Richard Hotham

Sir Richard Hotham (5 October 1722 – 13 March 1799) was an East India merchant, property developer and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1780 to 1784.

Having moved to London to become a hatter's apprentice, in 1743, at the age of 21 he married Frances Atkinson, the daughter of his employer, in the chapel of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.

This has since been demolished and replaced by Victorian terraced houses including Balfour and Cecil Roads opposite South Wimbledon tube station.

[2] Hotham found the climate of the south coast did him the world of good, and decided that he would like to have a house of his own there and accordingly bought a plot of land containing a farmhouse, near the sea.

Following his own experience of the curative nature of the sea air, and the current trend for the gentry to resort to the seaside, his property developing side kicked in, and with an eye to gaining some of the fame and wealth of places like Brighton and Weymouth he set about buying land in the area until eventually he had around 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) in his ownership.

Sir Richard Hotham died at Bognor in March 1799 and was buried at the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene at South Bersted, where to this day there is an annual wreath laying ceremony at his grave.