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Ethel Caterham

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Ethel May Caterham (née Collins; born 21 August 1909) is a British supercentenarian who is the oldest living person in the world as well as the oldest living resident of both the United Kingdom and Europe. She is additionally the oldest British person ever, and is also among the top 40 oldest humans ever recorded. Caterham's age is validated by LongeviQuest (LQ), the European Supercentenarian Organisation (ESO), and the Gerontology Research Group (GRG).

Biography[]

Ethel Caterham was born as Ethel May Collins on 21 August 1909 in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, England. She was the second youngest of eight children, her parents were William Alfred Collins (1868-1936) and Fanny Collins (1868-1951). Her oldest sister, Gladys Babilas (21 December 1897 – 9 March 2002), lived to be 104 years, 78 days old. In addition to Gladys, she also had two brothers Lester (1901-1992) and Cyril (1903-1962) and two sisters, Norah (born 1905) and Evelyn (born 1907). From her childhood, she has memories of walking into Salisbury with her siblings to go to the cinema.

In 1927, aged 18, Ethel Collins traveled to India to work as a nanny for a British family. The trip took three weeks and she fondly remembered her time there. Caterham recalled that where she lived, both British traditions like Christmas and Indian traditions like Tiffin and Tea were a part of her life. She worked as a nanny for four years, both in India and the UK, before meeting her future husband, Norman Caterham (1905-1976), a major in the British Army, at a dinner party in 1931. They married in 1933 and had two daughters, Ethel, who died in January 2005 aged 71, and Ann, who died of cancer at the age of 83 in February 2020.

Norman Caterham rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Royal Army Pay Corps, and the couple lived in Harnham, near Salisbury for a while, before moving to Hong Kong and Gibraltar. While in Hong Kong, she established a nursery for local and British children, teaching English, games, and crafts. Later they returned to the Surrey area of the UK. She was widowed in 1976 when Norman died. Caterham drove her car, a Triumph Dolomite, until she was 97 years old.

Caterham has always been slim and she kept fit by doing yoga, which she took up at 50. She also often walked her dogs and tended her garden, played bridge which kept her brain active and had a wide network of friends. She also used to enjoy the occasional glass of merlot and a Croft Original pale cream sherry, and smoked socially early on in her marriage, but she never drank to excess and these days is teetotal. According to Caterham: "I’ve indulged in everything, in moderation."

Caterham celebrated her 110th birthday on 21 August 2019. Ethel had lived independently in an annex of her daughter Ann’s house but was forced to move into the care home following her death in 2020. Caterham contracted Covid-19 in 2020, but recovered.

Currently Caterham lives in Surrey Heath, Surrey, England, at the age of 115 years, 300 days.

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Distinctions of Ethel Caterham
World's Oldest Living Person
30 April 2025 — Present
Predecessor: Inah Canabarro Lucas
Oldest Living Person in Europe
19 August 2024 — Present
Predecessor: Maria Branyas Morera
Oldest Living Person in the United Kingdom
22 January 2022 — Present
Predecessor: Mollie Walker
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