Hugh Richard Bonneville Williams (born 10 November 1963), known professionally as Hugh Bonneville, is an English stage, film, television and radio actor, who is best known for playing Robert Crawley in the ITV period drama series Downton Abbey since 2010.
Bonneville was born in Blackheath, London, to a nurse mother and a urological surgeon father.He was educated at Sherborne School,an independent school in the market town of Sherborne, Dorset.
Following secondary education, Bonneville read Theology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and studied acting at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.He left Cambridge with a 2:2 in theology and has since said that he tended to do more acting than academic work.
Bonneville is also an alumnus of the National Youth Theatr