St. Michael's place. But we could discern in the fore ground of the Rope-walk the ware-house whose loft, by the generosity of Mr. Breeds, had been previously occupied by the master and scholars. of Saunders's(sic) Charity, and beyond that we could see the buildings which the "squatters" were erecting northward of the Rope-walk; also the Priory bridge, the St. Mary’s Workhouse, and the Hastings Castle, which last named object not having been excavated and the cliff not cut down, had a very different appearance to that which it now presents.
I do not know what was the age of my venerable guide in 1822, but as she was an occasional recipient of relief as long back as 1783, and was described as "Old Sarah----" in 1796, I calculate that she must have been at least between 70 and 80. Of course there was a time when Old Sarah was Young Sarah, and it may be possible that she was as fair to look upon as was Sarah, the wife of Abraham. But whatever might have been the charms of her youth she had not a husband to make provisions for her either in her prime of life or in her declining years. When able to work, it was her practice to go to Mr. Deudney’s, Mr. Mannington’s and other houses for daily employment, and when not thus able, her temporal wants were supplied by the parish of St. Mary Magdalen. And, not only were her own needs thus administered to, but also the necessities of a boy who , in his simplicity, might have explained, like Topsy, "I neber ’ad no fader, I neber ‘ad no moder, I ‘specs I growed." Be this as it may, the boy in question was sometimes described as "Swift’s boy," and sometimes as "Sarah’s boy," but seeing that he was kept for several years by the parish at a total cost of not less than £40, I think he ought to have been called the Parish’s boy. Old Sarah, herself, was not particularly burdensome to the quinary band of ratepayers, her various sums of relief during forty-two years, from 1783 to the time of her death in 1825, amounting only to about £20, Whether it was thought that Sarah could earn sufficient to keep herself even without that comparatively small amount of relief it is not for me to say, but that the jurats considered she was entitled to it is evidenced by an order from the court in 1796 to Charles Deudney as overseer of the Magdalen parish, to pay the arrears of £6. 15s. due to her for her child.
Having said thus much about "Old Sarah," I might also bring under my readers’ notice a few of her contemporaries, who notwithstanding that they, too, were -billited(sic) on certain people af Hastings derived the major portion of their means of maintenance from the five occupiers of land in St. Mary Magdalen ere Mr. Burton, both in a literary and figurative sense, "dreamt" his design for the town of St. Leonards.
I might speak of Dame Fowler, Dame Dabney and Dame Whyborn; and I might give a few life-sketches of "Old Jan Whyborn," and of Richard Roots and Arthur Fuller, both the latter of whom lived in the lonely cottage on the cliff. I might also tell of the four girls who were severally named after the Misses Deudney. I might refer to John Dabney, father of the said four girls, who was killed in the hay-field by a waggon running over his neck; also to his brother William and the latter’s noted wife — parents of the late drill-sergeant Dabney — whose residence was at the once existent tower and turnpike-gate, from which was named the present Tower road. A painting of the said tower and its adjuncts, built by Mr. Burton, and appearing in an earlier chapter, depicts the original object as an old familiar friend. I might tell of Tom Standen who became paralyzed whi'e hoeing turnips and of his blind namesake who used to sit on the summit of the road leading to St. Leonards over the White Rock. I might also describe "Ned" Burchast, who used to travel round on Sunday mornings to measure the paupers and others for boot & and shoes; also Mr. Bryant and Mr. Cossum who supplied clothes on the parish a/c.; together with the eccentric "dockters" Satterly and Dutton, who supplied medicine, as well as attendance,to paupers and non-paupers of St.Mary Magdalen. But this task I will defer to a more convenient season, being anxious as I am at present to recover my foothold of 1834, thence to take another step forward. I think, however, before quitting this part of my narrative, I ought to extract from the parish a/cs. a few specimens of orthography, so that those who may be trained in the school now on the Charity land here so frequently referred to, if ever taught phonetic spelling, may have some proof that the system is not altogether modern.
The following are a few examples:-
Sa’t Marymagdelings Parish. Payd owd Dank—for a Munth 8 0 Paid for a waskcot 3 3 Paid for Mending Shoues 1 6 Paid Sheepards wifes logins 4 0 Briches for ould Dunk 8 9 Coffen and Sroud 1 3 0 Work on the hy ways 1 5 0 Paid the Saxton for Bering Dame Britt 5 0 Paid Cossum for two Shurts 6 3 Makeing Cloase & thrid & Butons 6 3 Dabner Recevd half hogs fleed wayed
4 stoneGave Wiburn to berry his gal 5 0 For work in the hiy ways 2 6 Gave Old Britt a shurt and sheat 8 0 Paid for Sitifie [certificate] 3 0 Releaf to Wibourns famaly 5 0 Put the White Rock out to blow or
Clive [cleave] , 179210 0 0 Moveing old Master Wiburn from
the Tobackerhouse to Hasting3 0 Paid Carry [Carey] for a paier of
indenters {indentures]7 6 Affedavid for Tom Wibourn 1 0 Paid Dockter Watts 11 0
- Setelled this Account [1779] and the book is in Debeted to us £1 1 0.
I have before stated that the persons elected in 1834 to fill the vacancies on the board of Commissioners were G. B. Greenough, Esq., the Rev. J. H. Randolph, Mr. Norsworthy, Mr. Chas. Deudney and Mr. Samuel Chester. Mr. Chester, with his, family, had only taken up his abode in St. Leonards that same year, but it might have been felt by those who elected him that they were not bestowing their favors on a stranger. He had carried on the business of baker and grocer for some ten or twelve years previously in the adjoining parish of the Holy Trinity, and had removed to St. Leonards when the property of the so-called "America" was claimed by the Crown. Mr. Chester thus transferred his grocery business to 12 East ascent, a house which at that time was estimated at a greater value than the other property of the same character immediately above and below it; yet, being approached by means of a flight of steps, it was ill-adapted for such a business. I remember hearing it once said of a man that he could establish a trade even in the middle of a wood. Whether Mr. Chester’s business capabilities were equal to such a consummation I am unable to pronounce, but I know that he was generally painstaking and punctual in the execution of orders; and I take it that this attention to the requirements of his customers more than counter-balanced the inconvenience of so undesirable an approach to the shop. By-and-by, another house was added to the establishment, and the business appeared to keep pace with the growth of the town. At length, after training his family to industrial pursuits, and seeing that they were in a position to apply their industry to advantage, Mr. Chester relinquished the business at 11 and 12 East ascent, having already laid the foundation of that commercial enterprise which, under the subsequent management of his eldest son, grew into enormous proportions.
I do not forget that although I am led by many trains of associations to be frequently discursive, I have still to keep in view the chronological bearing of my story. Starting, therefore, once more from the last Commissioners’ meeting of 1834, immediately following the town meeting at which the elder Mr. Chester was elected, I find that an estimate was to be prepared for facing the new sea-wall with hard stone, and that additional protection was to be afforded it by the imbedding of fagots at its base. It is worthy of a passing note that the same sort of materials had to be used for a similar purpose throughout the year 1878 — the Jubilee Year of St. Leonards, which suggested the present History. Unfortunately for the Commissioners, in 1834, they could get no response to their advertisements for tenders, and no offers of the £800 loan which their clerk was instructed at every meeting to make fresh efforts to obtain. The Gas Company wanted the amount of their account, the bankers were pressing for repayment of £250 lent cash, and many of the ratepayers either could not or would not pay up their arrears. Under such difficulties the Commissioners were compelled to postpone the much-needed repairs and additional protection to the parade wall, notwithstanding that their future Queen was residing amongst them. In smaller matters, however, the cost of which was in their means, the governing body displayed a judicious action which some persons think might be worthily imitated by the local rulers of the present day. They ordered a paved crossing to the church to be laid down, and an opening in the parade rails to be made opposite to Victoria House; also another crossing to be laid down between the two points just named. They had already effected similar crossings at the Harold hotel, the Conqueror hotel, and the St. Leonards hotel and, at their next meeting, they resolved to have a paved footway from the East ascent to the St. Leonards hotel, and from the Sussex hotel at West Marina to the parade. These several crossings were always looked upon as a public boon; and the complaint in the present day is that whilst the Town Council spend immense sums of money in the purchase of parks and pleasure-grounds which only one visitor out of a hundred goes to see, a few pounds cannot be spared to lay down an additional crossing here-and-there, which is so much needed by the other ninety-nine visitors who have to cross the many intersecting roads on their way from one part of the town to another. The late Rev. Henry Robinson, writing to a Hastings newspaper, said—"If you wish to maintain your supremacy, you must render it possible for a carriage to be driven in your streets without its springs being broken, and you must make crossings in many places by which delicate women can pass from one side of the road to the other without being up.to their ankles in mud!!" Of late years many of the stone crossings have been taken up, and were it not that at the present time a substitute for them is found in dirty weather with the aid of Local-Board brooms and a little fine gravel, I should still say as I did in the first edition of this History - namely, that I had seen ladies. walk long distances in the endeavour to find a comparatively clean crossing. I also said, there are numerous churches and chapels, public institutions, places of business, railway approaches, pillar letter-boxes, &c., in and about Norman road, London road, Warrior square and other thoroughfares, to which people desire to have access, and yet there is not a crossing to be seen. I think, then, that whatsoever improvements have been made since the St. Leonards Commissioners. flourished, their practical wisdom in providing clean crossings was not to be gainsayed.
It was close upon the year 1834 that the Commissioners treated with Mr. Burton for the removal from Mercatoria of the St. Leonards Watch-house or Lock-up, and at the same time another new suit of clothes was ordered for the Beadle, the price to be £6 15s., and the maker to be Mr. Richard Gausden. So far as I can remember, the only tailors at that date residing in St. Leonards were the Mr. Gausden referred to, and a Mr. Edward Minister, the latter of whom resided at 9 East ascent, and of whom many amusing anecdotes might be told.
The unfortunate tailors strike - A haunted house
I dare to say that these good knights of the bodkin were inconvenienced in proportion to the extent of their trade as were Messrs. Standen and Forest, Messrs. Clement and Inskipp, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Harman, Mr. Lock, Mr. Tyhurst, Mr. Foster and other tailors or tailor-merchants of Hastings, in consequence of the tailors’ strike which took place in that same year, 1834. The spirit of Chartism was just then gaining a hold upon the affections of the people, and it was thought that the tailors — who were always great in politics — imbibed the “spirit to a larger extent than any other class of operatives. It was also believed that the strike of the tailors for better conditions was in a great measure the outcome of discontent engendered by the espousal of Chartism. Be that as it may, the ramifications of the tailors’ strike were very extensive, the number who engaged in it in London alone being thirteen thousand.
The strike among the tailors in 1834 had a very different result to that which the strikemen had contemplated. An important factor which they had failed to use in their -
