Page:Volume 3 1840.pdf/81

Wheat £31 per load - Coroners Inquests

171 H Descending from imperial to local politics, it becomes me to note that the municipal election on November 1st was a triumph for the Conservatives, four of that party being elected with a total of 1,040 votes, as against two Liberals, with 898 votes. These were Messrs. Burfield (C) 491; Ginner (L) 450; Ross (L) 448; Harvey (C) 347; Deudney (C) 116; and Murton (C) 86. Mr. Voysey, a Liberal candidate for the West Ward, failed to secure his election by 9 votes. On the 9th of November Mr. F. Ticehurst was made an Alderman, and elected Mayor for the second time, his place as a Councilman being taken by Mr. Amoore, a Conservative.

I believe I have before stated that there never was a period of greater prosperity for Hastings and St. Leonards than during the time when the borough had a wealthy Liberal and an equally affluent Conservative for its representatives. The year 1847 was no exception to so pleasant a condition. Each Member did his best to induce his friends either to become permanent residents in the borough or to pay frequent visits thereto; and each Member competed with his colleague in contributions to worthy objects, and in gathering around him, for the general benefit, a circle of wealth and fashion. Mr. Hollond gave several dinners and balls at his residence, Allegria, and Mr. Brisco did the same thing at Coghurst Hall. One very grand affair by the latter gentleman was that of November 4th, whilst among the many invitations sent out by Mr. Hollond was that of October 29th 10 the Recorder and Corporation.

The Bachelors’ Ball at the St. Leonards Assembly-rooms was one of the best that had been held for many years. It was the first, or almost the first occasion on which a London band was thought to be necessary, it being engaged by Mr. Acraman, the pianist who had succeeded Mr. Hatt. The annual ball at the same place on behalf of the Widow and Orphans’ Fund of the Adelaide Lodge of Oddfellows (principally managed by the present writer) was aiso a brilliant affair. Still more so was the ball given by Mr. and Mrs. Hollond on the 26th of October. A paragraph in the Brighton Guardian of that period thus summarises the round of amusements:—

”St. Leonards at the present time is the gayest of the gay. Balls, dinner-parties, fancy-fairs, pic-nics, archery-meetings, riding-parties, cricket-matches, shooting-competitions, boating-excursions, and other amusements, all have their respective voteries.”

Among the balls and card-assemblies in the old town were one at the Swan Hotel, one at the King’s Head, and two at the Royal Oak, all well attended.

Two institutions of considerable value may be said to have dated their success from 1847, namely, the Proprietary School and the Savings Bank. It was on the 19th of January that an examination of the Proprietary Grammar School was held at the Swan Hotel, the Mayor (Mr. F. Ticehurst) being in the chair. The first annual report was then read by Mr. Edge, the master, in which the committee referred with lively satisfaction to the then condition of the school, and stated their honest conviction that it was fully carrying out the intention of the founders to give a sound and useful education to sons and daughters of the middle classes of Hastings and St. Leonards. It should be stated that although the first annual report was submitted on this occasion, the school was first opened at Michaelmas, 1844, The number of pupils was originally limited to 65, but the applications had been so pressing that at the time of this examination there were 71 on the books. An excellent address was delivered by the Rev. G. S. Faught, of Ore, whose name ought to be held in veneration for the many acts of kindness and practical benevolence which he displayed towards his parishioners. Among the persons present at the examination were the Revs. H. Barrett, the Rev. W. Davis, Mr. Alderman Maw, and about forty other gentlemen, who at the conclusion dined together at the same hotel. When giving a biographic sketch of the late John Hornby Maw and his family I stated my belief that the eldest son of him who was Mayor of Hastings in 1844-5 received a portion of his education at the Proprietary Grammar School, then held at Hill House, Hill street, which, at the time of writing, is still an educational establishment, conducted by Mr. F. W. Foster. I also stated that Hastings might well entertain a sense of pleasure in having afforded Mr. Maw and his family a dwelling place during ten years of the early life of the son George, who has since achieved a world-wide reputation as an artist, a traveller, an author, a botanist, a geographer, and the proprietor of the largest majolical and tesselated tile-works in England.

Of the Hastings and St. Leonards Savings Bank it was said, when the report appeared in January, that it had already taken its place as one of the permanent institutions of the borough. The deposits for the twelve months ending with the preceding year amounted to £5,300.

Hastings, however, was sadly in want of another public institution, namely, a new Town Hall, and which it did not succeed in getting until thirty-four years later. At a meeting of the Town Council on the 14th of April, the clerk introduced the question of enlarging and otherwise improving the ​building​ then in use, and stated that the matter thus placed on the agenda emanated from the Judge of the new County Court, who declared the hall to be the most inconvenient place he had ever sat in. The Clerk expressed his belief that the said Judge would contribute something handsome towards a new hall.

In the discussion which followed, Mr. Ross viewed the old hall in High street as being not only inconvenient in itself, but also as situated much too far eastward of the rapid extension of the borough westward. Mr. Hicks would like to see a new ​building​, but on the same site; whilst Mr. Putland contended that no respectable structure could be placed on the site of such a “tin-pot ​building​.” I pass from the Town hall to the Town band, the members of which arranged to play on Saturday evenings in Wellington square, while continuing on other evenings to perform on the stand at the Marine parade, A voluntary subscription was also entered upon for the purpose of getting morning performances thrice a week. I do not remember how far remunerative were the means, thus adopted to those who constituted the band, but I was in a position to know that the St. Leonards band was more adequately remunerated when it chose its own times and places, and made its own collections, than when it was under the control of a committee who undertook the collections. I am now somewhat curious to know what is the experience of the present Town band now that its remuneration is partly paid out of the rates, and partly by voluntary contributions. I do know that the answer to the band collector is in many instances “I cannot be rated for the band and give to the band as well,” but I do not know to what extent this objection is carried,

Reverting to the local bands of forty 45 fifty years ago, long since defunct, yet of whose members several are still living in our midst, a reminder is afforded that in the year under treatment a band of MNigger minstrels sprang into existence whose equal for good melody and harmony no subsequent period has produced. I make this averment with confidence, and without the least disparagement to the ^{(illegible text)} more recent “Black Crown Minstrels,” whose creditable performances and general services {{Str|have been}] were often devoted to charitable and philanthropic purposes. The “darkies” of 1847 made their first appearance at the Mayor's dinner on the 9th of November, when Mr. Ticehurst was elected to the civic chair for the second time. So little publicity had been given to the formation and training of this new vocal and instrumental association that the company assembled at the Swan Hotel to do honour to the elected mayor were completely taken by surprise when the disguised minstrels marched into the room. Of the composition of this Nigger band and of their achievements I purpose to treat in the narrative of events of 1848, and for the present I will merely say that their first public performance evoked extraordinary enthusiasm and brought them a collected sum of money far beyond their anticipations.

In more than one particular the year 1847 resembled the one in which I am writing, and the low temperature of the month of May was one of the ‘features of similarity. The prospects of harvest were below par, and the price of wheat (£31 per load) caused the quartern loaf to be sold at Is. 2d. ‘The distress among the poorer families was great, and efforts were made, as before described, to raise funds for their relief. As a relative topic, it may be stated that Louis Phillips (not Louis Phillipe who came to St. Leonards in the following year as an exile, but Louis Phillips), a gardener at Hastings, realised in August a bountiful quantity of wheat from 410 grains previously planted in his garden on the West hill. The ground occupied was one rod, and the said 410 grains were placed nearly 8 inches apart in drills that were 12 inches asunder. The produce was five gallons, or at the rate of 100 bushels per acre.

In the month of November, the magistrates were in a flutter and other inhabitants were in a whirl of excitement in consequence of an advertisement appearing in some of the Sussex papers by a respectable firm, acting as parliamentary agents, to the effect that it was intended in the next session to apply for a Bill to create the Rape of Hastings into a separate district of the county, to have its own goal gaol and to manage its own county affairs. It also intimated that it was intended to abolish the corporate magisterial jurisdiction of Hastings, Rye and Winchelsea, and that these things were to be done with the consent of the magistrates themselves. The benchers, however, soon met to give publicity to their repudiation of the scheme, and to deny all knowledge of the same. The authors, they said, must indeed be of weak minds to suppose that the burgesses would be cajoled out of what they considered was their birthright. In a similar spirit of antagonism the Town Council also took up the question, and there the proposed innovation, ended.

Although there was a general repudiation of the projected magisterial and gaol scheme, it was 4 rather coincidental circumstance that in the same month the keeper of the Hastings gaol was removed, and his place taken by William Brazier, whose wife also acted as matron. George Colbran — ”Old George,” as he was familiarly called — was 74 years old when the change was made, and although a strong man for his age, yet, recollecting that an earlier keeper had been murdered, the change could only be regarded as a judicious one. The ex-keeper continued, however, to serve the Corporation for several years longer, one of his occupations being that of attending the Mayor as a mace bearer. He was of a family whose name had appeared in the Hastings registers for at least 100 years, under the varied orthography of Coalbrand, Coalbran, Colebron and Colbran, and his death, later on, as a nonagenarian, has been alluded to by The Postman in his halt at 9 Hill-street in the following lines:—

”But ere his retains in their grave shall recline,
George Colbran, who carries the mace
When aged ninety-two, at this house number nine,
Will end his terrestrial race.
To serve the same town for so many long years,
With mayors, both many and new,
And witness nine decades of peoples’ careers
Is only the lot of a few.”

The incidental allusion to the death of old George Colbran reminds me that in the year under consideration another well-known native of Hastings passed over to the undiscovered region of immortality. This was the good-looking wife of Richard Baldock, described by visitors and others as the ”bonnie and obliging fishmonger.” She was sister to Mr. Ball, an equally obliging fishmonger of St. Leonards, and a member of the old Hastings family who, in the days of “Good Queen Bess,” spelt their names interchangeably as Bawl and Baull. Another noteworthy death was that of the Countess of Cornwallis, the third wife of the Earl of that title. She died at St. Leonards on the 4th of November, at the age of 37, greatly esteemed for her amiability and generosity. The year 1847 was remarkable for the number of sudden deaths, thus necessitating an equal number of coroner's inquests, among which were the following:— Sarah Chapman, aged 66, died from apoplexy; Edmund Drury, of St. Leonards, went out for a walk on Sunday, April 11th, and on his return sat in a chair and immediately expired, A week previously, Thomas White, a bookkeeper and grocer to the fishery, while assisting to launch a boat for the mackerel season, injured himself in such manner as to cause immediate death. He was 67 years of age, and, as a native of Hastings, could boast of an ancestry dating from time immemorial. His son, Thomas White, an octogenarian is a retired grocer, and one of his daughters is a Mrs. Richardson, who, with her husband and son carries on the grocery business established by her father, in a house said to be 300 years old. Mrs. Richardson, together. with Miss Joannah Thwaites, Mrs. Anthony Harvey, and a few others I could name, are still comely, although venerable in age, and are excellent specimens of the “many maidens fair” for which Hastings was in days gone by reputed to be pre-eminent. On the 19th of April a visitor named Samuel Humphrey died suddenly from water on the chest; and on May 31st an inquest was held, on Robert Gurr, who, on the preceding Whit-Monday, was knocked down and run over by a van. On August 10th an inquest was held on Mercy Sharp, aged 53, who died of apoplexy; also on a child named Palmer, overlain by its mother. Another coroner’s inquisition was held on Oct. 9th, the subject being Cordelia, wife of Edward Hyland, who, from “natural causes,“ had been found dead in bed. She was one of three sisters named respectively after three sisters of the late Alderman Deudney, J.P., and whose father, named Dabney, was run over and killed in one of Mr. Deudney’s fields, The Dabney family, originally D’Aubigne, of the expelled French Huguenots, have a curious and interesting history (See Chapter I). But my list of inquests would not be complete were I to omit the one which was held by a mock jury under the presidency of a pseudo coroner, The venue was the Cutter Inn, and the subject was a newly-elected Town Councillor. Mr. Anthony Harvey, the so-called ”Political King of All Saints,” had been returned only as fourth on the poll, and so his antagonistic quidnuncs declared him to be virtually dead. Mr. John Dungate Thwaites was foreman of the jury, “Tally” Phillips was one of the deponents, and the verdict was that the “deceased had come by his death by the cruel hand of Politics.”

Instructions were given that his body politic be buried, head downwards, in the west corner of Halton churchyard. Grotesque as was this mock inquest, it seemed to be hardly more of a burlesque than the giving of three shillinge to be divided among three men who had, at the risk of their own lives, rescued a gentleman from drowning. The money was accepted by Cobby, Page, and another as the “value of the gentleman’s life.”

Having recorded a series of sudden and sorrowful deaths which occurred in 1847, I will now describe some events of a more cheerful character. On Tuesday, June 22nd, a gay wedding was witnessed at the Royal Victoria Hotel, the bride being the eldest daughter of Mr. William Chamberlain, and the bridegroom Mr. James Hilder, of Robertsbridge. The latter was a member of a long-established and well-known family of East-Sussex, whilst the father of the former was for many years (1839 to 1851) the highly respected lessee of the Victoria Hotel.

In August and September much amusement was afforded to the residential and visitorial population by the performances of Cooke's equestrian company and the exhibition of Wombwell’s menagerie, both of them being located in the Priory Meadow, and constituting, with peep-shows and other accessories, a superior sort of fair. I remember having had the boyish delight of witnessing the performances of Cooke’s Circus, twenty-four years before its visit just described. On that earlier occasion (Jan. 30th, 1823) the circus was erected on the beach, contiguous to the huge cliff which overhung the present site of Breeds place. The performance was patronised by the Mayor, E. Milward, Esq., and among the crowded company were the Duchess of Richmond, the Countess of Buckinghamshire, the Ladies Lennox, etc. Among the executants were the Messrs. and Miss Hengler, who performed on the tight rope; Master Cooke, who executed some astonishing feats of horsemanship; and Mr. Bridges, who evoked great applause by his masterly evolutions on a bare-backed steed. There were also a Spanish parade of beautiful horses, a country-dance on horseback to the tune of “Paddy Carey,” and “a naval engagement between the Shannon and Chesapeake,” the latter being exploded with red-hot shot. I have here dwelt longer on the equestrian performances of 1823 than on those of 1847, my object being to show, firstly, that the site of Breeds place was more out of the town at the former date than the Priory Meadows (now Bank ​building​s, Queen’s ​road​, &c.) were at the latter date; and, secondly, that the famous equestrians, Cooke, Hengler and Bridges, have been familiar with Hastings for two or three generations. They are all of them in some way related by marriage, whilst the boy - Cookes, whom I personally knew as playmates, were nephews of Mr. Thorpe, a well known schoolmaster of Hastings.

While describing the progress of the Brighton and Hastings railway in 1846, and its effect on the stage-coach traffic, I stated that one of the coaches which plied between Hastings and the South-Eastern railway at Staplehurst was taken off, as was also the Brighton coach, which had been driven for many years by Jonathan Mose; and now I will close my narrative of events of 1847 with a record of the fact that the last of the London and Hastings daily coaches, named The Express, but better known as ‘The White,’ was reduced to the running of thrice a week. The proprietors were Messrs. James Emary, of the Castle Hotel, Benjamin Worthy Horne and John Watson, the last-named partner being also the driver. It continued on the ​road​ until about November or December, when it was laid up in ordinary for the remainder of the winter, by which time the Alliance, another coach of which Mr. Emary was proprietor, had become non est. At about Christmas, a similar fate overtook Mr. Emary’s omnibus which had been running thrice a week to Maidstone, the introduction of the railway having made the undertaking an unpayable one.