Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (or 12th Baron) (1577-1618) was a politician and merchant who became governor of the colony of Virginia (c1609). He made his mark on the New World through the state, Native American people, bay and river of Delaware, which were all named after him.

In March 1832, the vestry meeting in the parish of Billingshurst voted unanimously '…that the Expenses of the Emigration of Paupers disposed to Emigrate to America shall be defrayed by the Poor Rates…'

Richard Lyons, 1st Viscount Lyons was a diplomat who served as British Ambassador to the United States from 1858-1865, encompassing the whole period of the American Civil War. His sister Augusta was married to Henry Granville Fitzalan-Howard, 14th Duke of Norfolk, whose family seat was at Arundel Castle. Lyons was buried in the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel Castle when he died in 1887 and his papers are kept in the Castle's archives.

Magistrates at the Court of Quarter Sessions held here on 13th/14th January 1685 ordered the arrest of William Penn as a “factious and seditious person……[who] doth frequently entertain and keep unlawful assembly and Conventicles in his Dwelling House….usually….assembled to the terror of ye King’s Liege people and in contempt of ye King and his laws…. ”

A replica of Wakehurst Place, an Elizabethan mansion built by Sir Edward Culpeper in 1590, was built at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1884. There is a brief description of the Newport counterpart by Gerald W.E.Loder in Wakehurst Place, Sussex (1907), p. 120, with two photographic views

In 1831-1832, the parish of Aldingbourne covered the expenses of sending sixty emigrants to the United States. The largest party - a group of thirty-eight - sailed from Portsmouth to New York in the spring of 1832 at a total cost of £400.