Mark Antony Lower, born 14th July 1813 in Chiddingly, the son of Richard Lower school master and his wife Mary Oxley. Mark Lower worked at his sister's school at East Hoathly before establishing his own school at Heathfield and then at Alfriston in 1832. He moved to Lewes in 1835 and established his school there initially in an old chapel and then at St Anne's House in the High Street. In 1838 he married Mercy Holman. It is during his 32 years in Lewes that Mark Antony Lower established himself as the county's foremost antiquarian as a founder member of the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1846; provider of numerous articles in the society's Collections; publication of English Surnames in 1842, Patronymica Britannica in 1860 and The Worthies of Sussex in 1865. After the death of his wife in 1867, Mark Antony Lower moved to Seaford and married Sarah Scrase in 1870 which coincided with the publication of A Compendious History of Sussex. He moved to London in 1871 where he died in 1876.