We're the Men from Sussex! Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Shakespeare

Southampton was born at Cowdray House, near Midhurst. Shakespeare's early poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece", were dedicated to him, and he is sometimes said to be the "Mr W H" to whom the first printed edition of the Sonnets is dedicated (his initials being allegedly reversed). He may or may not also be the "friend" to whom many of the Sonnets are purportedly addressed.

Southampton also patronized other poets and played an active part in the political and military adventures of the age. His involvement in the Earl of Essex's rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I led to his imprisonment, but he was released when James VI & I ascended the English throne. He died of a fever while commanding English troops in a war against Spain in the Low Countries.

If you're wondering how to pronounce "Wriothesley", the BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British names gives five variants, and so you can't really go wrong.

Answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley seems to have been a nonconformist from his childhood. He was sent down from Oxford University in his late teens for publishing a pamphlet on "The Necessity of Atheism". Poems attacking the social system and ruling classes of the day include "Queen Mab" and "The Masque of Anarchy".

He also became a vegetarian and a very early advocate of what we now call "animals' rights". At the same time he produced enough lyrical non-political poetry to please those who prefer to see him (in Matthew Arnold's words) as a "beautiful and ineffectual angel".

Answer: Aubrey Beardsley

Beardsley's work, consisting mainly of black and white ink illustrations, was always controversial. Some of it, such as his illustrations for a privately printed edition of Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" was undoubtedly obscene by the standards of the 1890s: much more of it struck his contemporaries as simply grotesque. Today we can take a more balanced view of his work, and wonder what he might have produced if he had not died of tuberculosis at the age of 25.

Answer: The Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Soddy worked with William Ramsay and Ernest Rutherford on research into radioactivity, and later showed that a radioactive element may have different forms with the same chemical properties but different atomic masses. It was Soddy who coined the word "isotopes" to denote these forms.

Answer: Max Miller

Miller (whose birth name was Thomas Sargent). began his performing career during his Army service in World War I. After the war he progressed through seaside concert parties and touring revues to his long career as a solo comedian. In an age of censorship exercised by the Lord Chamberlain and local watch committees, he was a master of double entendre and innuendo. In this way he usually managed to stay just within the limits of the permissible: saloon-bar bores would preface many a joke with "This is the one that got Max Miller banned by the BBC", but they were usually mistaken, although Miller was not entirely persona grata with the BBC.

Miller always loved his home town with its racy reputation in British folklore. A statue of him was erected there in 2005.

Answer: Thomas More in "A Man for All Seasons"

Scofield was born at Hurstpierpoint in 1922. He played many roles in films and on television, but preferred the stage (which is perhaps why he is not so well known outside the UK). In a poll of Royal Shakespeare Company actors in 2004, Scofield's King Lear (in Peter Brook's production at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1962) was voted as the best Shakespearean performance of all time. Admittedly, the voters could not possibly have seen every performance in the first three hundred years or so since Shakespeare wrote the play, but the verdict is probably well deserved all the same.

Answer: Labour

Crosland was the Labour Member of Parliament for South Gloucestershire from 1950 to 1955, and for Grimsby from 1959 till his death in 1978. Under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan he held ministerial posts for Education, Trade, Local Government and the Environment.

He was opposed to what he saw as the party's traditional commitment to nationalization and dirigisme, and he is sometimes seen as a forerunner of what became known as "New Labour".

Answer: as a weatherman, failing to predict a catastrophic storm

Fish was born in Eastbourne in 1944. On the evening of Thursday, October 15, 1987, presenting the BBC weather forecast, he said that he had heard of a viewer who believed there was a hurricane on the way, but "don't worry - there isn't!". That night the south of England was hit by the worst storm for more than 300 years. Fifteen million trees were felled, many power cables were brought down and road and rail transport was severely hampered on the following day.

Insurance payouts were more than £2,000,000,000.

Answer: Boxing

Minter, born in Crawley in 1951, began his professional career in 1972 and was the undisputed middleweight champion of the world for about six months in 1980. He retired in 1981, having won 39 fights out of 49 (23 by knock-outs).

Answer: Madness

Suggs was born in Hastings in 1961: his mother was a jazz singer. In 1977 he joined the band Madness (which had been formed a year earlier) as the lead singer. Since the break-up of Madness he has pursued a solo career and has appeared in various capacities on radio, television, the stage and in films.