List of Famous people who died in 1940

Sylvia Ashton was an American film actress of the silent film era.

Seeiso, full name Simon Seeiso Griffith was the paramount chief of Basutoland from 23 June 1939 until his death. He is the father of former king Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho and the paternal grandfather of the current king, Letsie III of Lesotho.

Frederick Albert Cook was an American explorer, physician, and ethnographer who claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. That was nearly a year before Robert Peary, who similarly claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Both men's accounts have been disputed ever since. His expedition discovered Meighen Island, the only discovery of an island in the North American Arctic by an expedition with a United States national on board.

Ralph Modjeski was a Polish-American civil engineer who achieved prominence as a pre-eminent bridge designer in the United States.

Thorvald Nilsen was a Norwegian naval officer and polar explorer.

Francis Gilbertson Justice Ford was a cricketer.

Anton Hansen, better known by his pseudonym A. H. Tammsaare and its variants, was an Estonian writer whose pentalogy Truth and Justice is considered one of the major works of Estonian literature and "The Estonian Novel".

Walter-André Destailleur was a French architect, who designed and built the Château de Trévarez (1893–1907). He was the son of the architect Hippolyte Destailleur.

William Marien Conselman was an American screenwriter who also wrote newspaper comic strips under his Bill Conselman byline and sometimes under the pseudonym Frank Smiley.