house there were two semi-detached cottages of a humble character in the midst of fruits, flowers, trees and vegetables. In one of these resided the elderly and much-respected Mr. and Mrs. Giles, clerk and pew-opener of the old parish-church of Ore. These venerable people had grown-up sons and daughters, who were all married, and some of whom had also sons and daughters of their own. One of the latter generation was Mr. W. Giles, who was at that time an orphan, and whose own death more recently caused wide-spread sorrow in Hastings, St. Leonards and Ore. (Here cross referenced to the paragraph and poem copied below [Brett placed these on separate pages which appear above - Editor]). He was then but a lad of 15 or 16 summers, and I was but a few years his senior. It was our practice to go on Sundays to the now dismantled church, and after assisting the choir and listening to a stirring sermon by the late Dr. Fearon (a sketch of whose residence and the distant church as they the appeared if lying before me) we “toddled home with the old folk” to Cackle Street, and there spent the remainder of the day in such rational and religious enjoyment as should have put to the blush the Sunday sillabub parties which were common not many years before, and which even then were but barely driven out by the force of reason and refinement. Picture to yourselves, gentle readers, the measure of our enjoyment, with but few cares of the world upon our your shoulders, when after partaking of tea - to which we contributed a few commodities - we read the Scriptures to the elderly people, sang hymns, with instrumental accompaniments - frequently assisted by members of the church choir who we were pleased to call uncles and aunts - walked in the garden and gathered strawberries or other fruits, and after an affectionate parting sang symns again on the way to our respective homes. How many times I have found comfort in recalling to memory the scenes of those happy days! What wonder then that I contemplated with regret the pulling down of those humble homesteads to make way for the great building which, with as much irony as accuracy, someone has styled “the mansion of the poor.” I cannot quite turn away my thoughts from this pleasant rendezvous of happy spirits in days gone by without alluding to the fact that in the adjoining “semi-detached” dwelling resided Mr. and Mrs. Hermitage, the son-in-law and daughter of the venerable couple whose names I have mentioned. To these were born a moderately numerous family, among whom were Mr. Stephen Hermitage, of York Buildings, Hastings, and Grand Parade, St. Leonards (since regretfully deceased), Mr. George Hermitage, of Halton, and other some whose professions sufficiently indicate that they sprang from a musical family. It is perhaps known only to a very few persons that the father of that generation of Hermitages was a workman in the service of the late Alderman Deudney’s father, about the year 1811 or ‘12, and that he was regarded as almost a Hercules for strength. This muscularity, no doubt, served him in good stead, when he afterwards became a quarryman or stone-drawer in the operations necessary for the building of St. Leonards.
Widow Palmer, Mr. John Harwood, and Mr. Henry Sinden
Of the Poor-law and its operations I may have something more to say, and if my readers fancy that my digressions from the St. Leonards History are neither few nor far between, they must bear in mind my promise or my threat at the commencement to give “a chatty, historic and anecdotal sketch of personal recollections.” Barely had I penned the life-sketch of the nonagenarian Mrs. Fitzgerald when news was brought to me that another old St. Leonards woman had died in the Union Workhouse. The woman in question was said to be the widow of the late William Towner, a builder, who, with his father came to St. Leonards when the town was commenced, and whose name figured in many of the documents pertaining to the early contracts. But, with further enquiry, I found that instead of widow Towner, it was widow Palmer, whose death had taken place on Friday last. She was 76 years of age, and was a Hastings rather than a St. Leonards woman, which latter fact somewhat removes her obituary from the incidental associations of the St. Leonards History. I may say, however, that her husband was in his youth apprenticed to the late Samuel Chester, of St. Leonards, at the time when the latter was a baker in the Rope-walk, and that Mr. and Mrs. Palmer transferred themselves from the Priory to the “Longfields” when by Government order the general exodus took place.
But, although there was a misconception as to Mrs. Towner having died on a particular Friday, it was a fact that her brother-in-law paid the last debt of nature on that day. Mr. John Harwood, who, 42 years previous, married Mr. William Towner’s sister, died at St. Leonards on the eve of his wedding anniversary, at the age of 66.
I have yet two other deaths to record, the first of which is that of Mr. Henry Sinden, who after being invalided for many months, died in the same week, also at the ripe age of 76. The deceased was a sawyer, and was one who migrated from “America” to St. Leonards, when the former became a desert and the latter became a town. He was familiarly known by the sobriquet of “Tough’un,” an appellation which seemed to be somewhat appropriate from the toughness of his constitution against his many years of wear and tear as a hard toiler and a hard drinker. Among his employers were the late Messrs. Scott and Homan, John Austin and Benjamin Tree. Of Sinden’s family, two sons had been for some years at the Antipodes, and one of them - whose accidental and agreeable meeting with Mr. Brett, a St. Leonards man in New Zealand, was described in this journal, came back to St. Leonards.
Reminiscences and death of 'Jerry' Lulham
The fourth death which I have now to notice is that of a Hastings Man more than a St. Leonards, but in whose career there are some incidents strictly connecting him to the latter town, and also with myself, if only as his brief biographer. The death in question, which transpired on the 15th of the same month, is one, moreover, which claims recognition on account of the deceased having been regarded almost as public property. His diminutive stature and the three-score years in which he had become familiarised to the Hastings and St. Leonards people conduced to his being a man of mark, and it was thus that the late William Lulham, under the familiar appellation of “Little Jerry” was known almost as well to visitors as to residents. Whether seen on horseback (as in years long past, when his feet barely reached the lower edge of the saddle-flaps), or when walking in the rain with an umbrella which seemed to cover him from head to foot, or on the Pier, mounting a set of steps to adjust his large telescope, he was the observed or all observers; and his departure from amongst us left a void that was hardly likely to be filled with equal significance. I first became acquainted with “Jerry” Lulham when he was probably not more than nine years of age; but as leading up to this acquaintance I feel impelled to slightly touch upon a few events and circumstances which preceded it; firstly, as supporting the aphorism that “first impressions are lasting,” and, secondly, as helping to dispel a doubt which I have heard more than once expressed of the possibility of a retentive memory at to early an age as four years. Let me say, then, that I was born in that terribly ill-conditioned year 1816, as compared with which the unseasonableness of the year 1879, when these lines were first written, was very slight.
Now with all the egotism that I can muster, and notwithstanding that I was present at the time, I will not undertake to say that I can recollect my own nativity. But, joking apart, I have a vivid recollection of the Coronation festivities at Hastings, in 1821. I can recall to view the illuminations, such as they were in those days of diamond shaped windows and clay candlesticks; I can see again the discharges of 24 miniature guns from my three-feet frigate as she lay in the “dry dock”; and I can remember with mixture of pleasure and timidity with which I witnessed the fireworks. My reminiscences, indeed, carry me back to some 18 months before the last-mentioned event; for I can remember quite well the building of the Hastings gaol and the high houses at Pelham Place, in 1828. Also the scramble of the so-called squatters to seize the Priory ground from which the sea had for a long time receded. I have also a distinct recollection of the old Town-hall which was pulled down in n1823, and in which there used to be a Sunday school, among whose teachers were Mrs. Milward (afterwards Countess Waldegrave), Mrs. William Amore, and other ladies. And among the recollection of many other events, which I will pass over, was the building of the Theatre (now the Wesleyan Chapel) in Bourne Street. This was in 1825, which I had attained to my ninth year. At that time, Mr. Stone - (who as a schoolmaster, had come from the house at Icklesham afterwards known as The Robin Hood, and among his younger pupils had had two children of the unfortunate Mr. Bufford, who was wrongfully hanged as an incendiary) - had located himself in close proximity to the theatre then being erected in Bourne Street. I, with the present H. Winter, Esq., J.P., and others I could name, were under Mr. Stone’s tuition, when, having the misfortune to become fatherless, I was taken from Mr. Stone’s school, to educate myself as best I could at home, and two years later, to be found a monitor of the first class at what was known as Mrs. Milward’s school, of which Mr. William Neve was master and whose death, at the age of 86, took place 66 years later, at St. Leonards, and at the house next to my own dwelling.
But why this, perhaps unpardonable, piece of autobiography? Simply, because it leads me to my first acquaintance with him whose death was the fourth in order of these obituary notices. Among the scholars of the somewhat primitive educational establishment was “Jerry” Lulham, who used to be spoken of by his school-fellows as “double-jointed.” It was a common thing for his class-makes to say, in the absence of the master, “Cock-up your leg, Jerry!” Then Jerry, who was probably as tall as he was ever likely to be, would stand as erect as a rifleman on parade, and with the greatest apparent ease, would raise his foot so that the toe of his boot touched his forehead. But I will leave Jerry here and leap over a space of years that I may narrate an amusing incident in the life of the late Mr. Lulham. It would be nearly forty years anterior to the present time, when as book-keeper in the service of Mr. Hoad, a riding-master of St. Leonards, that the subject of this notice was in the habit of riding horseback occasionally between the Swan at Hastings and the Saxon at St. Leonards. At that time also some of the larger houses in Eversfield Place (13 to 20) were being built by Mr. Benjamin Tree, and it was near to these houses that Mr. Lulham one day fell from his horse, head foremost to the ground. The rest of the story may be given in the following quotation from the St. Leonards Gazette of June 27th, 1857 :-
“The third accident was the falling from his horse of Mr. Lulham, the dwarf known as “Little Jerry”, who suffered confusion [contusion] of the head, and was otherwise pretty much shaken. He was taken to the shop of Mr. Hempsted, chemist, where he was promptly attended to, and afterwards sent home in a fly. We understand that Mr. Lulham has suffered but very slight inconvenience by his fall.”
My readers will observe that the above paragraph is quite in the ordinary stile, written in good faith and has no pretention whatever to ridicule or even to facetiousness. The only thing worthy of notice is the compositors’ blunder of confusion for contusion; but my little friend was so annoyed by it as to threaten the editor of the GAZETTE with a sound horse-whipping. He not only threatened, but he also endeavoured to execute the threat. He actually went to the office of the paper one morning before the breakfast hour, and having there met the offending editor face to face, with a stout whip in hand, accused the editor of maliciously slandering him, and demanded his authority or his motive for so doing. The malevolent scriber was, however, spared the infliction by craving forgiveness, and promising to apologise in ‘next week’s paper.’ Seeing how apparently real was the contrition, the dughty little man withheld the flagellation, but with the additional understanding that if the amende were not made as proposed, the editor would hear from his lawyer, Mr. Langham. But the apology was made, of course, and it was precisely as follows :-
“We have justly been trounced for our impudence, last week in describing a worthy man as a dwarf, merely because he happened to be in stature a little over three feet nothing. It served us right! We ought to have known better! Who taught us, we’d like to know, that less than four feet of humanity constituted a dwarf? We ought to have consulted Dr. Johnson, when we should have discovered that a dwarf if a man under the usual size. We here retract the obnoxious appellation, lest Mr. Jeremiah put his gigantic threat into execution of setting Langham at us. Even if Mr. Lulham was a dwarf, that is to say, eve if he was short, it may be a consolation for him to know that at the Town-Clerk’s office in High Street, may be seen a young man who is still SHORTER.”
