May 2 (UPI) — The oldest living person in the world is now a woman living in Britain, Guinness World Records confirmed.
Ethel Caterham, 115, was already the oldest living person in Britain when she received the notification this week.
Caterman, who was 115 years and 252 days old at the time she was recognized, takes the current title from Inah Canabarro Lucas.
Ethel Caterham has become the world’s oldest person at the age of 115 years and 252 days old.
She is the oldest person ever recorded from the United Kingdom.
Learn more about her life here ⬇️https://t.co/rwoAB6WGX6 pic.twitter.com/WHECRIHf7C— Guinness World Records (@GWR) May 1, 2025
Lucas, a Brazilian nun, died at the age of 116. She took over the title last December after the death of Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese widow.
At 115, Caterham is the youngest person in 12 years to hold the title of the oldest living person, according to the record-keeping reference publication.
Caterham lives in Surrey but was born August 21, 1909 in Shipton Bellinger, Hampshire, a village with a current-day population of around 1,500 and located around 12 miles north of the city of Salisbury.
She continues to be the last British last person to have lived under the reign of Britain’s King Edward VII, who reigned from 1901 to 1910. She is also the only remaining British person born before 1913 alive today and believed to be the only living person in the world born in 1909.
Caterham was one of eight children with one sister living to 104 years and 78 days, dying in 2002.
Caterham was born 19 days after the U.S. Army Signal Corp Division bought what was the world’s first-ever military airplane from brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright. The Wright Military Flyer was a one-of-a-kind plane.
Her birth also came just months after the start of construction on the luxury liner RMS Titanic.
Caterham worked as a nanny, moving to India at 18 for a time.
She met British Army Maj. Norman Caterham in 1931 and the two were married two years later in the same Salisbury Cathedral where Norman once served as a choirboy.
The couple had two children before Norman died in 1976.
Caterham, who only gave up driving at the age of 97, sadly outlived both her daughters, with the oldest, Anne, passing away at 82 in 2020 from cancer.
Caterham has three granddaughters and five great grandchildren.
