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| BADCOCK, John 1799-1889 |
Pharmacist and druggist, pioneer of vaccination. Born in Pyrton, Oxfordshire, son of a labourer, the third of 12 children. (Ironically, his mother's name was Maria Stopes.) He married Mary West in 1828, whose brother was a chemist and worked for Badcock. She had 11 children and died within a couple of years of the birth of the youngest. |
PERSONAL • 128 St James's Street [shop and residence] |
| BALDWIN, Edmund Chaplin OBE 1860-1935 |
Chartered accountant and auditor. Inducted into the Royal Brunswick Masonic Lodge in Brighton in 1907. Awarded the OBE in 1918 as honorary secretary of the Sussex County Association of Voluntary Workers. A keen francophile, he was inaugural president of the Brighton French Circle 1915-1926. (He died at Vichy, France.) Honorary Secretary of the Telephones and Telegraph Advisory Committee. He left over £54,000. His family mausoleum, designed by J L Denman, is Grade II listed. |
PERSONAL • 8 [later 9] North Street [offices] • 31 St Nicholas Road [residence 1887-1891] • 27 Temple Street [residence 1899-1907] • 9 Windlesham Avenue [residence 1908-1935] • Brighton Extramural Cemetery, Lewes Road [mausoleum] • St Peter's Church, St Peter's Place [memorial window] |
| BALDWIN, Stanley, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley KG 1867-1947 |
 Politician.British Conservative prime minister (1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937). Attended Brighton College after leaving Harrow School. Image: National Portrait Gallery |
PERSONAL • Brighton College, Eastern Road • Poynter Road |
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BARNETT, Canon Samuel Augustus 1844-1913 BARNETT, Dame Henrietta Octavia Weston DBE 1851-1936 |
Samuel Barnett. Anglican clergyman. Born in Bristol, he was canon of Bristol Cathedral from 1892 until appointed Canon of Westminster from 1906 until his death. Hhe was the husband of Dame Henrietta Barnett, with whom he was a founder in the East End of London of Toynbee Hall, the first 'university settlement' in 1884. Henrietta Barnett. Social reformer. Née Rowland, she married Samuel Barnett in 1873. She founded the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants in 1875 and was a founder of Hampstead Garden Suburb with architects Raymond Unwin and Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1904. He lived in Hove for the last 12 years of her life and is buried in Hangleton.   Images: double portrait by Herbert Herkomer [both National Portrait Gallery] | PERSONAL • 45 Wish Road [residence 1924-1936] • St Helen's Church, Hangleton Way [grave] |
| BARRASFORD, Thomas 1859-1910 |
 Theatre owner.In the 1880s he was a member of the Moore & Burgess Minstrel Show before moving into hotel-keeping in the north-east. He went into entertainment in 1895 when he took over a wooden circus building on the site of a pit-heap in Jarrow and created the Jarrow Palace of Varieties music hall. His soubriquet was 'the born hustler'. He married Maud D'Almayne, a music hall singer and his second wife, in 1897. In March 1899 he bought the Tivoli music hall in Leeds and introduced twice nightly performances at low prices—a policy he repeated in his other halls. Films were included on the bill at his theatres from 1900, typically as the last item and with orchestral accompaniment. As part of his rapid expansion he acquired in 1902 the Brighton Hippodrome and the Empire Theatre in New Road, Brighton, which he renamed the Coliseum Theatre (later the Court Cinema). At this time he moved his base from Leeds to Brighton. In 1905 Barrasford opened the Alhambra music hall in Paris and arranged cross-channel tours of artistes in both directions. Local newsreels were made for the Leeds Tivoli by film cameraman Owen Brooks, who appears to have been mainly responsible for developing a version of the cinematograph for use in the Hippodromes with the name Barrascope. In 1908 Barrasford and William Faulkner, an engineer at the Brighton Hippodrome, patented 'a fire extinguishing contrivance for use with kinematographs'.  He was also a noted race-horse owner and invented a starting gate that went into production and was adopted by the Jockey Club.He died at his residence, Hippodrome House, next door to the theatre, leaving an estate of around £70,000. His funeral [right] is said to have been one of the largest ever seen in Brighton. |
PERSONAL • Hippodrome, Middle Street † Empire Theatre (Court Cinema), New Road |
| BASHFORD, Celia 1799-1831 |
Trunk murder victim. Born in Ardingly, the sixth of 11 children, she was slightly over four feet tall. While on service in Brighton, she met John William Holloway of Lewes at Brighton Races and fell in love with him. When she became pregnant he refused to marry her, so she sought parish relief in Ardingly. The authorities there had Holloway arrested and imprisoned at Lewes for five weeks until he agreed to marry her. Ardingly then refused help to the married couple, who returned to Brighton, where the child was still-born. Holloway was serving with the Naval Blockade Service at Rye when he met and bigamously married Ann Kennett. When the couple returned to Brighton and he found work as a painter on the Chain Pier, Celia applied for parish relief; the overseers ordered him to pay 2s a week, which he didn't. Holloway murdered Celia at her lodgings on 24 July 1831, and with Kennett's assistance burned her clothes and dismembered the body, taking the head and limbs to the privy of their lodgings at 7 Margaret Street and taking her torso in a trunk to a shallow grave in Lover's Walk. About a week later the remains were discovered after heavy rainfall. She was buried by coroner's warrant at Preston on 14 August. Holloway was executed at Horsham Gaol on 15 December 1831. |
PERSONAL • 4 Cavendish Place [deathplace] |
| BATTERSBY, (George) Martin 1914-1982 |
Artist and theatre set designer. An expert on Art Nouveau, he trained as an actor at RADA but concentrated on stage sets after being commissioned to design Laurence Olivier's production of Hamlet at the Old Vic (1938). He specialised in trompe l'oeil paintings and helped to establish Brighton Museum's collection of 20th-century art. He never married, died in London and left £100,079. |
PERSONAL • 36 Sussex Square [residence 1964-1973] • 20 Prince Albert Street [studio/shop c1968] |
| BAYLEY, Laura Eugenia 1862-1938 |
 Actress and film director.Born in Ramsgate, daughter of a sadler, she had been on the stage in Hastings by c1880 (and gained a glowing review from The Era for her role as Aladdin at Morton’s Theatre, Greenwich in 1891/92) and was still appearing in panto in Brighton in 1895/96. She was the wife of cinema pioneer George Albert Smith, whom she married in 1888. As well as acting in many of Smith's films, she also played a role as producer and was probably also involved in writing, directing and possibly even camera work. Smith himself gave her credit for the ‘facials’—close-ups of comic faces—that were popular with early audiences. She was one of the most prolific film actresses at the time and may have a good claim to be the one of most prolific woman filmmakers ever. In his filmography of women silent filmmakers in Britain, Luke McKernan lists Laura Bayley as the possible director of 84 films in 1900-1901, some of them shot in Brighton and Hove but others in London, Scotland, Belgium, Italy and India. She is known to have used a 17.5mm Biokam camera, devised and made by Alfred Darling and Alfred Wrench. Her three sisters, Eva (1854-), Florence Charlotte (1856-1902) and Blanche Alberta (1866-1945) were also actresses and appeared in Smith’s films. Florence was also lessee of a theatre in Ramsgate before her death. |
PERSONAL • St Ann's Well Gardens, Somerhill Road [workplace, residence 1894-1903] • Caburn House, 13 Caburn Road [residence 1911-1912] • 7 Melville Road [residence 1915-1938] |
| BAYLY, Ada Ellen 1857-1903 |
 Novelist.Writing as Edna Lyall, she was bBorn in Brighton, the youngest of four children of a barrister. He parents died when she was about seven and she was brought up by an uncle in Surrey but attended a private school in Brighton. Her first novel was published in 1879; her first success came five years later with a book based on the life of social reformer Charles Bradlaugh. One of her 18 novels was the last read to John Ruskin on his deathbed. |
PERSONAL • 5 Montpelier Villas [birthplace, childhood residence 1857-1864] |
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BEAL, John 1831-1911 BEAL, John James William 1854-1942 BEAL, Frank George JP 1866-1951 BEAL, Ernest Frederick VC 1883-1918 |
John Beal. Stationer. Founder of the stationery and bookselling family business. He was the father of John James William Beal and Frank George Beal. He retired to Cuckfield. John James William Beal. Stationer, newsagent and bookseller. He succeeded his father, John Beal, in the family business and was the father of Ernest Beal. He retired to Rustington. Frank George Beal [below left]. Stationer and politician. A councillor for Preston ward (1925-1933) and an alderman, as mayor of Brighton 1932/1933 he opened the undercliff path to Saltdean and saw the inauguration of the electrified London-Brighton railway line. He was also involved in creating the Alliance Building Society by merging the Brighton and Bristol ventures. Ernest Beal [below right]. Soldier. Son of John James William Beal, he attended Brighton Grammar School, then joined the family business in the East Street shop. In 1914 he enlisted in the Sussex Yeomanry, and was promoted to sergeant. In 1916 he was transferred to the 1th Royal Sussex Regiment and served at Gallipoli and on the western front. In 1917 he was offered a commission and as a second lieutenant joined the 3rd Yorkshire Regiment. on 22 March 1918 he saved the life of one of his men under fire, for which he was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously. He is listed on the Arras Memorial to the Missing, as well as on the Brighton War Memorial in Old Steine, where a commemorative stone to him was unveiled on 16 March 2018.   Images: Frank Beal, with his chain of office just visible, with Magnus Volk and wives at the 50th anniversary celebration of Volk's Railway [source: ESRO]; Ernest Beal. |
COMMEMORATION (for Frank) • Beal Crescent PERSONAL • 148 Lewes Road [Ernest's birthplace, family residence 1883-1918] PERSONAL (Frank) • 10 Semley Road [residence 1897-1928] • 10 Vernon Terrace [residence 1929-1951] |
| BEARD family | Extensive family of landowners in the east of Brighton and at Rottingdean/Ovingdean. There is a family vault in St Wulfran's churchyard. | COMMEMORATION • Beard's Lane PERSONAL • St Wulfran's churchyard, Greenways |
| BEARDSLEY, Aubrey 1872-1898 |
 Illustrator.Born in Buckingham Road, he stayed for much of his childhood with an aunt in Lower Rock Gardens. |
PERSONAL • 31 Buckingham Road [birthplace] • 21 Lower Rock Gardens |
| BELLINGHAM family | An old Sussex family. Edward Bellingham of Erringham, Sussex was an uncle by marriage to Anthony Sherley of Preston. His son Sir Edward Bellingham (1506-1549) was a Lord Deputy of Ireland. Richard Bellingham (d 1553) was Sheriff of Sussex and Surrey in 1529, 1535 and 1543; he built Hangleton Manor in the 1540s. Edward Bellingham was High Sheriff of Sussex in 1566 and (presumably) another Edward was High Sheriff of Sussex and Surrey in 1611. |
COMMEMORATION • Bellingham Crescent RESIDENTIAL • Hangleton Manor |
| BENETT, Vere Fane 1839-1894 BENETT-Stanford, John Montagu 1870-1947 |
Vere Fane Benett [below left]. Soldier, politician and landowner. Born at Boynton, Wiltshire, the son of a clergyman who was critical of Augustus Pugin's ideas and had a disputation argument with him. His family seat was at Pythouse, Tisbury, Wiltshire. Vere married Ellen Stanford, the heiress of Preston Manor, in 1867 and changed his name to Benett-Stanford. Prior to this, in 1863, he fathered a child by a 19-year-old actress, Fanny Josephs. By the time of his death he was styled Benet-Stanford. He was MP for Salisbury in 1873-1880. He died at Funchal, Madeira, where there was a family residence. John Montagu Benett-Stanford [below right]. Soldier, landowner, cinema pioneer. Son of Vere Fane Benett and Ellen Stanford, who owned Preston Manor in Brighton, left Eton at the age of 16 for a two-year apprenticeship with the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway. He then took a commission in the 3rd Battalion the Wiltshire Regiment. It was through this connection that he became the first person ever to film actuality footage in war conditions. Known as ‘Mad Jack’ and ‘Roaring Jack’, he made two successful films before and after the battle of Omdurman (1 September 1898) in the Sudan campaign of 1898, followed by the return of Lord Kitchener (The Sirdar) to London, the latter produced by R W Paul’s Animatograph works. The next year he made (at least) two films at the family residence in Madeira and then five more in England—all of which were distributed by the Warwick Trading Company, then headed by Charles Urban. Under an arrangement with Warwick, he set off to South Africa with a Bioscope film camera in October 1899 and sent back at least five films, including scenes of troops crossing the Modder River. His war films were enthusiastically received by British audiences. All his films were processed and printed by G A Smith in Hove, released in January 1900. His film activity seems to have ended in 1900. Although he did not even mention this work in an unpublished memoir, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls him ‘cinematographer and land owner’, so it is for his film work that he is mainly remembered.   Images: Vere Fane Benett; John Montagu Benett-Stanford [Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust] |
COMMEMORATION • Benett Avenue • Benett Drive • Tisbury Road RESIDENTIAL • Preston Manor |
| BENNEY, (Ernest Alfred) Sallis ARCA 1894-1966 |
Artist, designer and academic administrator. Noted for landscape paintings and commemorative plaques, he was born in Bradford. In 1934 he was appointed Director of Art Education for the County Borough of Brighton and Principal of Brighton School of Art. He introduced new departments for theatre and cinema design. The theatre at the school (now part of the University of Brighton) is named in his honour. Brighton Museum and Art Gallery has some of his work, as do the Towner Gallery at Eastbourne and Worthing Art Gallery. |
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| BERESFORD, Gerald Waddington OBE, FRCS 1886-1979 |
General surgeon. He trained at the London Hospital, where he later became surgical registrar. During World War One he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt and France, being mentioned in dispatches, rising to the rank of major and being awarded the OBE. In Brighton he was a surgeon at the Red Cross Hospital for Officers. He was appointed assistant suregon at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in 1922 (full surgeon 1936), and was surgeon to the Sussex Maternity and Women's Hospital and the Victoria Hospital in Lewes. He retired from hospital service in 1951 but remained in private practice for a further 10 years. |
COMMEMORATION • Beresford Road PERSONAL • 11 Adelaide Crescent [residence 1932-1964] |
| BERESFORD, Lord Marcus Talbot de la Poer KCVO 1848-1922 |
 Stables manager.Son of the 4th Marquess of Waterford, his step-mother in her third marriage was Lily, Duchess of Marlborough, who had a residence in Hove, which he retained after her death. He ran the racing stables of the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, and then of George V from 1890 to 1922. |
PERSONAL • 35 Adelaide Crescent [residence 1907-1922] |
| BEST, Edna Clara 1900-1974 |
 Film star.She made her first screen appearance in the title role in Tilly of Bloomsbury, produced by G B Samuelson in 1921. She had the lead role in nearly all her subsequent films, including three in 1931-32 in which she played opposite Herbert Marshall, whom she had married in 1928 as the second of her three husbands. Her first American film was Michael Curtiz' The Key (1934), playing opposite William Powell but she returned to England and in the same year she was in Alfred Hitchcock's British (first) version of The Man Who Knew Too Much. In 1938 she was in a BBC Television version of Love from a Stranger. She returned to America around the outbreak of war in Europe and appeared in half a dozen more films. In the 1950s her work was confined to American television. Her father, Leonard Best, was a well-to-do stockbroker and in Edna's childhood the family lived in Pembroke Crescent. Her stage début was in September 1917. She played Peter Pan in the early 1920s and acted on stage throughout her career. She is commemorated on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. |
PERSONAL • Redcliff, Pembroke Crescent [childhood residence] |
| BEVAN, Robert Polhill 1865-1925 |
 Artist.Post-impressionist painter, he was born at the residence of his grandfather in Brunswick Square. In his twenties he travelled extensively and in 1894 met Gauguin, whose use of colour influenced him. Settled in London from 1900, he was a founding member of the Camden Town Group of painters. His painting 'Cab Yard, Night' (1910) bought by Brighton Art Gallery at an exhibition of Post-Impressionists, Cubists and Others at the gallery in December 1913-January 1914 for £40 was the only one acquired for a public gallery in his lifetime. Image: Self-portrait [National Portrait Gallery] |
PERSONAL • 17 Brunswick Square [birthplace] • 3 Buxton Road [residence 1898-1899] |
| BEVAN, Robert Cooper Lee 1809-1890 |
 Banker.Eldest son of a partner in Barclay, Bevan & Co, the London bank founded by his grandfather. He himself became a senior partner in Barclays Bank as it was then called. During his time in Brighton his concern about the condition of the poor led to his involvement in 1849 in founding the Brighton Town Mission. He had seven children by his first wife, daughter of Vice-Admiral Sir Joseph Sidney Yorke, and nine by his second, daughter of the Bishop of Chichester. His principal residences were at Fosbury in Hampshire and Trent Park, Middlesex. His second son became chairman of Barclays Bank. |
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| BILLINTON, Robert John 1844-1904 |
 Railway engineer.Born in Wakefield, son of a railway contractor. In 1870 he was appointed assistant to William Stroudley at the Brighton Railway Works of the London Brighton & South Coast Railway but moved to the Midland Railway works in Derby between 1874 and 1890, when he was appointed LB&SCR's Locomotive, Carriage, Wagon and Marine Superintendent following the death of Stroudley. His son Lawson B Billinton (1882-1954) was LB&SCR Locomotive Engineer 1912-1922. |
COMMEMORATION • Billinton Way |
| BINDER, Pearl (Polly), Lady Elwyn-Jones 1904-1989 |
 Writer and artist.Born in Salford, the daughter of a Jewish tailor Russian-Ukrainian immigrant, she studed at the Central School of Art and Design, then settled in the East End, which provided material for her drawings and her association with the pearly kings and queens. She worked in lithography, sculpture, stained glass and illustration. With James Laver, she co-presented a children's television series about the history of fashion in 1937, the year she married barrister Frederick Elwyn Jones. She died in Brighton, seven weeks after the death of her husband. |
PERSONAL • 17 Lewes Crescent [residence] |
| BIRCH, Lt-Gen Sir (James Frederick) Noel GBE KCB KCMG ADC 1865-1939 |
 Soldier.Commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1885 and served in Ashanti and the Second Boer War in South Africa. He commanded the Riding Establishment at Woolwich 1905-1907 and in 1912 became commander of the 7th brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, with which he went to France in August 1914. In 1916 Sir Douglas Haig, now commander-in-chief on the Western Front, made Birch his chief artillery adviser and he was promoted to lieutenant-general. ADC to George V 1915-171. In 1921 he was appointed diretor-general of the Territorial Army and was later master-general of the Ordnance 1923-1927. After etiring from the army he was director of Vickers-Armstrong. |
PERSONAL • 17 Montpelier Crescent [residence c1917-1919] 1Walford (1919): 115 |
| BLABER, William 1818-1903 |
Businessman. Chairman and managing director of the Brighton Hove and Preston Waterworks Company. |
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BLACK, David 1818-1892 BLACK, Arthur 1851-1893 BLACK, Clementina Maria 1853-1922 |
David Black. Solicitor. He became town clerk and coroner of Brighton. Father of Constance Garnett and Ernest Black, he became paralysed in 1873 and was an invalid for the remainder of his life. He left £8,640 9s 9d. Arthur Black. Mathematician. Son of David Black and brother of Clementina Black, Constance Garnett and Ernest Black. In 1893 he killed his wife, his son and himself, leaving a daughter, who survived.  Clementina Black. Novelist, journalist and political activist. [right]Daughter of David Black and sister of Constance Garnett and Ernest Black. By 1881 she had moved to London but by 1891 had moved back to the family residence in Brighton but then returned to London. She was involved in the Fabian Society, the women's suffrage campaign and in trades unionism, as an organiser of the Bryant and May 'match girl' strike of 1888. |
PERSONAL • 58 Ship Street [family residence 1856-1875] • 40 Buckingham Place [family residence 1877-1893] |
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BLACK, Alderman Hugh Milner 1864-1950 BLACK, Tom Campbell 1899-1936 |
Hugh Milner Black. Pharmacist, optician and local councillor. Born in London, he married in Australia in 1893, returned to England c1896 and settled in Brighton by 1900. In 1913 he was granted a US patent for an eye-testing device and another in 1915 for an advertising sign. Elected as a local councillor in 1902. He was mayor of Brighton 1924, in which role he opened both Dyke Road Park and Saunders Park, and was made a Freeman of the Borough of Brighton in 1948. There is a memorial plaque at Woodvale Cemetery and Crematorium.  Tom Campbell Black. Aviator and coffee planter. [right]Son of Hugh Milner Black, educated at Brighton College and the Royal Naval College at Greenwich, from which he entered the Royal Naval Air Service in 1917, becoming a captain in the newly formed Royal Air Force. With his brother he managed a coffee plantation in Kenya until joining the newly formed Wilson Airways in Kenya in 1929. In 1934 he and C W A Scott won the London to Melbourne Air Race and a prize of £10,000. He married the actress Florence Desmond (1905-1993) a year before his death, which occurred in an accident at Speke Airport, Liverpool. There is a memorial plaque at Woodvale Cemetery and Crematorium. |
COMMEMORATION • Milner Flats PERSONAL • 81 St James's Street [shop] • 16 New Steine [family residence 1901-13] • 'Panta Rei', 3 Windlesham Gardens [family residence 1913-1950] PERSONAL (Tom Campbell Black) • 81 St James's Street [residence 1911] |
| BLACKETT, Admiral Henry CBE 1867-1952 |
Naval officer. Fourth son of Sir John Charles Blackett 4th bt. He was made lieutenant in 1890, commander 1902, captain 1907. He commanded the cruiser HMS Duke of Edinburgh from 1914 and at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. He was promoted to rear-admiral in 1919 and placed on the retired list, then vice-admiral 1925 and admiral in 1929. His wife was Hon Pamela Mary Fisher, daughter of Admiral of the Fleet Jackie Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher. |
PERSONAL • 9 Palmeira Court |
| BLAKER, Alderman Sir John (George) 1st bt OBE JP 1854-1926 BLAKER, Alderman Frederick 1864-1910 BLAKER, Sir Reginald, 2nd bt TD 1900-1975 |
 A family of local politicians.Sir John Blaker was born in Brighton, the eldest of 10 children of a grocer (also called John George). By Census1891 he was 'living on his own means'. He donated the land for Blaker's Park to the town in 1894 and was Mayor of Brighton 1895-98. He was knighted in 1897, awarded the OBE in 1918 and created Baronet Blaker of Brighton in 1919. He is buried at Woodvale Cemetery and left £290,506 1s 9d. Frederick Blaker was Sir John's younger brother, the sixth son and seventh child, who was mayor of Brighton in 1904/05. Sir Reginald Blaker, who was Conservative MP for Spelthorne 1931-1945, was Sir John's only son. He was educated at Charterhouse and admitted as a barrister (Inner Temple). He was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1923, serving as a major during the second world war. Image: Sir John Blaker as mayor with his wife Eliza (nee Cowell) and daughter Jessie (b1891) [Royal Pavilion & Museums] |
COMMEMORATION • Blaker's Park (donated 1894) • Blaker Street (built 1895-1899) PERSONAL • 28 York Road [John and Frederick's childhood residence 1854] • The Romans, 79 Stanford Avenue [John's residence 1891-1926] • Quarry Bank Road |
| BODLE, Richard -1838 |
Landowner, surveyor. Member of an old Brighton family. A carpenter by trade, he married Elizabeth Pocock in 1805 and took on one of the Pococks as an apprentice in 1807. High Constable of Brighton in 1818 and a churchwarden at St Nicholas. His name in the latter capacity was among those inscribed over the main entrance to the new workhouse in Church Hill in 1821. A 'gentleman' in the 1835 poll book. He owned 17 Grenville Place (1837). He was buried at St Nicholas churchyard. |
COMMEMORATION • Bodle's Court PERSONAL • Milton Cottage, Clarence Street [residence 1825-1838] |
| BOND, Sir (Charles) Hubert KBE FRCP 1870-1945 |
 Psychiatrist and mental health administrator.After appointments in mental hospitals, he was appointed a Commissioner in Lunacy in 1912 and a commissioner of the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiiency when it was formed in 1914. He became one of the four senior commissioners in 1930 and remained there until shortly before his death. Image: National Portrait Gallery |
PERSONAL • 10 Portland Place [residence 1925-1945] |
| BOOTH, Edward Thomas 1840-1890 |
 Naturalist.Born in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire and educated at a private school in Brighton, then Harrow and Cambridge, the son of a gentleman of independent means, Booth learned how to stuff birds from a barber near his father's house in St Leonards. He captured birds on the marshes near Rye, then travelling off to Norfolk and the Scottish highlands. He moved to Brighton around 1865 and acquired a large site on Dyke Road in 1874. The 'bird museum' he built was bequeathed to Brighton Corporation. Image: Royal Pavilion & Museums |
COMMEMORATION • Booth Museum, Dyke Road |
| BOTHAM, Benjamin William 1824-1877 |
Photographer and theatre proprietor. Born in Halesworth, Suffolk, son of a tailor. He was a linen draper before he came to Brighton with his family by 1861 and opened a studio as a 'photographic artist' in Western Road. He sold the business in 1868 and took over the New Oxford Theatre of Varieties, which his widow ran after his death. His elder son was the architect Clayton Botham, who, with his brother John Andrew Botham, owned the theatre after their mother's death 1882. |
PERSONAL • 23 Egremont Place [family residence 1861] • 43 Western Road and 33 Clarence Square [business 1861-1868] • New Oxford Theatre of Varieties, 16-17 New Road [business 1868-1877] • 6 Marlborough Place [residence 1872-1877, deathplace] |
| BOUCICAULT, Dion [Dionysius Lardner] 1820-1890 |
 Irish actor and dramatist.Noted writing for London Assurance, The Shaughraun and The Corsican Brothers, he was the illegitimate son of scientist Dionysius Lardner, taking the surname Boursiquot from his mother's family. He married a wealthy French widow, Anne Guiot, in 1845, who died the same year when she fell in the Alps; Boucicault's involvement was the subject of unresolved speculation. He was bankrupted many times and campaigned for a scheme for paying royalties to playwrights, which was achieved in 1860. He spent time between the United States and Britain from 1853 and died in New York. |
PERSONAL • 6 Cavendish Place [residence 1862-1872] |
| BOULTING, (Joseph Edward) John 1913-1985 BOULTING, Alfred Fitzroy Clarence (Roy) 1913-2001 |
 Film-makers.Identical twins who spent much of their early lives in Hove, where they were educated at Monclare College, a prep school. Their love of the cinema, to which they contributed some of the most successful British films of the period after the Second World War, began in 1921 when their nanny took them to see Rudolf Valentino in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse at the newly-opened Regent Cinema in Brighton five times in one week. In 1937 they formed Charter Films and throughout their careers alternated between directing and producing, depending on the type of project. John Boulting directed the official Festival of Britain film, The Magic Box, the biopic about William Friese Greene. They collaborated on Brighton Rock, John directing and Roy producing. |
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| BOURCHIER, Arthur 1863-1927 |
 Actor and theatre manager.He was educated at Eton and Oxford, where he founded the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS). In 1894 he married Violet Vanbrugh, whom he met in a production the previous year and who became his regular leading lady. As a manager, he leased the Royalty THeatre in 1895 and after a tour of America took the Criterion with Charles Wyndham in 1900, before beginning a six-year stint at the Garrick later that year, to which he returned in 1912 for two years. He managed the Strand Theatre 1919-1923 and made a few film appearances. He became a member of the Labour Party and was due to stand for parliament at the time of his death, which occurred during a tour of South Africa. |
PERSONAL • 10 Western Esplanade [residence 1910-1925] |
| BOWEN, Sir George Ferguson 1821-1899 |
 Colonial administrator.Successively governor of Queensland, New Zealand, Victoria, Mauritius and Hong Kong, died at the Metropole Hotel. |
PERSONAL • Metropole Hotel, King's Road |
| BOWRING, Edgar Alfred CB 1826-1911 |
Civil servant, politician and translator. Fourth son of Sir John Bowring KCB (1792-1872). He married Thomas Cubitt's fourth daughter, Sophia in 1853. He was librarian and registrar at the Board of Trade 1848-1863, during which time he was secretary to the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. He was Liberal MP for Exeter 1868-1874. He was also a translator from the German, including the works of Goethe and Schiller. |
PERSONAL • 5 Lewes Crescent [residence 1883-1911, deathplace] |
| BOWRING, Walter Andrew CBE 1862-1951 |
 Surgeon.Son of a merchant, trained at St Thomas's Hospital, where he became senior obstetric house physician and senior resident medical officer at the Royal Free Hospital. He settled in Brighton, becoming consulting surgeon at the Royal Sussex County Hospital and the Sussex Maternity and Women's Hospital. He died in a nursing residence in Norton Road and is buried in Hove Cemetery. |
COMMEMORATION • Bowring Way PERSONAL • 38 Montpelier Crescent [residence 1899-1904] • The Pines, Furze Hill [residence 1905-1951] |
| BOX, Thomas 1808-1876 |
 Cricketer.Born at Ardingly, he played first-class cricket from the agen of 18 in 1826 until his retirement in 1856. He played in Sussex during the early years of roundarm bowling and was a member of the Sussex county team from its foundation in 1839. Renowned as a wicketkeeper, he had a career total of 236 catches and 162 stumpings. A benefit match in 1843 gave him the resources to lease the Hanover Arms in Lewes Road, adjacent to the Royal New Ground, where he managed matches. The field became known as Box's Ground and was used by Sussex CCC until 1847. Box then leased the Royal Brunswick Ground and the club moved there. He went to live in Lambeth after his wife's death, where he was unsuccessful as a publican and died at Prince's Cricket Ground in Chelsea, where he was an attendant. |
PERSONAL • 8 Viaduct Terrace [residence 1851] • Hanover Arms and Royal Cricket Ground, Lewes Road • Royal Brunswick Ground, Hove [lessee, 1847-1859] • Egremont Tavern/Hotel, 111-112 Western Road [licensee 1852-1859] • Good Intent, 55 Edward Street [licensee 1856-1867] |
| BOXALL, William Percival JP 1814-1898 |
Landowner. He bought land from Thomas Cubitt and as a landowner in the Kemp Town area donated land on Sutherland Road for St Matthew's Church. |
COMMEMORATION • Percival Terrace PERSONAL • Belle Vue Hall [residence] • Clarendon Terrace [developer] |
| BOYCE, Sarah |
Property owner. Member of a local family who owned land/property in the Old Town. |
COMMEMORATION • Boyce's Lane |
| BRACKENBURY, Hannah 1795-1873 |
Benefactor. Born in Leyland, Lancashire, she inherited much of the family wealth. She moved to Hove with her brother Ralph (1797-1864) from Kent in the late 1850s. She bought and donated the land for the St Nicolas School in Locks Hill and elsewhere was a substantial benefactor of Balliol College, Oxford. The family vault is at St Nicolas Church, Portslade. She left nearly £160,000. |
PERSONAL • 13 Brunswick Terrace [residence 1859-1864] • 30 Brunswick Terrace [residence 1865-1868] • 31 Adelaide Crescent [residence 1869-1873, deathplace] |
| BRIDGE, William Henry 1845-1928 BRIDGE, Frank 1879-1941 |
 William Henry Bridge. Musician, band leader, music teacher and printer.Born in Brighton, the son of a master boot maker, he was a violinist, leader of the band and musical director at the Oxford Music Hall/Theatre of Varieties in New Road (1871-1875). He meanwhile had a lithograph printing and copper-plate engraving business, which continued as Bridge & Son. Frank Bridge.Composer, violinist and conductor. Born the fifth of 12 children, the son of William Henry Bridge. He was a violinist (1901) and tutor of Benjamin Britten. His younger brother William also became a music teacher. |
PERSONAL • 34 Marlborough Place [business and family residence 1865-1871] • 7 North Road [business and family residence 1871-1905, Frank's birthplace] • 57 Dyke Road [family residence 1889-1900] PERSONAL (William Henry) • 215 Clermont Road [residence 1910-1928] PERSONAL (Frank) • 73 Round Hill Crescent [visitor 1901] |
| BRIGDEN, Alderman John Leonhardt JP 1814-1903 |
Politician Four-time mayor of Brighton 1863-1865 and 1873-1875. A cup presented to him to mark his four terms was donated to the city by his family in 2004. |
COMMEMORATION • Brigden Street PERSONAL • 187 Western Road [1896] |
| BRIGGS, Sir John Thomas 1781-1865 |
Civil Servant. Joined the civil service at the Admiralty in 1796. Produced numerous reports on 'revising and digesting' the Royal Navy's civil affaits in 1806-1809, and was then appointed assistant-secretary to the Victualling Board until 1830, when he became private secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty but soon was appointed commissioner and accountant-general of the Victualling Board. On the board's abolition in 1832 he was made accountant-general to the navy. In that post, which he held until 1854, he reformed much of the navy's accounting practice, including methods of paying seamen, who could then remit money to their families. He was knighted in 1851. |
PERSONAL • 4 Royal Crescent [residence 1823-1865, deathplace] |
| BRILL, Charles 1815-1898 |
Entrepreneur. Born in Sible Hedingham, Essex. He inherited the bathing establishment of his uncle, Abraham Johnson, Lamprell in East Street and formed a limited company as Brill's Brighton Baths Co Ltd in 1865, when he commissioned new baths that bore his name between East Street and Pool Valley, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and opened in 1869, demolished in 1929. He also built Clarendon Mansions in 1870 on the south-east corner of East Street to replace his former lodging house. He owned and property in Freehold Terrace (1856). He retired and moved to London by 1871 and is buried Norwood Cemetery. |
COMMEMORATION • Brill's Lane PERSONAL • 77 East Street and 1 King's Road [baths 1845-1869] • Clarendon Mansion, Grand Junction Parade [proprietor of lodging house and residence 1848-1868] |
| BRISTOL, 1st Marquess/5th Earl of | See Hervey, Frederick William. | COMMEMORATION • Bristol Estate: Bristol Gardens; Bristol Gate; Bristol Mews; Bristol Road; Bristol Road East; Bristol Street; Bristol Terrace |
| BROOKE, Valentine E 1912-2001 |
Actor. He performed under the name Valentine Rooke. In 1939, when he gave his occupation as radio announcer, he married the actress Patricia Hayes. Their son, Richard is an actor (stage name Richard O'Callaghan). He died in Miami, Florida. |
PERSONAL • 138b Marine Parade [residence 1939] |
| BROOKE-PECHELL, Vice-Admiral Sir George Richard 4th bt 1789-1860 |
 Sailor, politician.Second son of Major-General Sir Thomas Brooke-Pechell (1753-1826). Joined the Royal Navy aged 14 in 1803, rose to the rank of captain in 1826 and was appointed rear-admiral on the retired list in 1852 and vice-admiral in 1856. He lost as Whig candidate for Brighton at the 1832 election, the first under the Reform Act, but won the seat in 1835 and held it until his death. He supported universal non-denominational education and the secret ballot and was opposed to church rates. From 1825 he lived at Castle Goring, Worthing, which he rented from Sir Timothy Shelley, MP for New Shoreham and father of the poet, from whose widow he bought the property in 1845. A mutilated statue of his son that once stood in the Royal Pavilion is in the grounds at Stanmer Park. He inherited the baronetcy from his elder brother, Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Brooke Pechell 3rd Bt (1785-1849), who was also an MP. Image: Portrait c1860 by Thomas Charles Wageman (National Maritime Museum) | |
| BROOKER, W Henry 1758- |
Attorney and notary. Born in Framfield. He built Hanover Crescent, designed by Amon Henry Wilds, in 1822 as a speculative venture. His will is in the National Archives1. |
PERSONAL • 14 Hanover Crescent [residence 1841-1845] • 97 North Street [office 1800] 1PROB 11/2081/337 |
| BROWN, Captain Sir Samuel RN KH 1774-1852 |
 Engineer.He joined the Royal Navy at an early age and, as an officer, fought in the Napoleonic wars. He became an engineer and invented chain bridges and suspension piers using chain cables and used these to build the Chain Pier in 1822-23. He was awarded a knighthood of the Royal Guelphic Order by William IV in 1835 (KH to signify that it is a Hanoverian order) and knighted by Queen Victoria in 1838. At the time of his death he lived in Blackheath, |
PERSONAL † Royal Suspension Chain Pier, Madeira Drive • 48 Marine Parade |
| BROWNE, Hablot Knight 1815-1882 |
 Artist and illustrator.Known as Phiz, he is most famous for illustrating the works of Charles Dickens. |
PERSONAL • 8 Clarendon Villas [residence] |
| BRUNEL, Adrian (Hope) 1892-1958 |
 Film-maker.A leading film director of the 1920s, noted for humour and parody. Educated at Harrow, in 1909 he founded the Sussex Men's League for Women's Suffrage in Portslade. After making his first film in 1917 he founded Minerva Films with the actor Leslie Howard and writer A A Milne, which made six films in 1920-21, all directed by Brunel and written by either him or Milne, two of them starring Howard and one C Aubrey Smith. In 1939 he was one of the writer/directors called on by Alexander Korda to make the first film of the war effort, The Lion Has Wings. Altogether he directed over 40 films, the last being The Girl who Forgot (1940), starring Eizabeth Allan, although he worked as production consultant with Howard on the latter's The First of the Few (1942) and The Gentle Sex (1943). He was a founder of the (London) Film Society and wrote several books about film production and screenwriting. He lived with his divorced mother in Portslade. |
PERSONAL • 61 Norway Street • 21 Franklin Road [family residence 1911] |
| BUCHANAN, Jack [Walter John] 1891-1957 |
 Actor.He started his career as a music hall comedian called Chump Buchanan, first appearing in a West End music in 1912. By the early 1920s he was a major stage star. With partners he built and operated the Leicester Square Theatre in London and the Imperial Theatre in Brighton. |
PERSONAL • 19 Lewes Crescent † Imperial Theatre, 134 North Street [later Essoldo Cinema] |
| BURLEIGH, Charles H H 1869-1956 BURLEIGH, Averil 1883-1949 BURLEIGH, Veronica 1909-1999 |
A family of artists. Charles Burleigh was born in Brighton, the son of a mathematician. He trained at Brighton School of Art and in Paris. He was part-time art master at St Aubyns School, Rottingdean for 57 years. In 1903 he commissioned a house and studio in Wilbury Crescent.Averil Burleigh trained at Brighton School of Art. She married Charles in 1903 and used their studio in Wilbury Crescent. Her paintings were included in the Royal Academy exhibitions for 20 consecutive years. She also worked as a book illustator and was a founder member of Sussex Women's Art Club. Their daughter Veronica Burleigh was also a painter, trained at the Slade School of Fine Art between 1927—the year she first had a painting exhibited at the Royal Academy—and 1930. Image: 'Self-portrait with the Artist's Parents' by Veronica Burleigh, c1937 [Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove]. |
PERSONAL • 7 Wilbury Crescent [residence and studio 1903-] ArtUK |
| BURNE-JONES, Sir Edward 1833-1898 |
 Artist and designer.A member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. He is buried in the nave at St Margaret's, Rottingdean. For his local design work, see Sir Edward Burne-Jones. |
PERSONAL • High Street, Rottingdean • Victoria Road • Washington Street • Poynter Road |
| BURROWS, Sir John Cordy 1813-1876 |
 Doctor and politician.Three-term mayor of Brighton (1857-59 and 1871-72). Born in Ipswich, he trained as a surgeon in London before coming to Brighton in 1837, setting up his own practice in 1839 in Old Steine. With Rev J N Goulty, his architect son H N Goulty and Amon Henry Wilds, he founded the Brighton Extra Mural Cemetery in 1850.In recognition of his good works, the inhabitants of Brighton presented him with a carriage and pair of horses in 1871. He was knighted in 1873 and his Grade II-listed statue was unveiled in 1878 in the grounds of the Royal Pavilion but moved to Old Steine in 1984. |
PERSONAL • 46 and 62 Old Steine |
| BUTT, Clara Ellen DBE 1872-1936 |
 Opera singer.Daughter of an oyster trawlerman, was born just outside the city in Adur Terrace, Southwick, became one of the world's most famous singers of the era and was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1920. |
PERSONAL • 33 New Church Road • St Aubyn's Mansions, King's Esplanade |
|
BYAM, Mary 1719-1878 BYAM, Lt-General Edward 1794-1878 |
Mary Byam Landowner. Mary Byam was born in Antigua to a father and mother who were apparently aged 15 and 16 respectively at the time of her birth; her father died at the age of 30 in 1734, while Mary lived on to the age of 95 in 1814. The plantation and up to 137 slaves was still known as George Byam's Estate in the compensation to slave-owners in the 1820s, by which time it has passed to the then Attorney General of Antigua. She was the mother of Mary Elizabeth Mathew, who married William Thomas Roe, owner of the Withdean estate, which included Tongdean Farm Edward Byam Soldier. Born in Antigua, son of a slave-owner, he fought in the Peninsula War; he and his elder brother were wounded at the Battle of Waterloo. Promoted in 1858 to Lt-General and Colonel of the 18th Regiment of (Light) Dragoons (18th Hussars from 1861) until 1864. He was a second cousin once removed of Mary Elizabeth Mathew. |
COMMEMORATION † • 138 King's Road (Byam House) [residence 1858-1864] ∫ • Byam Road |
| BYNG, Douglas 1893-1987 |
 Actor.(‘Bawdy—but British’) was a leading character actor, comic songwriter, drag artiste and notable pantomime dame. He is known to have made only three films, however: a short in 1930, a feature-length musical called Opening Night in 1935 and the film version of Hotel Paradiso (1966), committing to celluloid the role he played on stage nine years earlier. He continued to appear on stage until 1986 and was a regular at local theatres, including the Hippodrome from 1923 until its last summer in 1964. He died at the age of 94; his ashes were scattered outside the house in Arundel Terrace. |
PERSONAL • 6 Arundel Terrace [residence 1960s-1980s] |
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Page updated 27 October 2023