Page:Volume 3 1840.pdf/30

Commissioners Meetings - Drowning of a Pleasure Party - Fatal Mishaps

I commence a fresh year and an additional chapter, as at some previous periods, with an enumeration of the town and parochial officials. As regards the St. Leonards Commissioners the task has not been altogether an easy one; for, as before intimated, the attendances of many of them were very irregular, the lists indifferently kept, and the meetings mostly closed against the press and the public. The Board of Commissioners for 1842 consisted of, or at least included, the following gentlemen:—Robt. Hollond (M P,), Fredk. North, Hugh Wm. Brown, Howard Elphinstone, J.C. W. Leslie (Incumbent), J. Harwood (M.D),}, Thos. Jekyll Rawson, J. A. Warre, Alfred Burton, Joseph Jeffries (Major), R. and C. Deudney, Thos, Adams and Thos. Brown.

The St. Leonards parish officers were Chas. Deudney and Edward Farncomb, surveyors of highways; Edward Farncomb and John Painter, overseers; Wm. Longley and John Painter, assessors and collectors; John Reed Harman and Richard Lamb, assessors for the outbounds; and John Phillips, vestry-clerk.

The officers for St. Mary Magdalen were Edward Waghorne and G. A. Murton, overseers; John Austin and Nelson Andrews, surveyors of highways; and William Noon and Newton Parks, assessors and collectors.

The work of both sets of parish officers during 1842 was almost entirely of a routine character, the only features worth recording being a resolution at one of the St. Leonards vestry meetings to deduct ten per cent. from the estimated value of all the houses; and at a meeting of the Magdalen ratepayers to vote a fivepenny rate fur lighting that part of the town not comprised within the St. Leonards Act. The parish meetings were usually held quarterly, those for St. Leonards at the New England Bank, and those for St. Mary Magdalen in rotation at the Conqueror, Saxon, Warrior's Gate, Horse-and-Groom, &c.

Not much more can be said for the business transactions of the St. Leonards Commissioners, the year’s proceedings as applying to that body being also of a rather quiet character. There was the usual excusing of rates among those who said they couldn't pay, and the customary summoning of those who felt they couldn’t pay. Then there was the permission given to James Oakley, of the Horse-and-Groom, to put up a sign-board (more properly a direction post) at the top of East Ascent, the same to be removed at any time, if so desired by the Commissioners. The arrangements with Mr. Jas. Mann for the fire-engine were cancelled, and the care of the same given over to Mr Geo, Nash, Mr. Chamberlin’s manager of the Victoria Mews. A stone crossing was ordered to be laid between 47 and 48 Marina, Mr. Towner’s estimate of £2 15s. and another tradesman’s tender of £4 being respectively accepted and rejected for the same. Notices were posted, warning against the committal of nuisances about the town, and the usual tinkering with drains was still persisted in, the want of money, as well as the lack of inclination, to say nothing of the large area as yet unoccupied by buildings—preventing an efficient system of drainage being entertained. And this want of means again reminds me that advertisements were still inserted in the newspapers, and that no response was received to the one which appeared in the London Times, asking for a loan at 4 per cent, sufficient for the transfer of all or a part of existing bonds.

It is noteworthy that although the protection of the foreshore property at Hastings was a matter of so much concern in 1842, the storms and high-running tides of that year were under the average. To generalize the character of the weather, I may say there was a cold, snowy January, a dry spring, a fine hot summer, an early harvest, and a moderate autumn. The sea during that year gave less trouble than usual to the St. Leonards Commissioners, although it was rather more than usually troublesome to the Hastings Commissioners.

There was, however, another and a sadder aspect of its maritime connections by which St. Leonards was thrown into a general and unexpected gloom. In the early morning of the 4th of May I had gone to Hastings on a commercial errand, and on my return to a spot opposite to the Infirmary, I observed a small pleasure-boat suddenly capsize and disappear. I afterwards learnt that the boat in question belonged to an experienced boatman of the name of Stevens, who, with his wife and son - the latter a pupil of the writer’s - was living at Undercliff terrace. There were three young men in, the boat with Stevens, all of them in the service of families residing in or visiting St. Leonards, and all of them doomed to a watery grave. Their names and ages were Charles Crumpton, 22; Archibald Johnson, 18; and Richard Pierce 17. It was said that they hailed a French fishing-boat in the roadstead, and that in all probability some French brandy was given to them by the mariners of Gaul; Stevens, from having gone to Flushing to buy liquors for the "Fair-traders" in his earlier years, being able to speak French sufficiently to make himself understood. Such an incident, however, might not have had anything to do with the upsetting of the boat,the cause being unascertainable in consequence of no one being left to tell. Crampton’s body was picked up on the following Sunday, Johnson’s on Sunday the 29th of May, and Pierce’s on Sunday the 5th of June. That of Johnson was washed ashore on Lydd beach, whilst that of Pierce was found near 31 Martello Tower, Winchelsea. It was a remarkable coincidence that each of the bodies was picked up on Sunday. They were all brought home to St. Leonards and respectably buried at the expense of their several employers. The Rev. Markham Mills (Curate of St. Leonards church) was the officiating minister, and with the Rev. C. W. Leslie (Incumbent) succeeded in raising a sum of £100, A portion of which was given to the widow, and the remainder placed in the Bank for the future use of the son. A memorial stone in the St. Leonards grave-yard records the unhappy fate of the three young men who came to so untimely an end. The remains of poor Stevens were found some time after at Deal, and were interred at Icklesham, his mother’s native village; Mr. Stevens’s widow removed from St. Leonards to London that she might be near her daughters,but she did not long survive her affliction. The son was taken into the service of Sir Archibald Croft as page, from which situation he rose to that of a butler in the service of- I believe - Lord Calthorp, after which he, with his wife, had the management of an hotel in Grosvenor square. Here, however, his career was arrested, he having succumbed to a fatal malady at the comparatively early age of 28 or 29 years.

Another maritime disaster occurred on the 18th of November, when the fishing-boat Good Intent, of Hastings, was run down by H.M. steamship Rhadamanthus. The master, Edward Apps, was drowned, but the two youths, Coleman and Iggleden, were saved by means of a rope thrown from the steamer. A sum of £100 was afterwards received from the Government by Apps’s widow.

From the narrative of fatal mishaps on the sea, I turn to some prominent misfortunes on land.

On the 21st of January, a little girl, four years of age, named Sarah Edmunds, was burnt to death at the "New England Bank," a wayside inn at Bopeep. She was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Payne, her uncle and aunt, and got to the fire unobserved.

On Tuesday, September 28th, one of the Hastings coaches which had only a few months previously commenced the new communication between Hastings and the railway at Tunbridge Wells, suddenly upset as it was turning the corner at the Saxon Hotel on its outward journey. It was a frightful crash, resulting in personal injuries to several of the passengers, the dislocation of one of Mr. Bates’s (the coachman’s) shoulders, and the death of Levi Osborne, the coach-porter. It is probable that the accident was due to the intractibility of one of more of the horses; for, on the preceding day the same horses, with the same coach, the same coachman and the same porter, their arrival at the coach-office in George street, started off up High street, round the top of the town, down All Saints’ street, through the Fishmarket, and by Pelham place to York buildings, where they were stopped by Mr. Kirby’s coachman courageously running and seizing the reins. The most remarkable thing about this runaway race through the principal thoroughfares was that no collisions occurred, and not the slightest damage was done. Little did the people contemplate the fatal and otherwise serious disaster of the following morning.

On Sunday, November 12th, the remains of a young man, 23 years of age, were followed to the St. Leonards grave-yard by his relatives and a number of his friends connected with building trades. His name was Samuel Homan, nephew of Benjamin Homan, one of the principal contractors of St. Leonards. His death was sudden, but, as was shown at an inquest presided over by Mr. J. G. Shorter, it arose from natural causes.

On the 22nd of September, Mr. James Belsey, a shoemaker by trade, but on that day a special constable at the Races, fractured one of his legs while running from the race-course over the hill at Bopeep.

A much more serious accident occurred in the preceding month (August 23rd), and although the locality in which it happened was nearer Hastings than St. Leonards, it may be described here without any impropriety. Several men in the employ of Mr. Crisford, miller, were gathering in a crop of oats, when the horses attached to a waggon galloped off at full speed. Henry Marchant, in the attempt to stop them, was knocked down and immediately killed by the waggon-wheels passing over his head. Two other men, Samuel and William Banister, were also seriously injured. One of them sustained a broken collar-bone and painful bruises, and the other a fractured leg and a dislocated ankle. Marchant left a widow and nine children unprovided for.

Having recorded the principal accidents and disasters on land and sea during 1842, I now proceed to give some account of the amusements and philanthropic movements on the same two divisions of the locality. And, as while I am writing, something over a thousand pounds has already been collected for decorations and illuminations to celebrate the visit of the Prince of Wales to Hastings and St. Leonards on the 26th of June, 1882, it will be appropriate that I first describe what was done in both towns to celebrate the christening of his Royal Highness in 1842. During the first week in January a meeting was held by some of the leading inhabitants of St. Leonards. and a plan arranged for distributing shilling tickets to poor families, according to their number, the same to be spent on anything but beer or spirits ; and on the 10th of January, a meeting of the Hastings people was held in the Town Hall, to devise the ways and means for a similar object. The Rev. T. Vores - the then newly appointed perpetual curate of St. Mary’s-in-the-Castle - expressed a hope at the latter meeting that a good subscription would be made, seeing that Hastings was in ancient times closely connected with the obtaining of the principality of Wales. It had been shown in History that the ships of the Port of Hastings materially assisted Edward I. in obtaining the possession of Wales. The amount raised eastward of the Infirmary for Hastings was £187, which on the day of the Chastening (Jan, 25) was distributed in the form of coals and money, there being of the former 1 cwt. to each family, and of the latter 6d. to each member of a family. The amount collected westward of the Infirmary for the parishes of St. Leonards and St. Mary Magdalen was £130, which, as before stated, was distributed in shilling tickets to each member of a family. The numbers receiving the commemorative gift were, in Hastings, 1,018 heads of families and 4,050 members; whilst those in St. Leonards were 1,100 in all, That there should have been in these two fashionable towns, out of a population but slightly exceeding 11,000, -