silhouette of Tommy Cooper, complete with the comedian’s characteristic fez and wand, can be seen at what was his weekend cottage in Motcombe Lane. The benefactor of the plaque to Charles Dickens was the Chairperson of the Eastbourne Dickensians, the late Vera Banwell-Clode: it records the author’s visits during the 1830s, when he stayed as a guest of the Victorian artist Augustus Egg, RA, who rented the house in Borough Lane. The biologist Professor Thomas Huxley took up residence in Staveley Road in 1890. Frederick Soddy, the eminent radio chemist and Nobel prizewinner, was born at 6 Bolton Road and educated at Eastbourne College. His larger plaque can be seen on School House in Blackwater Road. A blue plaque commissioned by the staff of the former St Mary’s Hospital, 1794–1990, was erected in Letheran Place in 2003. It commemorates the soldiers, inmates, patients and staff who lived and worked on the site. A bronze plaque bearing the inscription “In 1867 this building was the first home of Eastbourne College” can be seen at Spencer Court (formerly Ellesmere Villas), 1 Spencer Road. It was erected by the Arnold Embellishers—a charitable society associated with Eastbourne College—to mark the 140th anniversary of the founding of the school. Following the loss of the RMS Titanic, an appeal was launched in 1912 for a plaque in honour of James Wesley Woodward, a former cellist with the Eastbourne Municipal Orchestra, who lost his life when the liner sank on her maiden voyage. In 1913, after much disagreement over a location, the marble and bronze plaque was finally placed on Grand Parade opposite the Eastbourne Bandstand. It can still be seen at the lower level, opposite the rostrum of the present bandstand. A royal visit by George V and Queen Mary in March 1935 is commemorated by a plaque on chalet number 2 at Holywell. References History of Eastbourne Eastbourne