St Andrew's Church, Church Road, Hove - Graves and Memorials

Graves and Memorials

Many notable people have been buried at St Andrew's Church, although not all graves survive; and other people are commemorated by memorial tablets inside the church.

The watercolour artist Copley Fielding, who lived in Hove in his later years, was buried in a tomb in the northeast corner of the churchyard after his death in nearby Worthing in 1855. There is a memorial tablet in the south aisle. The Vallances, Lords of the Manor of Hove for 150 years, have their family vault outside the chancel. Their name is also commemorated by two streets within the parish, Vallance Road and Vallance Gardens; and the wider area was originally known locally as the Vallance Estate. The family of George Basevi, the church's architect, also have a vault and memorial stone inside the church—however, although his father, mother and sister were buried in it, George Basevi himself was buried at Ely Cathedral, where he died after falling from one of the towers. Brighton architect Charles Busby, who had been responsible for many churches in Brighton and Hove, was buried in the churchyard, but his tomb was removed when Church Road was widened in 1880.

Rev. Walter Kelly, who died in 1887 nine years after leaving office as vicar of Hove-cum-Preston, was buried in a tomb in the churchyard, and has a memorial stone in the chancel—it is the only memorial in that part of the church. Rev. Thomas Rooper, vicar of the other St Andrew's Church at Waterloo Street in the 1850s and 1860s, is commemorated by a wall tablet; next to it is a memorial for his son Major Edward Rooper, who died in the Crimean War. The tomb of the Elliott family, another prominent Anglican family from Brighton, is in the churchyard. Charlotte Elliott, the hymn writer, and her brothers Rev. Henry Venn Elliott and Rev. Edward Bishop Elliott (associated with the curacies of St Mary the Virgin Church and St Mark's Church respectively) are all buried there. Rev. Dr James O'Brien, the first incumbent at St Patrick's Church in nearby Cambridge Road, is also commemorated nearby.

One man whose name is internationally famous is also buried in a grave on the south side of the church. Sir George Everest, the geographer who undertook the Great Trigonometric Survey in India while acting as Surveyor-General, was the first person to determine the exact height of the world's highest mountain, which was then named after him. He died in London in December 1866 and was buried with his two children, sister and father-in-law. However, Sir George himself had no connection with Hove or Brighton at any time during his life, and none of the family members buried at the church were known to be associated with it.