text: During the 18th century Sudbury became famous for its local artists. John Constable painted in the area, especially the River Stour. Painter Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury in 1727, and was educated at Sudbury Grammar School. His birthplace, now named Gainsborough's House, is a museum to his work and is open to the public. It houses many valuable pictures and some of his family possessions. A statue of Gainsborough was unveiled in the town centre outside St Peter's Church on Market Hill in 1913.
  Victorian times to 1960s
  The Reform Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4. c. 45) saw the villages of Ballingdon and Brundon appended to the town. In the 1841 general election Sudbury became the first place in the UK to elect a member of an ethnic minority to parliament, with David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre, the son of an Indian queen, winning the seat. However, he was not allowed to take his place in parliament as he was subsequently declared insane.Minority MP 'ought to be commemorated''' East Anglian Daily Times, 23 November 2007
  A new workhouse was built in 1836 off Walnut Tree Lane, close to St Gregory's church. From 1946, with the foundation of the National Health Service, it became the local cottage hospital.
  Sudbury's Catholic Church, Our Lady Immaculate and St. John the Evangelist, was designed by Leonard Stokes and erected in 1893. The shrine of Our Lady of Sudbury sits within its nave.