south and west of Harold Hotel, Bowyer and Bishop to cleanse the streets, and the inhabitants to be served with notice to sweep the fronts of their houses. James Ball to construct two water carts for £45. Mr. Carey to erect a wooden pump at Marina for £5. The channels at Quarry-hill road and Maze-hill road to be widened. Notice boards to be put upon the parade against open bathing on the beach. The beadle to be the only bellman and billposter. Edward Smith to finish the road from the Assembly-rooms to the Meeting house (Quadrangle Chapel) for £11 2s.
Such was the work ordered to be done by the Commissioners during their first six months of office, notwithstanding that there were several more defections in their ranks. The resignations of Jas. Homan, Geo. Scott, J. Carey, T. Leave, and one or two others were accepted, and their places were filled by Messrs. M. Bland, W. D. Davies, E. Waghorne, R. T. Noakes, S. Putland, A. Burton and C. Deudney, But if the changes in the personality of the Commission Board were unexpectedly numerous during the first six months of its existence, they were vastly more so during the year following.
Doubtless there were various inducements for gentlemen and tradesmen to qualify for, and take part in, the government of a new town, and probably an equal number of reasons for the non-realisation of their intentions. The motives of such gentlemen as Mr. (afterwards Sir.) Howard Elphinstone, F. North, Esq., M.P., J.S. Warre, Esq., M.P., Musgrave Brisco, Esq., Wastel Brisco, Esq., Herbert Curteis, Esq., and Col. de Lacy Evans, might have been partly political and partly a desire to give a high social tone to the executive of a rapidly rising town, in whose outlines there was more of the aristocratic than of the commercial element. But with builders and other tradesmen, such as Messrs. Milsted, Honiss. Waghorne, Putland, Maddon, Homan, Norsworthy, Thorne, and others, the leading motive — apart from the more sentimental one of honour — was, probably, of a utilitarian character. When one reflects, however, upon the fact that during the year 1833 there were sixty new names added to the roll of commissioners, and nearly as many disqualified, one is led to the conclusion that the path of this new governing body was not strewn with roses; and that whilst some of the members became disqualified by causes which they could not very well control, and others simply through their inability to attend the meetings, much the larger number sent in their resignations either because they could not gratify their individual crotchets, or because as Commissioners they durst not enter into contracts for the several works which they knew would have to be undertaken. Not a few were disqualified by commercial failures which about that time were rife, and to which I have before alluded. Some, also, like Messrs. Edlin, Hodgson, Mollard and Milsted, were unable to act because they were publicans or hotel keepers. Then there were a few cases, like that of Mr. Beck’s, in which the newly-elected Commissioner found himself possessed of an insufficient amount of property. Altogether the changes and defections were very numerous and sometimes exciting, even if not serious. Several meetings of the inhabitants were convened to elect Commissioners to fill up vacancies, and on one occasion the meeting was adjourned in consequence of there being no response to the chairman’s call for nominations.
But the personal changes thus effected were not the only Commissional mutations of that year; for, there were also changes both in the times and places of meeting. The Commissioners first met at the Conqueror Hotel, then at the St. Leonards Assembly Rooms, and finally at the St. Leonards Hotel. The dates for the general meetings were also altered from the first Mondays of Oct., Jan., April and July, to the last Mondays of March, June, Sept. and Dee. Looking at the incessant changes as here indicated, and associating them with the large amount of business transacted, one is led to believe that much of the latter was due to the presiding genius of Mr. Burton and the support which he received from those of his family who were members of the Board. These were Dr. Burton, Decimus Burton, Alfred Burton, William Burton, T. Wood and J. P. Fearon. With £4,000 lying at interest upon the realization of the rates, and with many works necessary to be executed for the extension and improvement of the town, Mr. Burton had naturally a large interest at stake, and there can be no doubt that his personal energy and influence contributed largely to the development of his original design, notwithstanding that the management had been transferred to a legally accredited executive.
It was at the Commissioners’ January meeting in 1833 that the first half-yearly assessment was ordered. It was to be based on such estimates as the rating committee might agree upon, and to be computed from the previous July, at 9d.in the £. A rough draft of the rate book was also ordered to be prepared; and this, of course, was done; but, as the meetings were quarterly, the said book was not presented until the 1st of April. It was not long, however, before the ratepayers began to find fault with the new rate; for, be it understood that this was the Improvement-rate, not the Poor-rate. Mr. Rock remonStrated. against his assessment in Mews road, and got it reduced from £48 to £25. Miss Ranger, also — a lady who never appeared to be desirous of paying more than was demanded — obtained a reduction of 11s. 3d. from the amount charged. Encouraged by the success of these remonstrances, Mr. Edlin, of the Harold Hotel, made a similar application, and was allowed 24s. Then followed two gentlemen named Waters and Graeme, who got their rating reduced from £75 to £60; but, as though the difference had to be made up in some other way, it was determined to increase the rating of the houses 48 to 56 Marina from £90 to £112. This was a woeful jump from £35 at which such houses were at that time rated to the poor, and one doesn’t wonder that the owners and occupiers exhibited a little uneasiness on that account. Mr. Burton himself was among the malcontents, for he protested against the rating of the St. Leonards Assembly Rooms and Subscription Gardens, thus getting the latter reduced from £60 to £20. The discontent of some of the rate-payers continued, and before the year had expired an alteration was made in the rate of assessment from three-fourths to two-thirds. The Commissioners, however, made the second rate at 10d. in the £, instead of 9d.; and, as £25 of the first rate remained uncollected, they ordered payment of the arrears to be insisted upon. Twenty-five pounds in uncollected rates would not be regarded as a large sum at the present day, but it was then a twelfth of the whole assessment, and the money was much needed.
But, so irksome was the work of collection that, after taking legal proceedings against a few of the defaulters, the collector resigned his situation. The town of St. Leonards — and, I judge, the borough generally — was at that time in the throes of a commercial depression; and as a similarly untoward condition was being experienced at the time this was first written, it may serve as one means of estimating the growth of the place the seven or eight summonses issued in 1833 with the 480 similar missives sent out in 1878. But this was not the only historical item of the former year that was repeated in the latter. In 1878 one of the tradesmen of the South Colonnade was warned against obstructing the thoroughfare with his commodities; and this somewhat rare mandate as applied to that locality, was just a repetition of the warning which in 1833 was conveyed by the St. Leonards Beadle from the Commissioners to a Mr. Mitchell. The Colonnade tradesman of that name was in the habit of placing chairs and sofas between the columns which supported the covered way — not, as might be imagined, to rest the weary pedestrian who at that time found the public seats too few and far between, but to relieve, for a few hours during the day, his furniture store of that indescribable "pack" necessitated by a want of room which from that day to this has ever been an inconvenience to the tradesmen occupying that busy mart. So, again, a letter in 1878 found its way into BRETT’S GAZETTE, complaining in rather strong terms of some obstructions existing on the East Ascent, and this was but a repetition of similar complaints which were made in the year 1833. These complaints were not, however, made in the columns of a newspaper, and the obstructions complained of were not so quickly removed. Neither St, Leonards nor Hastings could then boast of a strictly local press through which a grievance could be made known, and the only remedy for a public evil was the more tardy fist of a quarterly meeting of the Improvement Commissioners. But if this process was more slow it was none the less effective. The beadle was instructed to give notice to the offending inhabitants of East Ascent, that if the obstructions complained of were not quickly removed, the authors of them would be dealt with according to law. For a time the mandate was obeyed, but in the following year, as I shall have occasion to show, the obstructions were renewed, and even greater nuisances were added.
At the earlier period here mentioned, only the lower and greater portion of the East Ascent wall was constructed, and so dangerous was the upper part of the road considered to be, that a tender of £28 was accepted from Mr. John Smith, to continue the wall from where Mr. Burton had left it to the south-east corner of Mercatoria, Mr. Putland was also employed to remove so much of the cliff as was needed for the construction of such wall. He was also directed to plant shrubs on the sharp sloping rock which formed the base of the new piece of wall. This wall, these shrubs, and this somewhat unsightly bank remain till this day, whilst the larger and lower portion of the artificial embankment was in 1878 vastly strengthened and improved by the Hastings Urban Sanitary Authority.
In referring to the obstructions at East Ascent, I cannot altogether shun the idea that the shopkeepers in that locality are as much entitled to excuse as to censure. Even as private residences — for which the houses in that part were designed—they were erected in such close proximity to the edge of the cliff as to leave but a very narrow road and footpath between them and the projecting wall; and the road was then practically narrower than it now is in consequence of the paved channel on the south side being about two feet from the wall. Shops became a necessity, and as Mercatoria was much too limited, and the South Colonnade, too remote or too difficult of access for the dwellers in the more elevated districts, some of the houses in East Ascent and Mews road were converted into makeshift places of business, and the traffic in those narrow toads was at times unavoidably impeded. Grand as was Mr. Burton’s conception of a new town, and elegant as was the design upon the whole, there were palpable defects here-and-there, and the narrowness of the thoroughfare in East Ascent was one of them.
Another narrow thoroughfare was that portion of the road which lay between the Colonnade and the Archway; and it is a noteworthy fact that whilst in 1878 much was done to improve the East Ascent, both by private energy and public authority, the latter had also just effected an improvement near the Archway by widening the road alluded to. The iron rails were set back in a line with a similar barrier on the east side of the Archway, and a greater uniformity of space thus secured. On effect of this operation, however, was to show more than ever the need which existed for the removal of the Archway itself, Whatever necessity there might once have been for such a structure to complete the town as originally designed, it had always been regarded as an obstruction; and since for nearly 50 years, St. Leonards had nominally extended eastwards as far as Verulam place, the said Archway, as the "Eastern Boundary of St. Leonards," was a misnomer. Then, too, the St. Leonards Commissioners, as a governing body, were defunct; and the town with her elder sister, Hastings, was under the sole jurisdiction of the Hastings Urban Sanitary Authority. Like the old Temple Bar of London, the St. Leonards Archway had outlived its utility, and at the present time the vast improvement effected by its removal is hailed as a boon.
It is a remarkable circumstance that as I proceed with this History — Jubilee History, as it was first called — I am met at almost every step by some incident or coincident which in an especial manner has linked the jubilee year of 1878 with the remoter years of the past. At one place, as in the occurrences above cited, it was History repeating itself; at another, as in the construction the West-Marina parade, it was the completion of an original design; and at a third, as at the East Ascent and the Archway, it was the reversal of first intentions or a modifica-
