Bob Weighton, the world's oldest man, has died "peacefully in his sleep" at his Alton home at the age of 112.
The former teacher and engineer, based in Hampshire, took up the title of the oldest man in the world in February after the death of the previous holder Chitetsu Watanabe, from Japan.
Confirming his death to PA, his family said in a statement: "With great sadness, the Weighton family announces the death of our beloved Bob Weighton.
"He died peacefully in his sleep, from cancer, on the morning of Thursday May 28, 2020 at his flat in Alton, Hampshire, where he lived independently. Aged 112, Bob was the oldest man in the world.
'We will miss him greatly'
"Bob was an extraordinary man, and to the family not really because of the amazing age he reached. A role model to us all, he lived his life interested in and engaged with all kinds of people from across the world.
"He viewed everyone as his brother or sister and believed in loving and accepting and caring for one another. He had many, many friendships and read and talked politics, theology, ecology and more right up until his death. He also cared greatly for the environment.
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"The second bedroom in his Alton flat was a workshop, filled with furniture, windmills and puzzles he made and sold in aid of charity, often from bits of wood pulled from skips."
The statement adds: "We are so grateful that until the very end Bob remained our witty, kind, knowledgeable, conversationalist father, grandfather and great grandfather, and we will miss him greatly."
Mr Weighton's final birthday celebration on March 29 was held behind closed doors after the imposition of the COVID-19 lockdown, and he described how the "world is in a bit of a mess" with the crisis.
But despite his title of world's oldest man, Mr Weighton declined a birthday card from the Queen, saying he did not want one at the taxpayer's expense and he had received at least 10 from her already.
'I have done everything you could think of'
The supercentenarian had lived through two world wars, the invention of the internet and women's suffrage, and held numerous roles throughout his working life, including teaching jobs in Taiwan and Japan. Post-war he worked as an engineering lecturer at City University of London.
Speaking to SurreyLive in February, Bob said: "I have done everything you could think of especially having lived through two world wars.
"Everybody's lives were turned upside down by World War Two. I am really an engineer, and I was trained as an engineer. But I also did translation and broadcasting work in the Second World War."
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In 1939 Mr Weighton was taken home to England from his teaching job in Taiwan, but war broke out before he reached England and he found himself stranded in Canada.
Describing his return to England after the war, he said: "Britain was an absolute rubble heap. There were bomb holes everywhere."
Mr Weighton had outlived one of his children and his wife, Agnes Kinver, who died in 1995.
