manent secretary), and Messrs, Deudney, Southall, Peerless, Gilbert, Hawkins and Painter. It was also understood that the Rev. Mr. Ashworth would preach a sermon on behalf of the new undertaking, and that the National Society should be applied to for pecuniary aid. No time was lost in getting to work, as only twelve days had elapsed when a second meeting was held, at which it was announced that Mr. Decimus Burton, with his usual generosity, had offered to give a piece of ground for the new schools, together with designs, plans and sections; also that Mr. Alfred Burton, with similar liberality, had offered to give the stone required for the building, to sell a cottage and ground for the use of a schoolmaster and mistress for £250, and to allow £125 for the old schoolrooms. These offers were readily accepted and the thanks of the committee given to those two gentlemen for their kindness. Mr. D. Burton’s estimate for the new schools, to include walls, fences and out-buildings, was about £900. A subscription list was immediately opened, but as it was the time of year when the winter visitors were leaving and the principal residents were also away from home, the list did not fill up very rapidly. In the mean time, however, at a meeting held on the 11th of May, the Rev. C. V. H. Sumner was appointed treasurer, and a fresh schoolmaster and mistress, with the sanction of the Bishop, were appointed at a salary of £765 per annum for the two. That amount for two competent head-teachers would not, I suppose, be very eagerly accepted in the present day, although it was, I believe, an advance on previous salaries. The part which the present writer had been prevailed on to undertake in re-organising the school in the old building has been described in an earlier chapter; and it is satisfactory to know that not only was the improved system then insisted upon ultimately, though tardily, sanctioned, but that, at a later period, the curriculum was further enlarged under the able guidance of Mr. and Mrs. Gibson.
A meeting was held at the Rev. G. D. St. Quintin’s residence in the summer, and among some minor transactions the Rev. Mr. Braithwaite and the Rev. Mr. Phipps were added to the committee. At the same place, on the 20th of November, Mr. W. Chamberlin withdrew from the committee, and a resolution was passed to exempt children of Dissenters from attending church on Sundays, but the parents to be asked to see that the children attend their own place of worship. his was a resolution which even in the present day might be copied in some districts with approval. It was stated that up to that date the amount of money collected or promised for the new schools was £382; that an unsuccessful application had been made to her Majesty for a subscription; and that altogether about £400 was expected from the National Society, the Privy Council, and the Diocesan Board. There remained much to be done before the new building could be commenced and completed, and as that was among the events of another year, I will now turn to some other matters.
In the month of October, orders were received from the military authorities to prepare thirty-three of the Martello towers between Hastings and Seaford for the reception of guns, These towers, it will be remembered, were built for the protection of a very exposed coast during the long war with France, when England was threatened with invasion and the Channel swarmed with pirates by whom our merchant vessels and fishing-boats were almost daily carried off even while at anchor in the roadstead. It may not be in the knowledge of our readers that the said towers were commenced on the 15th of April, 1805, and that the Messrs. Longley and other Hastings builders were among those who contracted for the work; also that Messrs. Henry Farncomb, Thomas Farncomb, Thomas Breeds and Mark Breeds made a profit of many thousand pounds by supplying lime, bricks and other materials for the erection of the towers [See Brett's history of the Farncombs].
That the work was well executed there was abundance of proof afforded some years ago, when it required many hours pounding with powerful Armstrong guns even to partially destroy one of them at Bexhill and another at Eastbourne.
I have already described the opening of the London, Brighton and South-Coast Railway on the 20th of June as far as Bulverhithe, and I may now say that the day-mail from Hastings to London via Staplehurst, and the South-Eastern Railway, was discontinued on Saturday, Oct. 31st, and that on the following Monday the bags were conveyed by the Brighton line. This was regarded as a decided boon, as the mail was made up at 9 a.m., instead of the previously inconvenient time of 6.45 a.m.
In consequence of the South-Eastern Railway being now available to travelers(sic) from Hastings and St. Leonards at Tunbridge Wells, the Regulator Stagecoach, better known as “The White Coach ”— or coaches, as there were necessarily two, for the up and down journey daily — ceased running to London before the winter set in, and so limited the journeys to between these towns and Tunbridge Wells. Elderly people will remember Mr. Avery and Mr. Paul (Old Charlie, as the latter was familiarly dubbed) as among the popular whips of the period, and as the four inhand drivers of the Regulator. The Express, usually termed the White Coach, continued the daily all-through journey until about the month of November, when its journeys were reduced to thrice a week; that is to say, one day up and the next day down. I have heretofore stated that the day-mail to London was transferred from the road to the rail on the 2nd of November, since which time, it may be added, there has been a progressive improvement in the mail service the extent of which can only be appreciated to the full by those who are familiar with all the changes. Such of my readers as have followed this history from the beginning, will remember that when treating of the year 1839, I gave a detailed account (extending over nine or ten columns) of the mail-service and postal service in general prior to the introduction of the Penny Post system. A few further details, however, as applying to mail coaches will not be out of place. The traveling(sic) pace of the Hastings four-horse mail-coaches was ten miles an hour, or a fraction over nine miles an hour, inclusive of the time occupied in changing horses. The horses employed were nearly as many as there were miles to be traversed, each set of horses being at work only about one hour in the twenty-four; and even at that they did not retain their usefulness more than four or five years Supposing each animal to have cost from twenty to thirty guineas, and his keep and attendance to about £2 per week, the proprietors would require his earnings to be from four to five pounds per mile. This rate of income would, have to be derived from passengers and parcels, in addition to the contract price for conveying the mails. When it is recollected that the passenger fares were generally 24s. inside and 15s. outside, it seems almost marvellous that these rates of 2d. and 2⅝d. per mile — a trifle over present first and second class railway charges — could be remunerative to the proprietors. I have said nothing of the salaries of the coachmen, although these, perhaps, were not very considerable, the coachmen, like the guards, and like the cab-drivers of the present day, mainly depending on the ”tips” of the passengers. The wages of the guards, which were paid by Government, were but 10s, a week, a sum quite disproportionate to the average amount of perquisites. I was never informed of the cost of a mail-coach, as it came from the maker’s hands, but it must have been a good round sum; for, to ensure both strength and speed, its construction was regarded as a triumph of ingenuity. It was customary, I believe, to have an extra set of wheels to take the place of those which required reparation. The wear and tear of those would be very great, especially of the fore wheels, which being only 40 inches in diameter, as against the 50 inches of the hind wheels, would necessarily revolve a greater number of times and oftener require new tires.
