There are many famous people from Portadown, artists, TV presenters, sporting heroes and war heroes.
One of the most famous is Gloria Hunniford who has been a TV and radio star for decades and appears on many top shows such as Loose Women, This Morning and The One Show.
Also actors Richard Dormer and Jude Hill, war heroes Anne Acheson and Dr Isobel Addey Tate, sporting heroes Rory Best, Mary Peters and Ronnie McFall as well as many talented individuals.
Also actors Richard Dormer and Jude Hill, war heroes Anne Acheson and Dr Isobel Addey Tate, sporting heroes Rory Best, Mary Peters and Ronnie McFall as well as many talented individuals.
13. Olympian Lady Mary Peters received a number of honours including the Order of the Companions of Honour services to Sport and to the community in NI
Although born in Lancashire, Mary Peters moved to Portadown with her family as a child and attended Portadown College. She was head girl of the school in 1956. Her PE teacher Kenneth McClelland introduced her to athletics. In the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Peters competing for Great Britain and Northern Ireland and won the gold medal in the women's pentathlon. She had finished 4th in 1964 and 9th in 1968. In 1972, Peters won the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award. She represented Northern Ireland at every Commonwealth Games between 1958 and 1974. In these games she won 2 gold medals for the pentathlon, plus a gold and silver medal for the shot put. Peters established a charitable Sports Trust in 1975 (now known as the Mary Peters Trust) to support talented young sportsmen and women, both able-bodied and disabled, from across Northern Ireland in a financial and advisory capacity. Mary Peters has a number of honours most recently in 2019 she was appointed a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG) and therefore granted the title Lady. Photo: WPA Pool
14. Portadown ballet dancer Leigh Alderson has performed with some of the most prestigious companies in the world
Leigh Alderson, who was born in Portadown in 1986, is a male ballet dancer, model and actor from Portadown. Alderson trained at The Royal Ballet School before joining the Scottish Ballet later joining Atlantic Ballet Theatre of Canada and guesting with Cork City Ballet. The BBC produced three documentary films about him. Lost To Dance was broadcast in October 1998, A God Given Gift in September 2005 and the third, also called A God Given Gift, in December 2007. He features in the photo 'Flight of Freedom' which was the product of a collaborative photo-shoot between Alderson and Karin Pritzel, an award-winning photographer from Dublin. Photo: Paul Irwin
15. Sir Robert Hart
Sir Robert Hart, 1st Baronet, GCMG was born in a little house in Dungannon Street, Portadown on 20 February 1835. He was the eldest of 12 children and aged 12 moved to Milltown near Maghery staying there for a year before moving on to Hillsborough, where he first attended school. Aged 15 he left school, and was sent to the newly founded Queen's College, Belfast. In 1853, he gained his B.A. at the age of 18. He went to the Foreign Office and was posted to China aged 19. He was a British diplomat and official in the Qing Chinese government, serving as the second Inspector-General of China's Imperial Maritime Custom Service (IMCS) from 1863 to 1911. Robert Hart, was highly decorated, receiving four hereditary titles, fifteen orders of knighthood (of the first class) and many other honorary academic and civic awards. He was awarded several honorific Chinese titles, including the Red Button, or button of the highest rank; a Peacock's Feather; the Order of the Double Dragon; the Ancestral Rank of the First Class of the First Order for Three Generations. In 1935, the "Sir Robert Hart Memorial Primary School" in Portadown, Northern Ireland, was established in his name. Hart is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of Chinese legless lizard, Dopasia harti. Photo: Contributed
16. Billy Austin - portrait and landscape artist whose work hangs on walls worldwide
Billy Austin is a portrait and landscape artist famous for his paintings of famous as well as local people. A former Advertising Manager with the Portadown Times, who started painting portraits when he worked in Portadown, is now in his 80s and still going strong. Billy, who moved out to Tandragee, Co Armagh more than 55 years ago, says he was ‘born with a brush in my hand’. His work is so popular now he has gained many commissions, most recently for renowned musician and composer Phil Coulter and his wife. Indeed Billy’s work hangs on walls worldwide with many Americans enjoying his landscapes of thatched cottages in Ireland. Photo: Billy Austin - self portrait