List of Famous people who died in 1939

Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Roland Charles Backhouse was a Royal Navy officer. He served in the First World War as a cruiser commander and after the war became a battle squadron commander and later Commander-in-Chief, Home Fleet. Becoming First Sea Lord in November 1938, his major contribution in that role was to abandon the official British policy of sending a major fleet to Singapore to deter Japanese aggression, realising the immediate threat was closer to home and that such a policy was no longer viable. He died from a brain tumour in July 1939 just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

Walery Jan Sławek was a Polish politician, freemason, military officer and activist, who in the early 1930s served three times as Prime Minister of Poland. He was one of the closest aides of Polish leader, Józef Piłsudski.

D. S. Mirsky is the English pen-name of Dmitry Petrovich Svyatopolk-Mirsky, often known as Prince Mirsky, a Russian political and literary historian who promoted the knowledge and translations of Russian literature in Britain and of English literature in the Soviet Union. He was born in Kharkov Governorate and died in a Soviet gulag near Magadan.

Sir Ernest Scott was an Australian historian and professor of history at the University of Melbourne from 1913 to 1936.

Donato Raffaele Sbarretti Tazza was an Italian Roman Catholic Cardinal whose career included pastoral service in Italy and Cuba, diplomatic service in America and the Pacific, and ultimately high office in the Roman Curia.

Frank Owen Stoker was an Irish tennis and rugby union player. He is the only rugby international to have won Wimbledon.