The People

Leatherhead has many past associations with famous personalities. Its literary associations are celebrated in the appropriately named Edmund Tilney pub in High Street. Edmund Tilney, as Master of the Revels to Queen Elizabeth I, was responsible for royal entertainment and censorship. The walls of the pub illustrate many of the great figures of the literary world who lived or visited Leatherhead, including Jane Austen, Edward Lear, Fanny Burney and C S Lewis.

Leatherhead has also provided a home for characters as diverse as Marie Stopes, who pioneered family planning, and Donald Campbell who in 1964 broke the world land speed record in 'Bluebird'.

Today the people of the town are as diverse as ever and fiercely proud of their town. There are many organisations and societies promoting the town, its history and its activities. Others are concerned with the welfare of its citizens. The Leatherhead Society is the civic society and the Community Association, established in 1977, organises social activities around the Letherhead Institute, which was given to the town by benefactor Abraham Dixon.