List of Famous people who died in 1981

Thérèse Casgrain, LL.D. was a French Canadian feminist, reformer, politician and senator.

Laura Allende Gossens was a Chilean politician, a member of the lower chamber of parliament and sister of former president of Chile Salvador Allende.

David Garnett was a British writer and publisher. As a child, he had a cloak made of rabbit skin and thus received the nickname "Bunny", by which he was known to friends and intimates all his life.

Enid Algerine, Lady Jones, was a British author and playwright, today best known for the 1935 story National Velvet.

Major-General Sir Randle Guy "Gerry" Feilden was a general officer in the British Army. During the Second World War he was the Deputy Quartermaster General (DQMG) of the 21st Army Group in the North-West Europe Campaign of 1944–45. After the war he became the Senior steward of the Jockey Club. He is commemorated by the annual Feilden Stakes at Newmarket Racecourse.

Malcolm John MacDonald was a British politician and diplomat.

Archibald Joseph Cronin, known professionally as A. J. Cronin, was a Scottish physician and novelist. His best-known novel The Citadel (1937) tells of a Scottish doctor in a Welsh mining village, who then shoots up the medical ladder in London. Cronin knew both venues, as a medical inspector of mines and as a doctor in Harley Street. The book promoted some controversial medical ethics that helped to inspire the National Health Service. Another popular mining novel of his, set in the North East of England, is The Stars Look Down. Both have been filmed, as have Hatter's Castle, The Keys of the Kingdom and The Green Years. His 1935 novella Country Doctor instigated a long-running BBC radio and TV series, Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1962–1971), set in the 1920s. There was a follow-up series in 1993–1996.