List of Famous people who died at 81

Sir Alexander Cadwallader Mainwaring Spearman was a British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP).

Hwang Byungki was the foremost South Korean player of the gayageum, a 12-string zither with silk strings. He was also a composer and an authority on sanjo, a form of traditional Korean instrumental music.

Colonel Prince Yi Geon, also Ri Ken and Kenichi Momoyama , was a Korean prince and a cavalry officer in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The first son of Prince Yi Kang of Korea by Lady Jeong, he was a grandson of Emperor Gwangmu. His Korean name was Yi Geon, and his birth name was Yonggil.

Reinbert de Leeuw was a Dutch conductor, pianist and composer.

Ronald Ray Fairly was an American Major League Baseball player and broadcaster. Combining playing and broadcasting appearances, Fairly was involved in over 7,000 major league games from 1958 through 2006.

John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith,, was a Scottish broadcasting executive who established the tradition of independent public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom. In 1922, he was employed by the BBC as its general manager; in 1923 he became its managing director and in 1927 he was employed as the Director-General of the British Broadcasting Corporation created under a royal charter. His concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organisations around the world. An engineer by trade, and standing at 6 feet 6 inches (1.98 m) tall, he was a larger-than-life figure who was a pioneer in his field.