People - Local Individuals

This section of the website contains information on people with connections to the local area.  There are five categories available covering luminaries, recollections from local residents, memorials for the first and second world wars, casualties from both world wars, and general biographies.
Please select a category from the options below.

This section contains detail on the lives and achievements of those people with connections to the local area and who have attained a degree of public recognition. The people included in this section range from Sir Sydney Waterlow (of Waterlow Printers) who owned large areas of land in the area and also built the church in Fairseat, through to Daphne Oram, who lived in Tower Folly and co-founded the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The authors were privileged to interview or have access to the recollections of people who live or lived in the Stansted, Fairseat and Vigo area. Most are childhood memories of living here during WW2, including two evacuees: others are from those who saw military service overseas, or who came here as a result of serving in the Land Army or attending the huge pre-officer training camp upon which Vigo village is now built.

Stansted War memorial lists the names of fourteen men with local connections who died in World War One, and six who died in World War Two.  In addition, the Roll of Honour in St Mary’s church records the death of Gilbert Goodman who also died in World War One and whose uncle lived in Fairseat.  The histories of the twenty one fallen can be found under this category.

The Kent Memorials Transcription Project has carried out some excellent research on six World War One and two World War Two casualties who had strong connections to Stansted and Fairseat but were not recorded on the village War Memorial. In many cases they were recorded on memorials elsewhere. Their histories are listed under this section of the website.

This section includes biographies of local residents from the past to the present. These range from the Rectors of St Mary’s church to a local racing driver. Should you wish to contribute to this section or have information that you feel may be useful then please contact us.

Luminary image courtesy of luminariesroundtable.com
Casualty Photograph © American Red Cross
Underground Shelter photograph courtesy of the Imperial War Museum
Biography image courtesy of ANU Press