Burley has records of several people who seem to have had a big influence on village life in the nineteenth century. They include a lawyer, a vicar, two head teachers, a cobbler, a butcher and a hermit.
Some Burley folk like to claim Sir William Watson, the poet, as a local character. There is a plaque to his memory on the side of the Queens Hall, near the memorial crosses for Fison and Forster, and there is a portrait of him in the Parish Council Office in the Queen’s Hall.
He was certainly born in Peel Place on 02 August 1858. His father was a tea dealer, but they left when William was in his infancy. It is hardly likely that his poetry was ever influenced by his short stay in the village.