List of contributors to the Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica has a history of containing many articles written by notable expert contributors,^[1][2] Among these contributors are many Nobel laureates,^[3] such as Albert Einstein and Marie Curie; presidents of the United States John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton; and other notable figures.

Collage of famous contributors to the Britannica (clockwise from top left): Thomas Malthus, W.E.B. Du Bois, Henry Ford, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Marie Curie, Leon Trotsky, Lillian Gish, Albert Einstein

Contributors

Edition	Name	Description of author	Contributions
1st	William Smellie	Scottish printer, author and principal editor of the first edition of the Britannica[4]	Various[a]
2nd	James Tytler	Scottish balloonist, radical, author, and editor of the second edition and part of the third edition[6][7]	Various,[b] notably:[7] "Astronomy" "Botany" "Chemistry" "Medicine"
3rd
	John Barclay	Scottish anatomist and teacher[9]	"Physiology"[10]
	Thomas Blacklock	Blind Scottish poet and clergyman[11]	"Blind"[12]
	David Doig	Scottish philologist[13]	"Mysteries" "Mythology" "Philology"[14][15]
	George Gleig	Scottish bishop and primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, editor of part of the third edition[16]	Various, notably:[16] "Instinct" "Metaphysics" "Theology"
	Robert Heron	Scottish writer and polymath[17]	"Education" "Religion" "Society"[18]
	John Robison	Scottish natural philosopher[19]	Various,[18] notably:[20] "Steam" "Steam-engine"
	Thomas Thomson	Scottish chemist[21]	"Sea"[22]
4th, 5th, 6th, suppl.	Thomas Robert Malthus	English demographer and political economist known for the Malthusian theory of population growth[23]	"Population"[24]
11th	Peter Kropotkin	Russian anarcho-communist philosopher[25]	Various,[c] notably:[27] "Anarchism"
13th	Marie Curie	Polish scientist who made breakthroughs in physics and chemistry, earning two Nobel Prizes[28]	"Radium"[29]
	Irène Joliot-Curie	Daughter of Marie and 1935 Nobel laureate in Chemistry[30]
	W.E.B. Du Bois	African American sociologist and co-founder of the NAACP[31]	"Negro literature" in American literature[32]
	Albert Einstein	German-born physicist and 1921 Nobel laureate in Physics[33]	"Space-time"[34]
	Henry Ford	American automobile manufacturer and innovator of mass production who founded Ford Motor Company[35]	"Mass production"[35]
	Leon Trotsky	Russian revolutionary leader and statesman[36]	"Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov"[37]
14th	Lillian Gish	Prolific American silent film actress[38]	"A universal language" in Motion pictures[39]
	John F. Kennedy	President of the United States from 1961 to 1963	"Ellsworth, Oliver"[40]
15th	Jimmy Carter	President of the United States from 1977 to 1981[41]	"Camp David Accords"[42]
Online	Bill Clinton	President of the United States from 1993 to 2001[43]	"Dayton Accords"[44]
	Desmond Tutu	South African archbishop and 1984 Nobel Peace Prize laureate[45]	"Truth and Reconciliation Commission, South Africa"[46]