What has been said about Mr. Clement’s purchase of land on the Brook estate for the erection of small and medium size houses, would have appeared in the next chapter under the head of Hastings but for its association with the same gentleman’s efforts to supply a pressing want in the opportunity and encouragement he gave to the building of small houses at Silverhill and Silverdale, the spur to which emanated mainly from the representations of the St. Leonards Gazette, whose proprietor was on visiting friendship with Mr. Clement. Thus, in an indirect sense, at least, St. Leonards was instrumental in securing accommodation for the industrial population of both towns, which had been an increasing necessity. This last remark is an incidental reminder that many useful, as well as pleasurable institutions had their origin with the St. Leonards people, among which may be mentioned, the annual “Christmas” and “Batchelors” balls, the Royal Queen’s St. Leonards Archers, the Hastings and St. Leonards Infirmary, the St. Leonards Mechanics’ Institution, the Gentleman’s Club, the Life-boat, the Humane Society, the Invalid Gentlewomens Home, the St. Leonards Workingmens Institute and Temperance Hall, the Adelaide Lodge of Oddfellows, the Servants’ Home, the Convalescent Home for Poor Children, and other Convalescent homes, the Albert House Industrial Invalid Kitchen, the first “Bonfire Boys”, with regalia and music (in place of the hideous and groaning Guy Fawkes procession, and the Cottage Building Society. It is the last named that has now to be noticed. The St. Leonards Gazette of November 29th had the following editorial:-
- It will, doubtless, be in the recollection of many of our readers that in the autumn of 1861, there appeared in the columns of the Gazette an interesting series of letters, under the head of “Small Tenements”, complaining of the great want of cottage accommodation in this neighborhood, and asking for, or suggesting a remedy. In those letters there was an unmistakeable evidence of earnestness which if we had had any doubt of the existing evil, must have convinced us of the fact that the complaint was well founded. Impressed with the conviction that the question was one of public importance, we deemed it our duty to “ventilate” the same, and to that end published some two or three articles thereon. Our contemporary, the Hastings News, followed suit, assisting very materially – as it ever does – the cause of humanity and social progress by its fearless exposure of the evil, and its generous advocacy of popular rights. At that point our duty in the matter, as journalists might be said to have culminated; but the argumentum ad populum brought us a letter from “One who had been in the ranks” of working men, suggesting, in a spirit of candour and moderation, that working men had it in their power to help themselves, if they would but put their shoulders to the wheel. The writer – a man of considerable influence – further stated his belief in the readiness of the upper classes to lend a helping hand if they once saw that those who stood so much in -
