Notable people from Bury St Edmunds include artist and printer Sybil Andrews, actor Bob Hoskins, theatre director Sir Peter Hall, artist and water deviner Neil Stalley, author Maria Lousie de la Ramé (also known as Ouida), World War II Canadian general Guy Simonds and the 18th century landscape architect Humphry Repton, as well as Thomas Clarkson fact-finder behind the abolition of the slave trade.