We’re testing your knowledge of Sussex and its famous folk once more, with this, the next in the series. Some of these are pretty tricky but well done to all of those who have been in touch with the answers to the first two in the series! You certainly know your Sussex.
1. He came from elsewhere but was eventually admitted to the Bishopric of Chichester, where he carried out good works, and also bred figs.
2. He was the son of a parson in the west of the county, became a successful dramatist but died in poverty in London at an early age.
3. He started as a shepherd boy, stored his books in a hole on the Downs and became a schoolmaster.
4. He came to Sussex from Norfolk as an excise officer, married a tobacconist’s daughter, became involved in a lively debating society and wrote some of the original works on human rights, before going to America.
5. The first serious monarch to live in Sussex and develop both a notable palace and the resort around it.
6. Born in Horsham and educated there (before getting sent down from Oxford for his seditious views) he dallied at Cuckfield and with the affections of a schoolmistress in Hurstpierpoint, before becoming one of our most famous poets and drowning in Italy at a young age.
7. A solicitor and antiquarian, now believed to have been responsible for some notable forgeries the most famous of which, a skull, was after many years, proved to have been a later skull with the jaw bone of an ass.
8. Born over the border in Hampshire, he created one of our most famous detectives and lived latterly at Crowborough, where he dappled with spiritualism.
9. Definitely one of the villains, he lived in Kensington but had two small workshops in Crawley. He brought wealthy residents down to Crawley, gave them lunch at The George Hotel, showed them the workshops, bumped them off and dissolved their bodies in acid. He hanged for his crimes.
10. One of our most famous modern actors, he lived at Kemptown and Ashurst and directed the Chichester Festival Theatre.
11. A Scot and publisher, he served as Chancellor and Prime Minister and lived at Horsted Keynes where he is buried.
12. Something of an alternative comedian, he / she was born in Bexhill and educated in Eastbourne.
Post Script
And the answers to this quiz about Sussex famous folk are:
- St Richard de la Wych
- Thomas Otway
- John Dudeney
- Thomas Paune
- The Prince Regent (King George IV)
- Percy B Shelley
- Charles Dawson
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- John George Haigh
- Sir Laurence Olivier
- Harold MacMillan
- Eddie Izzard
Contributed by Peter Benner
