List of Famous people born on January 31st

William Barrett Washburn was an American businessman and politician from Massachusetts. Washburn served several terms in the United States House of Representatives (1863–71) and as the 28th Governor of Massachusetts from 1872 to 1874, when he won election to the United States Senate in a special election to succeed the recently deceased Charles Sumner. A moderate Republican, Washburn only partially supported the Radical Republican agenda during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era that followed.

Johann Georg Theodor Grässe was a German bibliographer and literary historian. He worked in Dresden at the Münzkabinett and also edited the journal Zeitschrift für Museologie und Antiquitätenkunde. He was born in Grimma and died in Niederlössnitz.

Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was possibly the most famous European music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.

Charles Avison was an English composer during the Baroque and Classical periods. He was a church organist at St John The Baptist Church in Newcastle and at St. Nicholas's Church. He is most known for his 12 Concerti Grossi after Scarlatti and his Essay on Musical Expression, the first music criticism published in English. He composed in a transitional style that alternated between Baroque and Classical idioms.

Major The Hon. William George Sydney Cadogan MVO was a British Army officer killed in the First World War. A son of the 5th Earl Cadogan, he had previously served in the Boer War, and was equerry to the Prince of Wales from 1912 to 1914. He also played a single match of first-class cricket, for the Europeans team in the 1904 Bombay Presidency Match.