Fishermen's Rope-shops ablaze - Fishermen Lost - £100 for Mackerel on New Years Day
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Having described the opening of the Brighton Railway as far as Bulverhithe, the preparation for its extension to St. Leonards, and the application of the South-Eastern Company for ground whereon to erect a station at Hastings; and having thence wandered into reminiscences of pre-existing conditions at the Priory and the contemplated memorial of the fisherfolk anent the efforts of the town authorities to abolish Rock Fair, I am further reminded of some noteworthy events of 1846 as connected with the last-named fraternity.
At one o’clock in the morning of the 12th of January the fishermen’s rope-shops near the bottom of Bourne street were discovered to be in flames, and the said shops being composed of tarred wood, a destructive conflagration ensued. The three fire-engines belonging to the town were quickly on the spot, but the difficulty of obtaining water rendered them of little service. As an alternative means of checking the ravages of the fire, several of the shops were pulled down, the work of which was materially facilitated by the calm weather which prevailed. But, notwithstanding the portion of property thus saved from total destruction, the loss to the fishermen was great, owing to the cluster of storehouses at that spot being one of the most considerable on the stade. The fire was supposed to have been caused by a man named Adams, who, while in a condition the reverse of sober, entered one of the net-shops with a lighted pipe and there went to sleep. It was in that condition he was discovered by the person who first saw the flames, and to the exertions of the discoverer the safety of the sleeping man was due. Two days later a public meeting was held in the Town Hall to take measures for relieving the poor fishermen, and a subscription list was immediately commenced with £50 each from the Borough Members—Messrs. Brisco and Hollond, and £20 from Mr. F. North; the last-named gentleman suggesting the immediate formation of a Fishermen’s Insurance Society. More than enough money to repair the fishermen’s losses was contributed on that occasion, and the surplus was afterwards applied to the cost of erecting an ornamental well at the East Cliff for utilising an excellent spring which issued from the base of the rock.
The said well and its surroundings (as seen in the annexed representation) though less ornamental than the more modern erection, still in existence, was at least, as picturesque to the view of an artist.
After the fire, matters went on pretty smoothly with the fishermen until the autumn, when seven men and a boy were unfortunately lost in a fishing boat off the North Foreland. Another appeal to the inhabitants was then made, and the sum of £80 was collected for the families of the five married men among the eight persons whom the sea had taken to itself.
A far more agreeable record concerning those who get their living on the water is that of the fortunate catch of mackerel which on the first day of the year realised one hundred pounds sterling for the prorietor and crew of Mr. Breach’s new fishing lugger, bearing the name of Free Trade. This capital “sivver“ was supplemented on the following day by a similarly successful haul in another boat belonging to the same well- known family. It may be assumed that the owner of the “Free Trade” fishing-boat was himself a Free-trader by conviction or conversion, and the assumption takes me once more into the region of politics. It was on Saturday the 17th of January that Mr. Robert Ross Rowan Moore renewed his acquaintance with the Hastings and St. Leonards people by again addressing them on Free-trade principles in the Royal Pelham Arcade. The address was a very eloquent one of two hours duration, and elicited much enthusiasm.
On the 18th of August another visit to the borough was made by that gentleman to join in the festivities of a Free-trade dinner at the Oak Hotel, which was also attended by Sir Howard Elphinstone, R. Hollond, Esq., M.P., V. Shelley, Esq , and other influential gentlemen in the Liberal ranks. Mr. Thomas Ross (1810-1881) was chairman on that occasion — a townsman who on the 26th of February had been presented with a silver cigar case by the Liberals of the East Ward as a token of their esteem for him as a public man.
Lest it be thought that the Free-traders were having all the game to themselves, it should be stated that a fortnight only had passed after Mr. Moore’s address at the Arcade when a Protectionist meeting was also held in the Swan Assembly Room, attended by Sir Chas. Lamb, Mr. Lucas-Shadwell, Mr. C. Pomfret, Mr. Wyatt, Mr. H. N. Williams, and other foremost gentlemen of that political faith. Speeches were delivered and resolutions passed in favour of a restrictive policy, but at the close of the meeting some politicians of opposite views revealed a presence by giving ”Three cheers for Free Trade.”
Opposed, however, as were the two parties on the general principles of Free Trade and Protection, there was a densely crowded meeting held on the 2nd of January, convened by the Mayor on the requisition of 145 signatees(sic) of all political creeds, to take into consideration the alarmingly insufficient supply of food, and to petition Her Majesty to open the ports for a time for the admission of all sorts of grain, duty free. The presiding Mayor was Mr. Alderman Maw, a gentleman to whom, on the 18th of May, a testimonial dinner was given at the Swan Hotel, and who was succeeded in office on the 9th of November by Mr. F. Ticehurst.
I have said that at the Free-trade banquet Sir Howard Elphinstone was present. This gentleman — who represented Hastings in Parliament nearly fifty years ago, and is still a resident in St. Leonards in 1835-7 — had succeeded to his father’s title about four months previously. The death of Gen Sir Howard Elphinstone occurred on the 28th of April at his residence, Ore place; and, a few days later, his remains were borne to the burial-ground at Ore by twelve of his workmen uniformly dressed in long white linen frocks and crepe armlets. Several of those bearers were men well advanced in years, yet five of the twelve have survived a subsequent period of five-and-thirty years. On the monumental slab of the late baronet is the following inscription
”Sacred to the memory of Major-General Sir Howard Elphinstone, Bart., Companion and Colonel-Commandant of the Royal Engineers, who died April 28th, 1546, aged 73 years; and of Dame Frances, his wife, born Sept, 21, 1783, died Aug. 24, 1858.”
As, in the first month of the year, the three Hastings engines were all but powerless to extinguish the fire in the fishermen’s quarter in the old town, so, in the last month of the year, the St. Leonards engine was equally ineffective for putting out a fire in the new town. Between 3 and 4 a.m. of the 30th of December a fire was discovered at 12 Undercliff; but, as assistance was at hand the destruction was confined to the furniture of the bedroom in which the fire originated. The engine arrived after a delay of 45 minutes, and had it not been that the neighbours made great exertions, the house might have been burnt to the ground. A remarkable circumstance is that the engine was exercised only the day before, opposite to that very house.
Among other gatherings of a kindred nature to that of the Freetrade banquet in 1846 was the annual Tradesmen's Dinner at the Royal Oak on New-year’s Day. It was attended by some forty or fifty of the leading tradesmen of Hastings and St. Leonards, most of whom, together with the hotel-keepers (Mr. and Mrs, Yates) have passed from off the stage of life. There was, of course, the conventional Mayor’s Dinner on the 9th of November, a noteworthy feature of which was the unusually small number of persons present. It could hardly be credited that the two towns could be so wanting in loyal feeling to their newly chosen chief magistrate as to contribute only thirty persons, including officials, to the company on that occasion. If there had been a Gog and Magog, endowed with speech, in the festal hall of the old Swan, they probably would have borne testimony to such a scene, as being one of exceptional presentment for a century last past, or at least during the catering of the several hotelkeepers in retrocessional order known as William Carswell, George Robinson, Francis Emary, Wood and Emary, C. F. Mott, Thomas Breeds, Thomas Stockwell, and William Scrivens. One doubts if there were ever so few as thirty at the Mayor's feasts even under the old regime of civic entertainments when mayors and deputy-mayors were elected alternately for any number of years, and when for the honour thus done them they paid, or were supposed to pay, the whole cost of the feast with their own private moneys. When, on Sunday the 21st of April, 1793, Edward Milward, senior, was elected Mayor for the 22nd time, with his son as Deputy Mayor, John Carey as Town Clerk, and Thomas Bossom and William Edmunds as Chamberlains, followed next day by a dinner given to all the jurats, freemen and officials, under the merry strains of the band of the Berkshire Militia, surely the guests must have been more than those of 1846. So, too, at a previous decade of time (April 18th, 1783) there were probably more than thirty feasters at the Swan when an “elegant dinner“ was prepared by Mr. William Scrivens (grandfather of our worthy magistrate, Mr. George Scrivens) for the/Mayor, jurats, freemen and officials, to celebrate the freedom of the Corporation being given to Mr. Edwards, a peruke maker[a]; Mr. Shorter, a schoolmaster; and Mr. Thatcher, a yeoman. That was in the fourth year of Mr. Scrivens’s occupancy of the Swan Hotel, as is shown by the following somewhat quaint advertisement:—
”Swan Inn, Hasting(sic), Sussex. William Scrivens respectfully informs the Nobility, Gentry and others that he has taken and entered upon the above Inn, where he has laid in a large stock of excellent wines and other liquors, and humbly hopes for their favours, which will be thankfully received by their most obedient and humble servant, W. Scrivens. Note ! Hastings is situated on the sea coast, within 20 rods of the sea, is one of the best watering-places in the kingdom, and its healthy and pleasant situation is too well known to render any further description necessary.”
But, returning to the Mayor's dinner of 1846, how is the small number of guests to be accounted for? Perhaps it was because Mr. Ticehurst (who was then elected to succeed Mr. Maw) having commenced his political career as a Conservative was then a Liberal; added to which he had not grown into that popularity which won for him the honour of five times filling the ciyic chair. For this, his first election, he had been proposed by Mr Jas. Emary and seconded by Mr. T. Ross, the only avowed dissentient being Mr. Staines, who stated his objection to be that Mr. Ticehurst was Medical Officer to the Union.
The next festival was that of the Hastings Benefit Societies, of which a considerable number of St. Leonards men were members. It happens that I have no record of the event, but so far as my memory serves me the united procession was a very long and imposing one. The time of year was of course the usual one of Whit Monday. It was the 31st anniversary of the ”Old Friendly,” who dined at the Swan, in company with the Borough Members; the 15th anniversary of the ”Victoria Lodge of Oddfellows,” who dined at the King's Head; and the 5th anniversary of the ”Benevolent,” whose banqueting place was the Market Hall. The processional and prandial music on that occasion consisted of the Hastings Old Band, the St. Leonards new Brass Band, and another band from a distance. The sermon was preached by the Rev, J. G. Foyster.
Annual Races - Musical Associations - "Curling" at Beauport
I believe have heretofore described the now departed pageantry of the Hastings Races, and have stated that they were first instituted as an annual event under official and influential patronage in the year 1823, I also have a notion that an account has been given of the peculiar circumstances under which my own visit was made to those first races on the Bulverhithe Salts. But there are a few particulars which I may have omitted, and these I will now supply. A subscription list was opened on the 22nd of September, and the affair came off on the 3rd of October.
The ground selected at Bulverhithe was a mile-and-a-half course, and for which temporary bridges were placed across two or three streams of water, as well as over the haven along the beach, known in war time as “Bonaparte's Ditch.“ Mr, Barton, as owner or occupier of the land, was one of the stewards, and the others were Mr. Edward Wenham (the reputed owner of smuggling cutters) and Mr. Edward Farncomb. The sports on this occasion were limited to one day, and the prizes -
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