News," 1868. " Southern Weekly News," 1876. "Morning Argus," 1896. " Evening Argus," 1879. " Hastings and St. Leonards Evening Journal, by F. J. Parsons, 1889. " Hastings and St. Leonards Times," by Halley Stewart, 1877. " Hastings and St. Leonards Weekly Mail," 1898. The " Kentish Express," 1855. " Hastings and St. Leonards Chronicle," printed at Lewes, and upwards of 100 other Newspapers in the Counties of Sussex, Surrey and Kent.
The deaths of Mr. William Ransom, Mr. T. B. Brett, Mr. F. J. Parsons, and Mr. Maurice Sarsfield Walsh, for 34 years the Editor of the " Hastings and St. Leonards Observer," and Mr. Joseph Tendall, who for some years was proprietor of the " Hastings News," removed from our midst some of the older local Journalists, and Newspaper owners.
Ex-Alderman John Bray, of St. Leonards and Bexhill, was formerly the Editor of the " St. Leonards Advertiser," when owned by the late Mr. James Dorman. The late Mayor of Hastings, Alderman George Hutchings, J. P., was a Journalist for many years, conducting the " Hastings and St. Leonards Chronicle." The late Alderman C. H. Ball, was on the Observer staff, and was another old Press-Man, trained in the " Hastings and St. Leonards News " Office.
The writer of these notes has already set out in several Articles on the "Progress of the Observer," which appeared in the "Hastings and St. Leonards Observer " of August 13th, 20th, and 27th, 1904, the early struggles of this Journal, of which he was co-proprietor with the late Mr. F. J. Parsons, under the style of Parsons and Cousins. The " Hastings and St. Leonards News " was once a powerful newspaper, and its Editor, the late Mr. William Ransom, rigidly ignored the existence of the " Observer " for years, and in one of Mr. Walsh's Articles he made use of the historical words of the late Lord Beaconsfield in the House of Commons : " The time will come when you will hear me."
Assuredly it did come. The rival editors became respected friends. When in 1877 Mr. Halley Stewart started the " Hastings and St. Leonards Times," the " Observer " had then two strong rivals in these papers. The "News" and the "Mail and Times" after passing through several proprietorships have now ceased to exist as separate Newspapers ; the Copyright in both having been purchased, and are now incorporated with the " Hastings and St. Leonards Pictorial Advertiser," owned by F. J. Parsons, Ltd., Claremont, Hastings, who are the proprietors of the " Hastings and St. Leonards Observer," the only weekly Newspaper at present printed and published in Hastings. An incomplete file of the Old " Hastings News " is kept in the Town Hall, the property of the Corporation.
During the writers' life in Hastings, covering 54 years, the following local Newspapers have ceased to exist. - The "St. Leonards Gazette" (Brett's); " Osborne's Hastings Paper " ; "Hastings -
