People

 

Brighton and Hove people: S

     
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SACKVILLE family Landowners. There were prominent Sackville families at Chiddingly and Seddlescombe in Elizabethan times.
Sir Thomas Sackvilleof Withyam, Sussex
      He was made Earl of Dorset by James I/VI in 1604.
Lionel Sackville (1688-1765), the 7th Earl.
      He was elevated to become 1st Duke of Dorset in 1720. The family owned extensive lands throughout Sussex and were Lords of the Manor of Hove until 1967.
COMMEMORATION
Dorset Buildings
Dorset Gardens
Dorset Street
New Dorset Street
SALOMONS, Philip
1796-1867
Financier.
      He built a private synagogue on the top floor of his house in Brunswick Terrace.
PERSONAL
26 Brunswick Terrace
SAMUEL, Israel
1738-1806
Silversmith, toyman, jewellery/precious metals making.
      Reputedly Brighton's first Jewish resident. However, as he was said to have been born in Brighton, the son of a Prussian immigrant who died in Brighton in 1760, this cannot be accurate—perhaps first Brighton-born?
PERSONAL
22 East Street [residence nearby 1776-1806]
SASSOON, David
1792-1864
SASSOON, Sir Albert Abdullah David CSI, KCB 1st bt
1818-1896
SASSOON, Sassoon David
1832-1867
SASSOON, Reuben David MVO
1835-1905
SASSOON, Arthur Abraham David
1840-1912
SASSOON, Sir (Albert) Edward CSI, 2nd bt
1856-1912
SASSOON, Edward Elias 2nd Bt
1853-1924
SASSOON, David R
A prominent Brighton Jewish family.
David Sassoon. Merchant.
      He was a trader (David Sassoon & Co, based in Mumbai/Bombay) in cotton and opium from China; Treasurer of Baghdad, where he was born, 1817-1829. He died in Poona.
Sir Albert Abdullah David Sassoon. Merchant and banker.
      Son of David Sassoon, he was born in Baghdad and became head of his father's company in 1864. He was a member of the Legislative Council of Bombay 1868-1872. He married Aline Caroline de Rothschild (1867-1909) in 1887 and died in Brighton.
Sassoon David Sassoon. Merchant.
      Son of David Sassoon, he joined the firm to run the Chinese mercantile operations. He moved to London and opened a bank in Leadenhall Street. In 1850 he married Fahra (Flora) Reuben of Mumbai, who lived in Hove in widowhood. Their son Alfred Ezra was disinherited for marrying a gentile; he was the father of Siegfried Sassoon, the writer and poet. Their daughter Rachel became the first female editor of a UK national newspaper in 1891 at The Observer, owned by the family of her gentile husband, Frederick Beer, and in 1893 she bought The Sunday Times. She was buried in the Sassoon Mausoleum.
Reuben David Sassoon. Merchant.
      Son of David Sassoon, worked for his father's company.
David Sassoon and sonsArthur Abraham David Sassoon. Merchant and socialite.
      Son of David Sassoon and a director of David Sassoon & Co. The Prince of Wales stayed at his house in Queen's Gardens in February 1898 and after accession as Edward VII returned in 1908 and 1910. Kingsway was given that name to commemorate the association. Four stained glass windows in Middle Street synagogue are in his memory.
Sir (Albert) Edward Sassoon. Merchant.
      Son of Sir Albert, born in Bombay/Mumbai. He left £758,853 16s 2d.
Edward Elias Sassoon. Merchant.
David R Sassoon, son of Reuben.
Image: David Sassoon and his sons, Reuben, Arthur and Sassoon
PERSONAL
1 Eastern Terrace [residence of Sir Albert and son Edward with 12 servants in 1881]
3 Third Avenue [residence of Edward Elias 1881]
7 Queen's Gardens, Hove [residence of Reuben 1881-1905, then David R 1905-1930]
8 Queen's Gardens, Hove [residence of Arthur 1883-1912]
12 Queen's Gardens, Hove [residence of Edward Elias 1901]
37 Adelaide Crescent [residence of Flora, widow of Sassoon]
Sassoon Mausoleum, Paston Place
SAYERS, Thomas (Tom)
1826-1865
Pugilist.
Tom Sayers      Born in Brighton, son of a cordwainer (shoe-maker). He went to Middle Street School. His first job was as a shoemaker's journeyman, presumably working for his father, then as a bricklayer employed on the Brighton and Lewes railway line. He moved to Camden Town to work on the London & North-Western Railway (LNWR). In 1844 he began fighting as a middleweight in the era of long bouts and was defeated only once, in a 61-round match. His last contest ('the fight of the century') was for £200-a-side against an American heavyweight in May 1860, which ended in a draw after 37 rounds. A public subscription raised £3,000; he received the interest on condition he retired. His entry in Census1861 reads 'PUGILIST, Champion of England!!!' He died there, is buried in Highgate Cemetery and left effects under £4,000, his children receiving the capital from the fund when they came of age. A plaque in his memory was unveiled near his childhood residence in April 2010.
COMMEMORATION
79 North Road

PERSONAL
Pimlico [family residence 1841]
13 Bread Street [residence 1851]
SCOTT, Edmund
1758-1815
SCOTT, William Henry Stothard
1782-1850
SCOTT, Emily
1798-1883
SCOTT, Charles James
1804-??
SCOTT, John Henderson
1828-1886
SCOTT, Edmund Evan
1828-
SCOTT, Mary Fores
1853-19??
SCOTT, Amy
1860-1950
Four generations of local artists. The family archive was left to Hove Museum in the will of Amy Scott.
      Edmund Scott. Engraver and draughtsman.
Nineteen of his portraits are in the National Portrait Gallery. His portrait of George, Prince of Wales, as Grand Master of Freemasons (1800) is in the Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries collection. Appointed portrait engraver to the Prince of Wales in 1811.
William Henry Stothard Scott. Landscape painter.
      Son of Edmund. His view of Brighton (1817) is in the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art. Died and interred in Brighton.
Emily Scott. Portrait painter.
      Daughter of Edmund, born in Brighton. She left £2,960 15s 11d.
Charles James Scott. Drawing master.
      Son of Edmund, father of Edmund Evan.
John Henderson Scott. Landscape painter, watercolour artist.
      Left £1,939 17s 11d.
Amy ScottEdmund Evan Scott.
      See under Architects.
Mary Fores Scott. Professor of drawing.
      Daughter of John H Scott.
Amy Scott [right]. Painter.
      Daughter of John H Scott. Died in a nursing home at 10 Eaton Gardens, left £2,911 2s 3d. One of her oils is in the Brighton and Hove Royal Pavilions & Museums Trust collection.
Image: Amy Scott portrait by Harry Mileham [Royal Pavilion & Museums Trust]
RESIDENCES
2 Bond Street [William 1824]
45 Ship Street [William and Emily 1832]
23 Cannon Place [William 1840-50, John 1828-51, Emily 1840-59
41 (later 31) Russell Square [Emily 1861-1883 deathplace]
35 West Street [Charles 1832]
14 Clarence Square [John 1854]
59 Brunswick Road [John 1856-86, deathplace; Mary 1856-81; Amy 1860-81]
9 Montpelier Street [Mary 1901]
8 Pavilion Parade [Mary 1911]
1 Sillwood Terrace [Amy 1890]
42 Temple Street [Amy 1901]
50 Buckingham Road [Amy 1911)]
14 Preston Street [Amy ]
36 Norton Road [Amy -1950]
SCOTT, Malcolm (Dalkeith)
1872-1929
Malcolm ScottMusic hall artiste.
      Born in London, son of a solicitor and younger brother of Admiral Sir Percy Scott. Orphaned in 1886, he spent the next few years in Canada, returning to England to work in theatre. From 1902 he specialised in roles as a female impersonator of historical characters, also appearing in character omn the wireless. He appeared at Brighton Hippodrome 13 times between 1903 and 1926. He retired from the stage and opened a tobacconist's in Brighton, run by his manager, and lived above the shop until he moved to Burgess Hill in 1927 but retained the shop. By now he was ill and in considerable pain. During this period, however, he became a popular and regular broadcaster on BBC 2LO and regional stations, billed, as before, as 'the woman who knows'. He died of cancer at Burgess Hill.
PERSONAL
10 Bond Street [residence and tobacconist's shop 1925-1928]
SCRASE family Landowning Quaker family, particularly associated with Hangleton and Blatchington. Family members were persecuted for their faith and repeatedly imprisoned1. The family remained at West Blatchington until c1882, for the last 50 years as the family of a Scrase granddaughter, a Mrs Hodson.
Richard Scrase (d.1549). Landowner.
      He held the prior's estate at Blatchington in 1534. The lease of the manor was inherited by
Edward Scrase (d.1576).
      his son, and then by
Richard Scrase (d.1625),
      a minor, who had to recover the manor from the overseer of his father's will, on attaining his majority.
Tuppen Scrase (1583-1633)
      his son, graduate of Magdalen Hall, Oxford aged 15, lawyer; succeeded by
Henry Scrase (d.1641),
      his younger brother (despite Tuppen having sons), whose widow Joan remained in residence at West Blatchington with her sons, one of whom was
Walter Scrase, father of
Richard Scrase (1655-)
Elizabeth Scrase (1680-),      Richard's daughter and heir to the manor of Hove Villa et Ecclesia, married Nathaniel Tredcroft in 1702.
1Saltzman (1940)
SEDGWICK, Amy
1835-1897
Amy SedgwickActress.
      Born in Bristol, she was known for her comedic roles. Her first and second husbands, Dr William B Parkes and Charles Pemberton, died in 1863 and 1875 after respectively five years and two years, during which periods she retired from the stage and lived in Hove. After her third marriage to Charles Goostry in 1878, she retired permanently but continued to give occasional performances for charity and was listed as a professor of elocution. She died at Haywards Heath. A bust in her memory was unveiled at the Royal Pavilion by Sir Henry Irving in 1900.
Photographic portrait by Charles Bristow-Walker, c1860
PERSONAL
1 Western Place [residence 1880-93]
SEYMOUR-CONWAY, Lord George
1763-1848
Lord George SeymourAristocrat, politian.
      The seventh son of 1st Marquess of Hertford and grandson of 2nd Duke of Grafton. Known as Lord George Seymour, he was MP for Orford 1784-1790 and for Totnes 1796-1801. He married Isabella Hamilton, great-great-granddaughter of Sir Richard Onslow. He is buried at St Andrew's Church in Waterloo Street.
Portrait as a boy by Joshua Reynolds
PERSONAL
127 Marine Parade [residence -1848]
SHAKESPEARE, Percy
1906-1943
Percy ShakespeareArtist.
      After enrolling in the Royal Navy, he was stationed at Roedean, then a naval base. He was killed by a German bomber while walking alone in the seafront opposite Marine Gate.
Self-portrait as Mephistopheles
• Roedean
SHEE, Sir Martin Archer PRA, FRS
1769-1850
Sir Martin Archer SheeArtist.
      Irish portrait painter, elected president of the Royal Academy in succession to Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830 and knighted the same year. He was buried in the Western Extension of St Nicholas Churchyard, his headstone now being laid flat near the perimeter.
Image: self-portrait
PERSONAL
2 Pavilion Colonnade [residence 1845-1850, deathplace]
SHELLEY, Sir John PC MP, 5th bt
1730-1783
Politician and landowner.
      The son of Sir John Shelley, 4th bt and Margaret Pelham, sister of Henry Pelham and a href="people_p.html#Pelham">Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, he was an MP from 1751 to 1780. He sold the manor of Falmer to his second cousin once removed, Thomas Pelham.
SHELLEY, William
1782-1872
Local official.
      Sexton at the parish church of St Nicholas of Myra and at one time parish clerk.
COMMEMORATION/PERSONAL
Shelleys, 2 Mount Zion Place [residence 1821-1872]
SHERLEY family Local family. See Shirley family.
SHERMAN, Ben
1925-1987
Businessman.
      In 1962, Alfred Sugarman, having changed his name to Ben Sherman, returned from the US to his birth town (where his mother, Bessie, had a confectionary shop) and opened a shirt factory here. The brand achieved international fame during the 1970s.
PERSONAL
21 Bedford Square
SHIRLEY, Anthony
c1546-1624
SHIRLEY, Thomas
1599-1654
SHIRLEY, Sir Anthony 1st bt
1624-1683
SHIRLEY, Sir Richard 2nd bt
1654-1692
SHIRLEY, Anthony
1683-1694
SHIRLEY, Sir Richard 3rd bt
c1680-1705
SHIRLEY, Mary
1692-1747
Land-owning family resident at Preston Manor.
Anthony Shirley,     
son of William Sherley and brother of Thomas Sherley of Wiston, inherited the Preston estate in 1569 from his mother Mary, widow of her second husband, Richard Elrington.
Thomas Shirley,
      Anthony's eldest son (of 12 children), inherited in 1624 and bought back the lease of the Preston manorial estate and the manor of Withdean from the Crown in 1628. He married Elizabeth Stapley.
Sir Anthony Shirley 1st bart (1624-1683),
      eldest of five sons and six daughters of Thomas an Elizabeth, was born and died at Preston. He was MP for Arundel (1654 with Anthony and John Stapley), for Sussex (1656 with John Stapley) and Steyning (1659). He married Anne Onslow, daughter of Sir Richard Onslow MP in 1650 and was created a baronet by Charles II in 1666.
Richard Shirley,
      only son of Sir Anthony and Anne, was born in Westminster. He inherited the baronetcy and estates and died at Preston.
Anthony Shirley,
      Richard's eldest son, died young, passing the succession to Richard's other son, also called
Richard Shirley,
      who died unmarried, so the baronetcy was extinguished and the property inherited by Richard's three sisters, Anne (1677-1712), Judith and
Mary Shirley,
      who married Thomas Western and they gained the sole ownership of the Preston manorial estate on Anne's death in 1712.
COMMEMORATION
Shirley Drive
Shirley Road

PERSONAL
Preston Manor, Preston Drove
SHUTE, General Sir Charles Cameron KCB CB
1816-1904
Politician.
      MP for Brighton from 1874 to 1880. He is buried in Brighton Extra-mural Cemetery1.
1Obituary, The Times, 1 May 1904
PERSONAL
12 Brunswick Place
SLIGHT, Lewis
1790-1869
Lewis SlightLocal government officer.
      Born Alford, Lincolnshire. Clerk to the Brighton Commissioners, he resigned in 1853 to be replaced by his son, Lewis Slight Jr (d.1863), who, after the town's incorporation in 1854 became the borough accountant. He negotiated the purchase of the Pavilion from Queen Victoria in 1850 against opposition, removing the names of dissenting commissioners before he signed the contract himself.
Image: Royal Pavilions & Museums Trust
PERSONAL
34 West Street [residence and permises 1839]
42 Ship Street [residence and practice, 1842]
St Alban's Villa, 16 Victoria Road [residence 1851-52]
Upper Brunswick Place [residence 1869 at the time of his death]
SMITH, Sir Charles Aubrey
1863-1948
Cricketer, actor.
      A first-class cricketer, who played for Sussex and captained England against South Africa in the only test match in which he played. He spent most of his acting career in Hollywood and was knighted for services to promoting Anglo-American relations during the Second World War.
PERSONAL
27 Selbourne Road
19 Albany Villas
SMITH, Major-General Sir Charles Holled KCMG, CB
1846-1925
Soldier.
      Born in Romsey, Hampshire, he joined the Army in 865 as a second lieutenant and progressed to the rank of brevet colonel by 1888. He served in the Zulu and Boer Wars in 1879-1881, the Egyptian War of 1882 and other campaigns and was mentioned in despatches four times.. Military commandant of Victoria, Australia 1894-1899, after which he retired to England. He is buried in St Helen's Churchyard, Hangleton. Papers relating to his military career are in The Keep1
PERSONAL
11 Albany Villas
33 Gwydyr Mansions, Holland Road [residence 1925]

1ESRO ACC 2409/2/1008
SMITH, George Albert
1864-1959
Cinema pioneer
      Albert Smith came to Brighton as a boy with his widowed mother, who took over a boarding house in Grand Parade. In his teens he developed and performed a stage hypnotism act and in 1882 formed a partnership with a local journalist, Douglas Blackburn, to work a telepathy act. This attracted the attention of the newly-formed Society for Psychical Research (SP), whose members, including Edmund Gurney and William Fletcher Barrett, tested Smith’s ability as a ‘sensitive’ to thought-transference. They sought evidence of his ability to receive thoughts from Blackburn while blindfolded, his ears plugged with putty, a bolster case and a blanket over his head. Blackburn was shown drawings made by members of the Thought-Transference Committee, then entered the room and stood behind Smith, who made remarkably similar ‘reproductions’ of the original drawings1.
      The SPR’s committee was convinced and Smith became the private secretary to Edmund Gurney, the SPR’s honorary secretary. Gurney died in mysterious circumstances of a chloroform overdose in a bedroom at the Royal Albion Hotel, Brighton in June 1888. Although the coroner returned a verdict of accidental death, there has been speculation ever since that Gurney was murdered. Even Smith has been named, without foundation, as a possible suspect because of a claim that Gurney had discovered his thought-transference experiments to have been faked. In 1908 Douglas Blackburn admitted the fraud: ‘The whole of these alleged experiments were bogus. They originated in the honest desire of two youths to show how easily men of scientific mind and training could be deceived when seeking for evidence in support of a theory they were wishing to establish.’ This is a telling statement in the light of Smith’s recognition of film’s ability to deceive the eye. Smith remained a member of the SPR throughout his life and never acknowledged the deception. In 1967 the BBC broadcast a television play, Edmund Gurney and the Brighton Mesmerist in its Theatre 625 strand, featuring Richard Todd as Edmund Gurney and Ray Brooks as Albert Smith.
      Around the time he left the employ of the SPR in 1888, Smith married Laura Eugenia Bayley in Ramsgate.They lived initially in Kent and briefly in London before moving to Hove. Here he leased of St Ann’s Well Gardens in 1894, which he developed as a pleasure ground with an assortment of attractions. A 50-foot hot air balloon ‘made its escape’ on 24 August 1894 and was later sighted over London. The pump house that was used to dispense mineral waters later became the home of his ‘film factory’.
      He also gave optical lantern shows (‘dioramic lectures’) at such locations as Brighton Aquarium and Hastings Pier. By late 1896 he was concluding his performances with ‘animated photographs of real life’, including ‘Moving local pictures at each representation’. He acquired a film camera from Alfred Darling in late 1896/early 1897; his surviving cashbook2 shows that he paid £16 for a ‘taker’ (meaning a camera) on 6 January 1897. in the first year he shot 35 films, including coverage of Queen Victoria’s diamond Jubilee procession. More importantly, he started to shoot comic sketches using techniques that developed film’s unique qualities: the jump cut and running film backwards. in 1898 he used double exposure to add a vignette of a flashback or dream in The Corsican Brothers (possibly the first ever film adaptation from a literary source) and of parallel action in Santa Claus. The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899) developed editing technique by interpolating a scene inside a railway carriage into a ‘phantom ride’ film shot from the front of a train. A cutaway from an establishing shot to a close-up is a feature of As Seen Through a Telescope and is used several times in Grandma’s Reading Glass (both 1900).
      In parallel with his own filming activity he ran a film processing and printing business from 1898, servicing various clients including John Benett-Stanford, as well as Warwick Trading Company, run by Charles Urban, with whom his work became increasingly associated. Backed by Warwick, Smith built a small glasshouse studio in 1900 in the gardens and signed a two-year exclusive distribution contract with Warwick, under which he became the manager of its ‘Brighton Studio & Film Works’.
      His films were also doing well in the USA: Vitagraph offered 29 of his titles by 1900. The peak of his inventiveness was probably Mary Jane’s Mishap, or Don’t Fool with the Paraffin (1903), which displays an impressive array of editing devices and effects. However, this also proved to be something of a swansong, for in 1903 Urban persuaded Smith to take on a project to develop colour film. Urban had backed work already done by Edward R Turner, who had taken out a patent in 1899 but died suddenly in 1902, leaving the project unfinished. Urban bought the patent rights. Smith passed on the lease on St Ann’s Well Gardens and moved to ‘laboratory lodge’, his new home in Roman Crescent, Southwick.
      Smith filed a patent application on 24 November 1906 for ‘improvements in & relating to Kinematograph Apparatus for the Production of Coloured Pictures'. Patent no 26,271 was granted in July 1907. However, it was not until 1 May 1908 that demonstrations of what became known as Kinemacolor were given. On 9 December Smith gave a lecture to the Royal Society of Arts on ‘Animated photographs in natural colours’, as a result of which he was awarded the society’s Silver Medal. The first commercial film made in Kinemacolor was, appropriately, Smith’s A Visit to the Seaside, shot in Brighton, which was trade-shown in September 1908. He sold his patent rights in March 1909 to Ada Jones, Urban’s future second wife, for £5,000 and, with a five-year contract as a consultant to Urban’s newly-formed Natural Colour Kinematograph Company (with a fee of £500 a year as a ‘technical advisor’), started to turn out large numbers of Kinemacolor films: over 40 that year, 35 in 1910 and as many as 83 in 1911. He travelled widely to make these films.
      Smith and Urban attended the New York launch of Kinemacolor in December 1909 together but soon fell out, Urban believing that Smith had given valuable information about the colour system to William Friese Greene, Smith thinking Urban had paid him far too little for developing the system. They were reconciled only when Urban moved to Brighton in 1938.
      After Southwick, Smith lived in the Seven Dials area of Hove. They had a son and a daughter. Harold Norman Smith (1889-1975) was a ‘kinematographer in natural colours’ in the 1911 census. Laura died in October 1938. The following summer Smith remarried, to Edith Kate Harman.
      After years of relative obscurity, the importance of his contribution to the cinema was recognised in the late 1940s. He was made a Fellow of the British Film Academy (now BAFTA) in 1955 and was an honoured guest at the opening of the National Film Theatre in 1957. A film of him at his home in Chanctonbury Road can be viewed online.
PERSONAL
St Ann's Well Gardens, Somerhill Road [workplace, residence 1894-1903]
Caburn House, 13 Caburn Road [residence 1911-1912]
7 Melville Road [residence 1915-1940]
18 Chanctonbury Road [residence 1940-1959]

1Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (24 April 1883)
2Preserved in the National Film Archive
SMITH, Horace (Horatio)
1779-1849
Novelist, poet, dramatist and stockbroker.
      He coined the phrases 'old ocean's bauble' and 'queen of watering places' to describe Brighton. A friend of P B Shelley, whose finances he helped to manage. He came to Brighton in 1826 after four years of travels in Europe and remained until his death, which occurred in Tunbridge Wells. His grandson was J H Round.
PERSONAL
10 Hanover Crescent [residence 1826-1840]
12 Cavendish Place [residence 1840-1849}
SMITH, Lieut-General James Webber
1779-1853
Soldier.
      An officer in the Napoleonic wars, including the Battle of Waterloo, and great-grandfather of the actor David Niven. He lived in Brunswick Square from 1848 until his death.
PERSONAL
11 Brunswick Square
SMITHERS, Henry I
1694-1769
SMITHERS, Bartholomews
1742-1791)
SMITHERS, Bartholomew II
1770-1833
SMITHERS, William Heaves
1781-1852
SMITHERS, Bartholomew III
1805-1885
SMITHERS, Henry II
1807-1884
Several generations of the family were notable as brewers and publishers.
Henry Smithers I,
      married Mary Heeves, died at Smithers, New South Wales but is buried at St Peter's Church, Preston.
Bartholomew Smithers I,
      eldest son of Henry, is buried at St Peter's Church, Preston.
Bartholomew Smithers II,
      elder son of Bartholomew I.
William Heaves Smithers,
      younger son of Bartholomew I, born in Preston, founder/publisher of The Brighton Patriot. He was collector of poor and church rates for the western division in 1846-1852.
Bartholomew Smithers III. Brewer.
      Born in Preston, the eldest son of Bartholomew II. In later years he lived in Haywards Heath.
Henry Smithers II. Brewer.
      Born in Preston, the third son (fifth surviving child) of Bartholomew II, he was returning officer for Brighton in 1845, a town commissioner in 1848-1850, became a member of the Royal Clarence masonic lodge 1850. He was a councillor for west ward 1856-1858, then an alderman (1858-18674 and mayor in 1861-1862. Brewer and coal merchant employing three labourers in 1851, a brewer in 1871-1881 employing 30 labourers.
Waylon Joseph Smithers Jr
      is a character in The Simpsons—no relation as far as is known.
PERSONAL (William)
143 North Street [Brighton Patriot office]
• 2 Hampton Terrace [residence 1852]
• 69 Ship Street [1859]
PERSONAL (Henry)
North Street [residence 1841-42]
6 Upper Brunswick Place [residence 1851]
21 Buckingham Place [residence 1862-1880]
6 Montpelier Villas [residence 1881-1884, deathplace]
SOLOMON, Henry
Policeman.
      Inspector of the post horse duty (1822), prior to becoming the first chief constable of the Brighton police force, who was struck with a poker from the fireplace in his office at police headquarters in the Town Hall on 13 March 1844 by a prisoner, John Lawrence, and died the following day. Marked by a plaque on the opposite side to the police offices.
PERSONAL
9 Charles Street [residence 1822]
Brighton Town Hall, Bartholomews
SOMERSET, Rt Hon General Lord Charles Henry PC
1767-1831
Soldier, politician and colonial governor.
      Second son of the 3rd Duke of Beaufort, he married Hon Elizabeth Courtenay, daughter of 2nd Viscount Courtenay, in 1788. Colonel of the 33rd Regiment among other military appointments. MP for Scarborough and then Monmouth Boroughs 1796-1816. Comptroller of the King's Household 1797-1804. Governor of the Cape of Good Hope 1813-1827, where his wife died in 1815 (not 1816 as the plaque in St Andrew's Church states). He married Mary Poulett, daughter of 4th Earl Poulette in 1821. He died at the Bedford Hotel, Brighton1.
Commemorative plaque in St Andrew's Church, Waterloo Street
SPENCER, Herbert
1820-1903
Polymath: philosopher, sociologist, anthropologist.
      Noted for coining the phrase 'survival of the fittest', which he applied more widely than Darwin's theories about heredity to include social activity, his views tended towards 'conservative anarchism'. He was probably the only philosopher to sell over a million copies of his works during his lifetime.
PERSONAL
5 Percival Terrace [residence c1898-1903, deathplace]
SPENCER-CHURCHILL, Lily, Duchess of Marlborough
1854-1909
Socialite.
      Née Lilian Warren Price, she was born in New York, the daughter of a US naval officer. Widowed after her first marriage, to a New York property millionaire, she received $150,000 a year from his estate. Her second husband was George, Charles Spencer-Churchill, 8th Duke of Marlborough, whom she married in 1888 and who died in 1892. She then married Lord William de la Poer Beresford, whose son Marcus was racehorse trainer for the king. She came to Hove to convalesce and remained until her death.
PERSONAL
35 Adelaide Crescent [residence 1907-1909]
STAFFORD, John Edward
1841-1907
Retailer and politician.
      He was born in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, son of a butcher. After moving to Brighton he opened a bazaar for stationery and fancy goods at 166 Western Road in 1883 and added a second emporium at 168, both of which continued as Stafford's after his death until the stores, having been rebuilt in 1926 (the first in the widening of Western Road), were taken over by Littlewoods in the 1950s. He owned a number of properties in that area. Shortly before the turn of the century he began publishing topographical picture postcards1. He was a borough councillor for West Ward (1894-1899), a Brighton alderman (1899-1910), three-terms mayor of Brighton 1899/1900–1901/1902. He left £79,773 3s 5d.
COMMEMORATION
Stafford Road

PERSONAL
1, 2 & 6 Crown Street [1899]
166 Western Road [1879-1907]
168 Western Road [1883-1907]
Aberdeen Lodge, 52 Wilbury Road [residence 1900-1907]

1Sussexpostcards.info
STANFORD, Richard
1711-1769
STANFORD, William
1764-1841
STANFORD, William
1809-1853
STANFORD, Ellen
1848-1932
Family of farmers and landowners.
Richard Stanford. Farmer.
      He was the tenant of manor farm at Preston by 1758. Son of the farmer at Exceat farm, West Dean, which he also farmed and where he was born and died. He married Mary Ockenden (1735-1805) at Preston in 1762.
William Stanford,
      Son of Richard and Mary, married Elizabeth Avery (1765-1791) in 1789 but their two children died in infancy, followed by their mother. He bought the manor of Preston Manor from Charles Collis Western for £17,600 in 1794. He married Mary Tourle (1780-1846) in 1802 and had five more children. He was High Sheriff in 1808 and a magistrate. His initials are inscribed in a wall in the basement of Preston Manor. There is a window at St Peter's Church, Preston to his memory and that of
William Stanford,
      his elder son, who married Eleanor Montagu Morris (1824-1903) and had two children, a son who died in infancy and
Ellen Stanford.
      She was born at Preston Manor and educated by a governess at Miss Mary Russell's house in Montpelier Road (as a boarder in 1861). Her ashes are interred at St Peter's Church, Preston, where there is a memorial plaque in the church. She left £246,492 (limited to settled land). She first married Vere Fane Benett, who took the surname Benett-Stanford and whose family seat was at West Tisbury, Wiltshire, where they lived. They had two children, including a son, John Montagu Benett-Stanford. Her second husband was Sir Charles (Geisler) Thomas-Stanford.
Portrait of Ellen Benett-Stanford: Royal Pavilion & Museums
COMMEMORATION
Stanford Avenue
Norton Road
Semley Road
STAPLEY, Anthony
1590-1655
STAPLEY, Sir John 1st bt of Patcham
1628-1701
Anthony Stapley
      Born at Framfield but the family moved to Patcham c.1615. He was MP for New Shoreham in 1624 and 1625 and later for Lewes and the county of Sussex, which he represented in the Long Parliament of 1640. In January 1649 he was one of the signatories of Charles I's death warrant. He was again Sussex MP in the Barebones Parliament of 1653 and the First Protectorate Parliament in 1654. He is buried at Patcham.
      Following his death his family acquired more land, including the 250-acre Wick Farm in 1573, which was sold on in 1701.
Sir John Stapley,
      second but eldest surviving son of Sir Anthony, was MP for Sussex (1654, 1656 with Anthony Shirley) and Deputy Lieutenant for Sussex (1656). In 1657 he became a Royalist and was involved with his younger brother Anthony in the Sealed Knot plot to return Charles II to the throne. Elected MP for Lewes (1660, 1661).
PERSONAL
Wick Estate
STENBOCK, Count Eric (Magnus Andreasa Harry Stanislaus)
1860-1895
Writer and poet
      Associated with the decadent arts, he was the son of Lucy Sophia Frerichs, heiress to an Estonian-born Manchester cotton industrialist. His widowed mother married Sir Francis Mowatt and lived at Withdeane Hall, his stepfather's home. There is an apochryphal story that he died in a fall while attempting to strike someone with a poker on the day Oscar Wilde's first trial began in London; however, the cause of death is given as cirrhosis of the liver. Stenbock is buried in Brighton's Extra-Mural Cemetery. It is said that his heart was taken in an urn to his family's home church at Kusal, Estonia. He was described by W B Yeats as 'scholar, connoiseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men'.
PERSONAL
Withdeane Hall, The Approach
STONEHAM, William
Landowner.
      Owned land in Aldrington.
COMMEMORATION
Stoneham Road
STRETTON, Joseph Harris
1830-1889
Land-owner and lawyer.
Born in Leicester, the son of a landed proprietor. He was a partner in the       London law firm of Stretton, Hilliard, Dale & Newman, among whose clients was the Marquess of Abergavenny. He was one of the partners in the Aldrington estate, land in New Church Road, Stoneham Road and Leicester Villas, and developed the Stretton Estate on the north side of Old Shoreham Road, where the names of four of his five children were given to roads: Dorothy, Gladys, Hallyburton and Margery. However, he did not marry the mother of his children, Whittingtina Annie Stretton (née Moss), until 1 October 1889 and died six weeks later on 17 November 1889. Although he lived principally in London, his residence at the time of the his death was given as the Aldrington Estate Office. He was buried at St Leonard's Church, Aldrington on 20 November 1889 and left £21,326 4s 10d.
COMMEMORATION
Dorothy Road
Gladys Road
Hallyburton Road
Margery Road

PERSONAL
2 Westbourne Villas (Aldrington Estate Office) [residence -1889, deathplace]
STRINGER, Alderman Dorothy Elsie OBE
1893-1977
Dorothy StringerPolitician.
      Daughter of an alderman, William Alfred, who was an undertaker and councillor for St Nicholas' ward (1930-1935), and a mother who was a member of the Board of Guardians. Elected an independent councillor for St Peter's Ward in 1925, she joined the Education Committee and never missed a meeting in 50 years. She later stood as a Conservative. She was an alderman from 1949 and mayor of Brighton in 1952; made a Freeman of the Borough of Brighton in 1968. She is buried in Brighton Extra-Mural Cemetery.
PERSONAL
17 Rose Hill Terrace [childhood residence 1893-1911]
17 Wellington Road [residence 1911]
166 Dyke Road [residence before 1947-after 1951]
258 Dyke Road [residence before 1954-1977]

COMMEMORATION
Dorothy Stringer School, Loder Road
Stringer Way

PERSONAL
19 Ranelagh Villas [residence 1935]
166 Dyke Road [residence]
STROUDLEY, William
1833-1889
Locomotive engineer.
      Born at Sandford, newar Oxford, he worked for several railway companies, including the Great Westerm Great Northern, Edinburgh & Glasgow and Highland Railway before joining the London Brighton & South Coast Railway as superintendent at the Brighton works. Unlike his predeccor, J C Craven, he was an advocate of standardisation. As well as his railway work, he also designed a dust cart for Brighton Corporation1. He died suddenly of acute bronchitis in Paris.
COMMEMORATION
Stroudley Road

PERSONAL
Balnain House, 63 Dyke Road [residence 1872-1877]
Fairlight/Bosvigo, Preston Road [residence 1878-1889]

1ESRO DB/D/46/332
STRUVE, Dr Friedrich Adolf August
1781-1840
Pharmacist and balneologist.
      A German immigrant who had the idea of simulating spa waters chemically. He founded the Royal German Spa at the southern end of Brighton Park (later Queen's Park) in June 1825, using water from an artesian well, which operated until 1886, then becoming the Hopper Struve mineral water plant until 1960. Other Struve spas were established at Berlin, Kyiv, Königsberg, Leipzig, Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw. His Brighton spa exported 300,000 pint bottles a year.
PERSONAL
Queen's Park (Spa)
SUDELEY, Barons See Hanbury-Tracy.
Princess Consort [Phra Chao] SUVADHANA of Siam
1906-1985
Royalty.
      Born Krueakaew Abhalwongse, a commoner of Khmer descent, she took the name Suvadhana in 1924 after becoming a minor consort of King Vajiravudh (Rama VI), whom she married later that year. Her great aunt was the wife of King Norodom I of Cambodia. In 1938 she went into exile in England, living first in Camberley, Surrey and moving to Brighton around 1948 and remaining until c1954. She later returned to Thailand and died in Bangkok.
PERSONAL
26 Lewes Crescent
     

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Page updated 8 August 2023