Names on the buses

480 Theodore Wright

Connections with Brighton and Hove : One of the most remarkable heroes of the First World War was Captain Theodore Wright who was born in Brighton. He was awarded the Victoria Cross during the retreat from Mons not long after the war had started in August 1914. The cross has been left to the Royal Engineers Museum in Gillingham, Kent. Descendants of Captain Wright, who was killed three weeks later on the River Aisne, presented his VC, campaign medals and memorial plaque to the museum, together with letters about the award and the wooden cross which originally marked his grave in France. Wright had already been wounded in the head when he tried to blow up a bridge over the Mons-Condé canal while under fire from the enemy. Exhausted, he fell into the water and was pulled out by a colleague. In September, Wright helped the 5th Cavalry Brigade over a pontoon bridge, in France and was mortally wounded. An officer of the Scots Greys wrote in a letter later "We got across the river the day before yesterday a bit before our time and we had to go back over a pontoon bridge considerably quicker than was pleasant, under a very heavy fire too. At the end of the bridge was an Engineer officer repairing bits blown off and putting down straw as cool as a cucumber - the finest thing I ever saw. The poor fellow was killed just after my troops got across. No man earned a better Victoria Cross." Educated at Clifton College, Wright received his Army training at Woolwich before joining the Royal; Engineers as a professional soldier. He went out to war with the British Expeditionary Force. He was buried in the British cemetery at Vailly. He was only 31 years old.

480 Volvo Gemini - carried name since 3 September 2014 on Route 5. Route 5 branding removed September 2017. Route 27 branding added March 2018. Name removed in October 2020 when bus moved to Metrobus.