Names on the buses

425 Edward Booth

Connections with Brighton and Hove : Born in 1840 to a wealthy family, Booth was taught taxidermy when living in Hastings as a young man. He started hunting in marshes near Rye. With his wife he moved to Dyke Road, Brighton, and built a home there called Bleak House, He established a museum in the grounds for his growing collection of stuffed birds. Booth shot and killed hundreds of birds for the collection which he eventually opened to the public. He also published scholarly notes and had them illustrated. His diaries still survive and show what an excellent marksman he was. But little is known about what he was like as a man. There were rumours that he once kept a locomotive under steam for a week so that he could go to Scotland at short notice and see a rare white-tailed eagle. Booth also was reputed to have taken pot shots at postmen who delivered mail in Dyke Road. When his wife became ill and died, Booth promptly married her nurse. He died in 1890 and is buried at Hastings. His widow donated his gun collection to the museum and commissioned a Portland pulpit in his memory at St Andrew's Church in Portslade. The collection was bequeathed to Brighton Council and has expanded to become the Booth Museum of Natural History.

425 Volvo Gemini - carried name since delivery March 2012 on Route 1. Repainted into Regency livery April 2016. Repainted into new Regency Jubilee livery May 2022. Jubilee details removed September 2022.