From the list[1], authors such as Kipling, Potter or Wilde would be crowd pleasers, but a figure like Winston Churchill would likely win if this were decided by

From the list[1], authors such as Kipling, Potter or Wilde would be crowd pleasers, but a figure like Winston Churchill would likely win if this were decided by popular vote. Saying that, recent Bank of England notes[2] seem to sway much more heavily towards engineers/scientists (Newton, Wren, Stevenson, Faraday, Darwin, Boulton/Watt) and social/economic reformers (Nightingale, Houblon, Fry, Smith) than artists (Elgar, Shakespeare, Dickens) or military leaders (Wellington) [1] http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Documents/about/banknote_names.pdf http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Documents/about/ban... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling#Current_issue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_pound_sterling...