John 'Mad Jack' Fuller

I preferred to be called "Honest John" I was Squire of the hamlet of Brightling in Sussex (now East Sussex) I am well known as the builder of follies, and as a philanthropist, patron of the arts and sciences. I purchased and commissioned many paintings from J.M.W. Turner and I was sponsor and mentor to Michael Faraday.

My father died in 1761 when I was four. At the age of ten in 1767, I started my education at Eton College a public school in Berkshire.

On May 7, 1777 my Uncle Rose Fuller MP died leaving me his Sussex estates and Jamaican plantations. I took possession of the Rose Hill estate (now Brightling Park) at Brightling Sussex at the age of 20.

In 1780 at the age of 22 I was elected to Parliament. I was MP for Southampton from 1780 to 1784, and for Sussex from 1801 to 1812.

In 1811 a pyramid-shaped building, often referred to as "The Pyramid" was erected in the churchyard of Church of St Thomas a Becket Brightling as a future mausoleum for me.

In 1828 I established the Fullerian Professorship of Chemistry and endowed the Royal Institution London with the Fullerian Professorship of Physiology

In 1818 I built the Observatory at Brightling which was designed by Robert Smirke and in 1822 I endowed Eastbourne in Sussex wih its first lifeboat.

In 1828 I financed the builiding of the Belle Tout lighthouse, on the cliff at Beachy Head, near Eastbourne and it was built in 1832 replacing the previous wooden structure.

On Thursday September 18th 1828 I bought Bodiam Castle for 3000 guineas at auction to save it from destruction. When I died I was buried under the Pyramid in Brightling Churchyard

Fuller was appointed High Sheriff of Sussex, for a period of one year, and in 1798, he became a captain in the Sussex Gentlemen and Yeomanry Cavalry.