ&pg=PT56...

 

- "The one-hundred-pound, red-headed Democrat was owner and editor of the Lynchburg News..." https://www.jstor.org/stable/24440499

 

- "Short (five feet four inches), with red hair..." https://books.google.it/books?id=aMiA05P92h8C&pg=PA174...

 

 

1431) James Burns Belford

James Burns Belford (1837 – 1910). American politician and a U.S. Representative from Colorado.

Upon the admission of Colorado into the Union, Belford was elected as a Republican to the Forty-fourth Congress and was Colorado’s first U.S. congressman.

He was the father of journalist Frances Belford Wayne.

 

- "... he was also known for his "bright red hair, fiery speeches, and flamboyant persona” which landed him the nickname “Red-Headed Rooster of the Rockies,". https://www.thedenverchannel.com/.../stories-behind-the...

 

- "He was known as the "Red Rooster of the Rockies" because of his flaming red hair and "magnificently roseate beard." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Belford

 

 

1430) Henry C. Wallace

Henry Cantwell "Harry" Wallace (1866 – 1924). American farmer, journalist, and political activist who served as the Secretary of Agriculture from 1921 to 1924 under Republican presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. He was the father of Henry A. Wallace, who would follow in his footsteps as Secretary of Agriculture and later became Vice President under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was an editor of Wallaces' Farmer from 1916 to 1921.

 

  - "He had unruly red hair and an awkward look of embarrassment."  https://books.google.it/books…

- "He was red-headed on his head and in his soul."  https://spartacus-educational.com/USARwallace.htm

 

 

1428) Juan Nepomuceno Cortina

Juan Nepomuceno Cortina Goseacochea (1824 – 1894), also known by his nicknames Cheno Cortina, the Red Robber of the Rio Grande and the Rio Grande Robin Hood. Mexican rancher, politician, military leader, outlaw and folk hero. He was an important caudillo, military general and regional leader, who effectively controlled the Mexican state of Tamaulipas as governor. In borderlands history he is known for leading a paramilitary mounted Mexican Militia in the failed Cortina Wars. The "Wars" were raids targeting Anglo-American civilians whose settlement Cortina opposed near the several leagues of land granted to his wealthy family on both sides of the Rio Grande. Anglo families began immigrating to the Lower Rio Grande Valley after the Mexican Army was defeated by the Anglo-Mexican rebels of the Mexican State of Tejas, in the Texas Revolution.

- "Thus, Cortina's red hair..." https://books.google.it/books?id=YnUKT4f_fZQC&pg=PA319...

 

- "... such such derogatory nicknames as the “Rogue of the Rio Grande” and “The Red Robber,” (in reference to his red hair and beard)." https://bullersbackporch.wordpress.com/.../brownsville.../

 

- "Cortina, nicknamed Cheno, was slender, with reddish-blond hair and gray eyes." https://repository.si.edu/.../cfch_Deutsch_GregorioCortez...

 

- "... with a light complexion, reddish-brown hair, gray-green eyes and a striking red beard... Because of his red hair, he was sometimes refered to as The Red Robber of the Rio Grande." https://books.google.it/books?id=pylCDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1...

 

 

1404) Jesse K. Dubois

Jesse Kilgore Dubois (sometimes styled DuBois, 1811 – 1876). American politician from Illinois. The son of a prominent early Illinois citizen, Dubois was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives while he was attending Indiana College. Nicknamed Uncle Jesse, he served four two-year terms there. An early Republican, Dubois was named the party's first candidate for Auditor of Public Accounts. He was elected in 1856 and served two four-year terms. He was the father of Senator Fred Dubois.

 

- "... a slim, handsome young man, with auburn hair, sky-blue eyes..." https://books.google.it/books?id=cIHjDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT118...