Cornelius Jabez Hughes · Public domain

Is the only person born into a Jewish family to become British prime minister — his father left the faith after a synagogue dispute and had him baptized into the Church of England at eleven, but Disraeli's Jewish origins remained a fact his political opponents never let him forget. He built the modern Conservative Party from a fractured base, twice serving as prime minister and repeatedly clashing in Parliament with Liberal leader William Gladstone. He was also a working novelist, publishing political fiction alongside his career in government — an unusual double life for a head of state.