Ethel Lang (née Lancaster; 27 May 1900 – 15 January 2015) was a British

supercentenarian A supercentenarian, sometimes hyphenated as super-centenarian, is a person who is 110 or older. This age is achieved by about one in 1,000 centenarians. Supercentenarians typically live a life free of significant age-related diseases until short ...

who, at the time of her death, was the oldest living person in the United Kingdom and the second-oldest living person in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

after

Emma Morano Emma Martina Luigia Morano (29 November 1899 – 15 April 2017) was an Italian supercentenarian. She was the world's List of the oldest living people, oldest living person from 13 May 2016 until her death on 15 April 2017, aged 117 years and 137 ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. She was the last living British person to have been born in the

British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...

during the reign of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...

and the second-last living person in the British Empire to have been born during her reign. The last was Jamaican woman

Violet Brown Violet Brown (née Mosse; 10 March 1900 – 15 September 2017) was a Jamaican supercentenarian who was the oldest verified living person in the world for five months, following the death of Emma Morano on 15 April 2017 until her own death at the ...

. Lang was the last British person to have been born in the 19th century.

Biography

Lang was born in

Worsbrough Worsbrough is a district 2 to 3 miles south of Barnsley in the Barnsley (borough), metropolitan borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England. Before 1974, Worsbrough had its own Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland), urban district counci ...

, near

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

, to miner Charles Lancaster and his wife Sarah. Her mother lived to the age of 91, one of her sisters lived to be 104 and her great-grandmother died in 1848 aged 92. At the time of Lang's death, her daughter Margaret was still alive at 91 years old. Lang left school at age 13 to work in a shirt factory. She married William Lang, the son of an alderman and councillor in 1922 and their daughter Margaret was born in 1923. William died in 1988 at age 92. She lived independently until the age of 105. Lang became the United Kingdom's oldest living person upon the death of Grace Jones on 14 November 2013. Lang died on 15 January 2015 in Barnsley, at 114 years, 233 days old. At the time of her death, she was the fourth-longest-lived person ever in the United Kingdom, after Charlotte Hughes, Annie Jennings and

Eva Morris Eva Morris (née Sharpe; 8 November 1885 – 2 November 2000) was List of the verified oldest people, the oldest recognised person in the world, by the Guinness World Records, Guinness Book of Records, from December 1999 until November 2000. Howe ...

. After her death, Gladys Hooper became the United Kingdom's oldest living person.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lang, Ethel 1900 births 2015 deaths People from Barnsley British supercentenarians Women supercentenarians British women centenarians

Biography

See also

References