SOME FAMOUS NAMES ASSOCIATED WITH THE VILLAGE

Sheffield Airey Neave; entomologist

Airey Middleton Neave; Colditz escaper; politician

Henry “Chips” Channon; interwar politician and socialite

Paul Channon; Chips Channon’s son and Conservative Cabinet Minister

Sarah Miles; actress

Daniel Sutton; pioneer of smallpox inoculation

Henry Aloysius Petre; ‘father’ of the RAAF

Kay Petre; Henry’s wife and 1930’s racing driver

Mildred Mary Petre; pioneer racing driver and round-the-world pilot

William Byrd; English composer and major influence on English music

Dorothy Wadham; founder of Wadham College Oxford

Charles Kortright; English cricketer and “the fastest bowler in the game”

Charles Campbell Sherrin; Victorian/Edwardian architect

Dorothea and Madeleine Rock suffragettes

NOTABLE ESSEX LIVES

Henry Aloysius Petre solicitor, gliding champion, founder of the RAAF; his wife——-
Kay Petre (de Fries) racing driver & record holder
John Joseph Petre
Edward Petre
Wedgwood Benns the Stansgate family
William Byrd — musician
Ernest Millington MP DFC Wg Cmdr first Common Wealth MP (Chelmsford)
John Harriot – ‘Struggles through Life” Thames Water police founder
Lord Chelmsford Zulu Wars general
Frederic Thesiger baron Chelmsford Lord Chancellor
Clevely Heath —murderer
Gen Sir Miles Graham MC — Colchester admin officer to Montgomery
Fanny Keats sister of John
Rupert Brabner Fleet Air Arm ace
Raymond Lygo Admiral Chief of the defence staff
John Moore footballer
F Lewis and Son publisher Leigh
Marcus Morris (founder of the Eagle comic ) chaplaincy at Weeley
Conrad Noel the ‘red vicar of Thaxted’’
De Vere Stacpoole author doctor “The Blue Lagoon”
William Gilbey vintner (when Bishops Stortford was in Essex) company became eventually Diageo
William Gilbert — Colchester Elizabeth I’s scientist doctor and astrologer; the lost genius
Daisy, Countess of Warwick
Jeffrey Allard fighter pilot
Dodie Smith novelist 101 Dalmatians etc
Mildmay family
Nicholas Conyngham Tindal Chief Justice of Common Pleas; defender of Caroline of Brunswick; originator of the M’Naghten Rules
Tindal family
CH Spurgeon “Prince of preachers”
Arthur Charles Wilkin (Tiptree)
Samuel, First Baron Masham
John Locke — England’s greatest philosopher; buried at High Laver
Daniel Defoe — owned a brickworks at Tilbury
Captain John Perry — naval officer, controller of the Imperial Russian Navy, hydrographer; London’s saviour; lived by the Thames at Barking Creek
Francis Camps pathologist
James Challis astronomer
Thomas Plume Maldon philanthropist
William Hunter heretic
Francis Rhodes father of Cecil
Capt Laurence Oates
Joseph Simmons balloonist
Claude Champion de Crespigny twice nominated for the VC; polo player; balloonist (and suicide)
John Gilbert naturalist
John Ray or Wray naturalist
Fr John Byles chaplain on the Titanic
David Livingstone (lived briefly at Ongar)
Bernard Mason horologist of Colchester
Goldie Gardener
Lord Rayleigh Nobel prizewinner physicist
Ken Gatward ‘Operation Squabble’ retired Frinton died Colchester
B C Hucks av pioneer “Huck’s Starter”
Stuart Gilbert translator and critic
Reginald Heade Pulp fiction illustrator
Eric Leyland — children’s adventure author
Thomas Brand-Hollis political radical and dissenter
Jesse Kortright – cricketer
Conybeare family
Disney family
Fred Spalding photographer
Ruth Rendell crime novelist
Dorothy Sayers
Margery Allingham
Michael Nicholson ITN reporter
Mary Renault novelist
Lord Kindersley originator National Savings
Robert Barnard crime writer
David Irving controversial author
Claude Grahame White — pioneer aviator flew to his marriage at Chelmsford Cathedral
Zachary Pettit —restored St Peters church Paglesham
Jack Cross Aero engineer Essex Aero of Goodmayes England to Australia race engineer
William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley notorious rake of Wanstead House
Sir Thomas Parker, judge. Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer
Reverend Gilderon Davison crime novelist Bocking, (St Peter’s Church)
Cnut and Edmund Ironside (Battle of Ashingdon)
Hon Mrs Victor Bruce racing driver, round the world pilot
Warwick Deeping novelist, short story writer
Richard Cobb Prof of History Oxford (Frinton)
Charles Pope VC
Herbert Columbine VC
Dorothy Coke art teacher, Southend
Robert O Holles Stebbing; novelist and scriptwriter (Guns of Batasi)
George William Patchett motorcycle racer and armament designer
Alan Rawsthorne composer buried at Thaxted
Gustav Holst composer Thaxted
Peter Tunstall RAF Shadwell St Marty; most time spent by an Allied PoW in solitary (Colditz)
Basil Dearden film director Westcliff
Ursula Bloom novelist Guinness World Record holder Springfield
Lynton Lamb illustrator, author Sandon
Richard Been Stannard 1st RNVR VC of second world war Loughton
Michael Ayrton artist buried at Hadstock
Edward Crankshaw Observer reporter translator Soviet specialist Woodford
William Derham of Upminster parson clock theorist and historian; naturalist; calculator of speed of sound
Eric Lambert Australian author “Twenty Thousand Thieves” d. Great Maplestead
Oliver Elmes graphic designer Coggeshall
Wg Cmdr Laurence Frank Sinclair GC Frinton
William Hope Hodgson Victorian fantasy author, Braintree
Edward Walford magazine editor Hatfield Peverel
Gerard Manley Hopkins (Stratford)
Edwin Smith and Olive Cook photographers
Samuel Bensusan journalist author and dialect expert
C Henry Warren journalist author and countryside campaigner
Arthur Morrison Journalist, author
Ruth BenSusan -Butt first female general practitioner in Essex
David BenSusan-Butt economist Secretary to Lord Lindeman; nephew of Camille Pissarro; indexer to Keynes; instrumental in Pathfinder force creation
John Bensusan-Butt artist
Chips Channon diarist; Guinness family MP for Southend
Henry Bate Dudley, clergyman, playwright, notorious editor
(Fareed) Fred Majdalany MC soldier, theatre critic and author died Braintree 1967
Robert Barnard crime author Death in a Cold Climate Burnham on Crouch
Thomas Farman (Layer Marney; Paris correspondent of London Standard father of Farman Bros)
James MacGibbon (MacGibbon and Kee) publisher and Russian spy died at Manningtree
Humphrey Spender — founder, Mass Observation, artist and photographer retired to Maldon
Robert Bamford founder of Aston Martin (born in Lamarsh)
Edward de Vere Earl of Oxford — poss alternate author of Shakespeare plays — Hedingham Castle
Richard Stannard VC
Henry Doubleday horticulturalist Coggeshall
Christopher Layer —The Atterbury Plot Romford and Stratford
W A Foyle (bookseller) purchased Beeleigh Abbey 1944
HG Wells lived at Great Easton for abt 10 years
Countess of Warwick – mistress of Edward VII Great Easton
Noel Pemberton Billing MP and founder of Supermarine died at Burnham on Crouch. Builder of Fambridge aerodrome
CWA Scott racing and aerobatic pilot England Australia Race
W W Jacobs short story writer: Wapping and Loughton
Hanburys — brewers Hylands house
Flight Officer Felicity Hyde Hanbury, Founder Womens Auxiliary Air Force
Harold Sander Mugford First World War VC MGC
Herbert George Columbine VC MGC
Francis Newton Parsons VC Boer War
Sergeant William McWheeney VC
Sydney Godley VC
Dame Gwenda fFrangcon Davies actress and prominent lesbian died Stambourne
Sir William Wade (Waad) Lt of Tower of London; Battles Hall, Manuden
Thomas Tusser 16th century poet, agriculturalist Rivenhall
Richard Johnson actor Upminster
James Wentworth Day naturalist and controversialist of Ingatestone
William Hale military rocketry
Margaret Anstee UN official
Joseph Bramah Lock Co (Romford)
Alberto Semprini houseboat West Mersea
Somerset de Chair restorer St Osyths priory
Chief Justice Darling
R J Minney journalist author (Carve Her Name with Pride)
John Fowles (Leigh-on-Sea)
Victor Lewis Smith tv producer Chadwell Heath
Ralph Richardson
William Francis Forbes-Sempill ‘Master of Sempill’ — farmed at Dedham; supposedly “Right Honourable” but one of Britain’s worst traitors
Thomas Hooker Chelmsford lecturer; founded state of Connecticut
Wreck of The Beagle – Paglesham
Edward III – whose favourite residence was Hadleigh Castle
Frederick Handley Page —early aerodrome at Barking Creek
Foote Gower antiquarian and rector
Edward Strutt second Baron Rayleigh wartime agricultural planner
John Drinkwater poet Leytonstone
Peter Seabrook gardener Chelmsford
Edgell Rickword war poet, Communist and editor
Major W P Drury author (“Tell it to the Marines”)
Helene Binet architectural photographer house on Osea Island
Henry Patten Wimbledon mens doubles tennis champion 2026 Colchester
John Lloyd tennis entrepreneur Leigh on Sea

Victor Maddern Character actor Seven Kings

PHOTO PAGE/ CONTEMPORARY ARCHIVE

With the shrinking of local newspapers, a source of visual records of architecture, town development and communal life has disappeared.

This page is for recording visual aspects of Ingatestone and Freyerning — buildings, the shape and content of the High Street, social events involving the community, the schools, transport links and so on.

Please submit photos for uploading but be sure to include a title and a full date.

On the evening of 4th October 2024 a fire in the chip shop of this 18th century building in the centre of Ingatestone caused severe damage to the roof above.