Eastbourne - Notable People

Notable People

See also: Eastbourne Blue Plaques and Category:People from Eastbourne

Eastbourne can claim some notable regular visitors. Charles Dickens performed amateur dramatics at the Lamb Inn Lamb Theatre during the 1830s. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels were often in the area; the latter's ashes were scattered from Beachy Head at his request. "Darwin's Bulldog" Thomas Henry Huxley spent the last few years of his life in Eastbourne. Notable residents include Charles Webb, writer of The Graduate, who moved to Eastbourne with his wife in 2006, where they are housed by social services. The pianist Russ Conway was a resident for many years as was Henry Allingham, briefly the world's oldest man when he died in 2009 aged 113. Percy Sillitoe, director of MI5, also lived in the town in the 1950s. The novelist and children's writer Annie Keary died in the town in 1879. The leading evangelist Canon Stephen Warner was the vicar of Holy Trinity between 1919 and 1947.

Several bands have formed in Eastbourne, including Toploader, Easyworld, The Divided and The Mobiles.

Various notable scholars have passed through the Eastbourne education system. Aleister Crowley, occultist and mystic attended Eastbourne College and later edited a chess column for the Eastbourne Gazette. Polar explorer Lawrence Oates attended South Lynn School in Mill Gap Road. George Mallory, the noted mountaineer, attended Glengorse Preparatory School in Chesterfield Road between 1896–1900. Count László Almásy, the basis of the lead character of The English Patient, was educated by a private tutor at Berrow, and was a member of the pioneering Eastbourne Flying Club. Douglas Bader, who became a successful Second World War fighter pilot despite having lost both legs in a flying accident, attended Temple Grove Preparatory School in Compton Place Road. The philosopher A. J. Ayer was a pupil at Ascham St. Vincent's School in Carlisle Road. In addition to Orwell, Connolly, Beaton, Maxwell and Longhurst listed on the St Cyprian's School blue plaque, the writers Alaric Jacob, E. H. W. Meyerstein and Alan Hyman also attended that school. The biographer and historian Philip Ziegler was a pupil as was the music historian Dyneley Hussey and politician, historian and diarist Alan Clark. Other politicians were Richard Wood who had lost both legs in the war, and David Ormsby-Gore later ambassador to the USA. Artists Cedric Morris and David Kindersley also attended the school as did military figures such as General Sir Lashmer Whistler and Major General Robert Foot VC. Pupils with sporting connections include the amateur jockey Anthony Mildmay and Seymour de Lotbiniere Director of Outside Broadcasts at the BBC. Jagaddipendra Narayan was a reigning Maharaja of Cooch Behar while at the school. Other former pupils include the war-blinded life peer Lord Fraser and the submarine commander Rupert Lonsdale. Modern celebrities who studied in the town include Prunella Scales and Eddie Izzard.

In 1993, following a suggestion to Eastbourne Borough Council by Eastbourne Civic Society (now Eastbourne Society), a joint project was set up to erect blue plaques on buildings associated with famous people. The principles for selection are broadly those already established by English Heritage for such plaques in London. The first was erected in November 1994 in Milnthorpe Road at the former home of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer.