 Notable visitors to the fashionable town of Worthing in the 19th century included novelist Ann Radcliffe, the Duke of Northumberland in 1802, Henry Dundas in 1804, Jane Austen in 1805, Lord Byron in 1806, the Duke of Cumberland in 1817, George Eliot in 1855, Oscar Wilde in 1893 and 1894, who wrote his masterpiece "The Importance of Being Earnest" while staying in the town in 1894, and the future Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.In 1803 Worthing's population was approximately 2,500 and the hamlet was given town status.Cross Lane was renamed Montague Street and went on to become one of the new town's key thoroughfares.