Ethel Caterham, the world's oldest living person, has celebrated her 117th birthday with family and friends at her care home in Surrey. Caterham, who lives at Hallmark Lakeview Care Home in Lightwater, became the world's oldest living person in April 2025 following the death of Brazilian nun Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas at the age of 116.

Born in 1909, Caterham has lived through major events spanning more than a century, including two world wars and the reigns of several British monarchs. She was born three years before the sinking of the Titanic and eight years before the Russian Revolution. Originally from Shipton Bellinger in Hampshire, she was the second youngest of eight children and grew up in Tidworth, Wiltshire.

Caterham also travelled abroad during her younger years. At the age of 18, she travelled to India in 1927 and worked as an au pair for a military family. She later met Norman Caterham, a lieutenant colonel in the British Army, at a dinner party in Britain in 1931. The couple subsequently lived in Hong Kong, where Caterham established a nursery school.

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The couple eventually returned to Britain and raised two daughters, both of whom have since died. Norman Caterham died in 1976. Ethel Caterham now has three granddaughters and five great-grandchildren. Her long life has also included surviving Covid-19 after contracting the disease in 2020 at the age of 110, making her one of the oldest people known to have survived the infection.

Caterham is also recognised as the last surviving subject of King Edward VII. Her family has a notable longevity record, with her sister Gladys Babilas living to the age of 104 years and 78 days before her death in 2002. Caterham's 117th birthday marks another milestone in a life that has stretched across an extraordinary period of social and historical change.

Despite becoming the world's oldest living person, Caterham remains below the record for the longest verified human lifespan. That record belongs to Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days. Caterham's latest birthday nevertheless places her among the very small number of people in recorded history to have reached 117.

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