two recipients of the Victoria Cross, Ferdinand Le Quesne and Mark Sever Bell. King's is also the alma mater of the founder of Bentley Motors, Walter Bentley; oil magnate and philanthropist Calouste Gulbenkian, and Olympic gold medalists Dame Katherine Grainger, Paul Bennett and Kieran West.
=== Notable academics and staff ===
Notable academics at King's have included Sir Charles Lyell (geologist and author of Principles of Geology), Sir Charles Wheatstone (best known for the Wheatstone bridge), James Clerk Maxwell (mathematical physicist known for Maxwell's equations describing the motion of light as an electro-magnetic wave), Joseph Lister (pioneer of antiseptic surgery), Charles Barkla (winner of the 1917 Nobel Prize in Physics), Sir Owen Richardson (winner of the 1928 Nobel Prize in Physics), Sir Edward Appleton (winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physics), Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin (both known for their contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA, for which Wilkins won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine after Franklin's death), Mario Vargas Llosa (writer and winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature), and Sir Roger Penrose (winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics).
== In popular culture ==
=== Film and television settings ===
The neoclassical facade of King's, with the passage which connects the Strand to the Somerset House terrace, has been utilised to reproduce the late Victorian Strand in the opening scenes of Oliver Parker's 2002 film The Importance of Being Earnest. The East Wing of King's appears, as a part of Somerset House, in a number of other productions, such as Wilde and The Duchess.
The Maughan Library has also been the location of some film shoots of popular movies and TV series, most notably Johnny English, The Imitation Game and V for Vendetta. A scene from the popular Netflix movie Enola Holmes was also filmed at the library's gate.
Part of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was set in the Round Reading Room of the Maughan Library, although no part of the film …
