Walter Percy Sladen
Walter Percy Sladen (1849-1900), English biologist who specialised in starfish
1898 Inherited from his uncle John Dawson the 31-acre estate of Northbrook Park at Countess Wear and moved into Northbrook Lodge, Exeter, the main house.
1899 Purchased the Countess Wear Mills, which had been disused since 1885, and the leat of which bounded the southern edge of Northbrook Park. He converted the mill to generate electricity for his estate, which it did so, until the 1940s when the house was in use after the May 1942 blitz as a civil defence headquarters.