Key Characters:

Those involved in the creation of the Dome, also the chief instigators of the campaign to save it,
as well as local conservation bodies who played their part.

Carl Adolph Seebold -- THE CREATOR -- impresario

Theophilus Arthur Allen RIBA -- THE DESIGNER -- architect

Robin King -- THE CAMPAIGNER -- chairman of Save The Dome Campaign

Rob Blann -- THE CONSERVATIONIST -- chairman of the joint committee of conservation groups known as SWOT (Save Worthing Old Town). Chairman of the Worthing Dome Preservation Trust.

Belle Stennett -- THE REGENERATOR -- chair of the Worthing Dome & Regeneration Trust

Local conservation groups involved with the campaign to save the Dome:-

          • The Worthing Society
          • The Yellow Brick Society
          • Save the Dome

Carl Adolph Seebold

Proprietor of the New Theatre Royal in Bath Place.
A German Swiss-born businessman who had made Worthing his base.
Seebold was the son of a rope manufacturer from Zurich. The father fell on hard times and turned to entertainment, playing the guitar and singing, to support a large family of nine sons and four daughters. Ultimately, almost the entire family adopted a musical career. They did so well that they were invited to play before many of the royal households of Europe. An advantageous offer brought them to England, where they played at high-class clubs, exhibitions and fashionable receptions in London.
Paid occupation: Impresario.

Theophilus Arthur Allen RIBA

Educated at Lancing College.
An architect who practised from 3 Duke Street, London WC.
Designer of various hospitals and children's homes, buildings in central London and a considerable number of country houses, including one in South Africa.
As Seebold’s architect he had been involved with extensive refurbishments to the New Theatre Royal in Bath Place.
Paid occupation: Architect.

Robin King

Former local resident.

Rob Blann

Born, bred and resident in Worthing. He is the 7th generation of his family to be born in the town.
Veteran of 5 successful campaigns to save various important Worthing buildings from destruction.
Author of 4 Worthing history books.
Originator and editor of the national nostalgia website PastTimesProject.co.uk
Nostalgia writer for the West Sussex Gazette.
Paid occupation: Managing director of his own garden services business.

Belle Stennett

Post Graduate mature Art student.

Local Conservation Groups

The Worthing Society ----- Registered as Worthing’s official conservation group with English Heritage, the voluntary organisation is a watchdog to safeguard the borough’s heritage, and evolved from the earlier Worthing Civic Society set up by Miss Pat Baring.

The Yellow Brick Society ----- a relatively short-lived Voluntary organisation of conservationists, set up under chairman Richard Pye with the help of his friend Chris Hare, it took its name from the colour of the brick used in some of the town’s remaining late 18th and early 19th century buildings, a brick which was fired from an outcrop of clay which once existed on Worthing’s foreshore.

Save the Dome ------ Voluntary organisation set up in 1988 to campaign to save the building and for the continuance of cinema in its ground floor auditorium.