• Sir Edmund Shaa ( - 1487)
• John Bradshaw 1602 - 1659
• Samuel Oldknow 1756 - 1828
• Admiral Sir George Back 1796 - 1878
• Richard Cobden 1804 - 1865
• Sir Joseph Whitworth 1801 - 1887
• Fred Perry 1909 - 1995
• Sir Frederic Calland Williams 1911 - 1977
  
  more recent:
• Joan Bakewell: TV presenter
• John Blakeley, sculpture
• Peter Boardman, mountainer killed climbing Mount Everest
• Judith Chalmers, TV presenter
• Katie Derham, newsreader
• David Dickinson, TV presenter
• James Goddard, commonwealth Games swimmer
• Frank Hayes, cricketer
• James Hickman, Olympic swimmer
• Christopher Ishwerwood, writer
• Will Mellor, actor
• Joe Mercer, jockey
• Steve Smith , rugby player and former England captain
• Graeme Smith, Olympic swimmer
• Joanne Whalley-Kilmer. acress
• Mike Yarwood, comedian
• Diana Wilkinson - Olympic swimmer (broke 19 swimming records at 13, and was the first British woman to swim 200 yards in under a minute.
  
  And from Coronation Street
• 'Les Battersby' - Bruce Jones
• 'Jack Duckworth' - Bill Tarmey
• 'Shelley Unwin' - Sally Lindsay

• Sir Edmund Shaa ( - 1487)
  Lord Mayor of London between 1482 and 1483, Sir Edmund Shaa is best remembered for the part he played when the Duke of Gloucester seized the throne and became Richard III. Born in Stockport, Shaa, a goldsmith, settled in London where he became Court Jeweller to Kings Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII. On his death in 1487, he left a will establishing Stockport Grammar School, one of the first schools in the country.
  
• John Bradshaw 1602 - 1659
  John Bradshaw was the judge who pronounced the death sentence on Charles I in 1649. Born in Marple, he was baptised at Stockport Parish Church, where the word ‘traitor’ has been mysteriously added against his name in the Parish Register.
  
• Samuel Oldknow 1756 - 1828
  Samuel Oldknow built up a textile empire and became Britain’s leading manufacturer of muslin. He introduced the first steam engine for turning winding machines to the borough.
  During the 1790s he established a mill in Mellor, sank coal mines, built houses for his workers, constructed roads and was instrumental in the development of the Peak Forest Canal. He died in debt, but his legacy to the borough can be seen at the former lime kilns in Marple.
  
• Admiral Sir George Back 1796 - 1878
  19th Century explorer Sir George Back discovered Stockport Island in the Canadian Arctic and named it after the place of his birth.
  An entry in his diary in 1821 hints at the hardships endured on this North American expedition: ‘We are compelled to satisfy, or rather allay, the cravings of hunger by eating a gun cover and a pair of old shoes.’
  Educated at Stockport Grammar School, he joined the navy aged 13 and was in service during the Napoleonic Wars, spending five years in a French prison.
  
• Richard Cobden 1804 - 1865
  Economist, politician and the most prominent member of the Anti-Corn Law league, Richard Cobden was MP for Stockport between 1841 and 1847. He is commemorated by a bronze statue in St Peter’s Square.
  
• Sir Joseph Whitworth 1801 - 1887
  Sir Joseph Whitworth was a pioneer of precision engineering, inventor of the standard screw thread, the hydraulic forging press and even the road sweeper!
  The son of a local reedmaker, he was born in a tiny house off Hillgate in Stockport town centre. In spite of his humble origins and the absence of a university education, he had gained a reputation as ‘Britain’s greatest mechanic’ by the time of the Great Exhibition in 1887.
  Whitworth’s family connections with the borough were of long-standing and when he amassed his fortune he ensured that these would continue: Stockport College of Further and Higher Education, one of the country’s largest, has its origins in a legacy from Sir Joseph.
  
• Fred Perry 1909 - 1995
  Fred Perry was born in Stockport. He won the Men’s Singles Championship at Wimbledon three times in succession, from 1934 to 1936, and later founded an international sports fashion empire. Fred Perry memorabilia is on show at Stockport Museum.

• Sir Frederic Calland Williams 1911 - 1977
  Professor Williams was born in Romiley and educated at the University of Manchester and Magdalen College, Oxford. During World War II he joined the Scientific Civil Service and devised an automatic radar system, used by fighter planes, and later an automatic transmission system for car engines.
  In 1946, he and associate Tom Kilburn started to develop the first stored-memory computing machine in the world. The birth of what we now call the computer took place in June 1948, when the first successful program was run. The operation of all modern computer software can be traced back to that event.
  
  

Information taken from the Stockport Official Guide (Stockport Council publication)