27 people born in 1859

• Francis Thompson (1859 – 1907), poet and essayist
• Michael Marks (1859 – 1907), pedlar
• Ada Rehan (1859 – 1916), actress and Shakespearean actress
• Rachel McMillan (1859 – 1917), social reformer, educationalist, and pioneer of nursery education
• William Strang (1859 – 1921), painter and etcher
• Cecil Sharp (1859 – 1924), collector of English folk songs and dances
• Victor Herbert (1859 – 1924), conductor, composer, organizer of the Victor Herbert Orchestra, writer of the operettas “Naughty Marietta” and “Sweethearts”, advocate of the Copyright Law of 1909, founder of ASCAP, cellist, and conductor of the Pittsburgh Orchestra (1898-1904)
• George Nathaniel Curzon (1859 – 1925), statesman, Viceroy of India, and Marquess Curzon of Kedleston
• Doveton Sturdee (1859 – 1925), Rear Admiral and Sir
• Jerome K Jerome (1859 – 1927), author
• Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930), Sir, medical graduate of Edinburgh University, author, and creator of Sherlock Holmes
• Kenneth Grahame (1859 – 1932), author
• John Jellicoe (1859 – 1935), Earl Jellicoe, Admiral of the Fleet, and OM
• Nahum Sokolow (1859 – 1936), Zionist, Dr, and journalist
• Robert John Welch (1859 – 1936), photographer
• A. E. Housman (1859 – 1936), poet and scholar
• J. W. Carey (1859 – 1937), painter
• Henry Havelock Ellis (1859 – 1939), pioneer in the scientific study of sex
• James Allen Shuffrey (1859 – 1939), artist
• Henry Pellatt (1859 – 1939), industrialist, entrepreneur, Sir (from 1905), patron of the Queen's Own Rifles, and commander of the Queen's Own Rifles
• George Lansbury (1859 – 1940)
• Charles Wakefield (1859 – 1941), Viscount
• Sidney Webb (1859 – 1947), social scientist and political reformer
• Janet Heatley Blunt (1859 – 1950), folk song collector and morris dance collector
• Knut Hamsun (1859 – 1952), Nobel Prize for Literature (1920)
• John Dewey (1859 – 1952), influential educator, philosopher, author of Democracy and Education, and author of Experience and Nature
• Red House (built 1859), house