While Jane Austen is often associated with Chawton in Hampshire, the novelist spent substantial time in Surrey and used it as the setting for two of her novels.
As unmarried women, Jane and her sister Cassandra, often relied on the hospitality of…
Rachel is a talented Surrey artist whose personal mission is to share her love of stained glass and to help ensure the survival of this endangered craft. Brought up in Richmond and now living in Godalming, Rachel studied Fine Art in Coventry before…
The illustrator Ernest Howard Shepard was born in 1879 to an architect father (Henry Shepard) and to his mother (Jesse), who was the daughter of the esteemed watercolourist William Lee; a family with ‘creativity being prominent on both sides’…
Anti -slavery campaigners, Ellen (1826-1891) and William (1824-1900) Craft are most prominently associated with Philadelphia, which is frequently regarded as the critical starting point of their journey to freedom. Here, the Crafts would meet…
Frances Burney (1752–1840) was a novelist, playwright and diarist. She spent her early childhood in King’s Lynn before the family moved to London in 1760 following her mother's death. The family moved in artistic circles and Frances Burney had…
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) was a renowned Victorian poet known for his lyrical and reflective verse. Born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, he was the fourth of twelve children in a middle-class family. He developed a passion for poetry early on and…
Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence was born in 1867 and is now known for her involvement in the struggle for women’s rights. Her political affiliation with the Suffragette movement began officially in 1906 when she met Emmeline Pankhurst and became treasurer…
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection published in On The Origin of Species in 1859, re-shaped the way we understand the natural world and our place within it. The book was the result of decades of research during Darwin’s…
Hans Zimmer is perhaps the best-known contemporary composer of film scores and has worked on over 150 films. Born in Frankfurt in Germany, Zimmer received little formal training in music but from an early age was excited by music and how sounds can…
Caroline grew up as part of the Darwin-Wedgwood family whose members influenced public life in many ways across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the early death of her mother, Caroline and her older sister took on many of the…
Anthony Caro 8 March 1924 – 23 October 2013.
Anthony Caro’s work as a sculptor was hugely influential and he is often seen as Britain’s finest sculptor since Henry Moore, for whom he worked as an assistant after studying at the Royal Academy. …
Henry Richard Vizetelly 30 July 1820 - 1 January 1894, died, aged 73, at "Heatherlands", Rushmoor, Tilford, near Farnham in Surrey and is buried in the churchyard at St John’s, Churt. Vizetelly was a British publisher and writer. He started the…
Henry Woodyer (1816-1896) was born in Guildford, and educated at Eton and Oxford. He arrived in Oxford in 1835 as the Oxford Movement was gaining a momentum that was to transform religious life in England. Its adherents were committed to achieving…
Sir Anthony Browne, a long-serving courtier and confidant of Henry VIII, is a figure of considerable interest in Surrey. He was the only son of Sir Anthony Browne of Betchworth and knew Henry VIII from childhood.
His first official appointment…
Mary Frances Scott-Siddons. Image sourced through Wikimedia Commons.
Perhaps overshadowed by the success of her great-grandmother, Sarah Siddons, Mary Frances Scott-Siddons managed to make a name for herself in her ancestor’s profession:…
Lucy Prebble. Image sourced through Wikimedia Commons
Talented playwright, screenwriter and producer Lucy Prebble is a Haslemere-born creative paragon. This talented Surrey native has worked on several popular and well-awarded plays and TV…
Hobbs in Guildford High Street, showing the two blue plaques that commemorate John Russell. Photo by Alice Fowler.
A blue plaque suggesting this was John Russell’s birthplace. Photo by Alice Fowler.
Next time you walk down Guildford High…
Photo from the Guildford Institute Archives
Born in Shoreditch, London, John Rand Capron came from a leather-selling family, one of three children. His interest in scientific subjects started with visits to the Royal Polytechnic Institution. He…
Alan Turing. Image sourced through Wikimedia Commons
A young boy who spent his early years holidaying in a Guildford home became the father of computer science and helped the Allied powers win the Second World War. Alan Turing, a computing…
Agatha Christie (1890-1976), born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller of Torquay South Devon had an unusual childhood as she was homeschooled by her father from a young age. Her creative flare for storytelling came from her mother who made-up tales to tell…
