that I ever showed them the difference of the Library and Baths as they knew them and the copy of Mr. Burton's original design then in my possession. From the said design, here produced it is apparent that Baths only were intended and that a public library attached thereto was an after conception.
The year 1831 - the year before the passing of the Reform Bill - was one of such a stirring character, locally as well as nationally, that in giving merely the history of St. Leonards, one seems to have some difficulty in avoiding a preference to the general disturbance. Incendiarism was of a widespread prevalance from which taint the usually quiet country in this neighbourhood was anything but free. Of this I was myself an eye witness, having on one of the nights in the month of August - probably the 21st - followed the Hastings fire-engines from the St. Clements belfry to Guestling, where the farm property of Mr. Breeds was in flames, and for setting fire to which a man named Buffard was afterwards wrongfully hanged. It was also the year in which the Bristol riots occurred, associated with which was Sir Charles Weatherall, who had represented Hastings in Parliament in 1826. Sir Charles was the Recorder whose entrance into the city caused the riots which occurred on the 29th to the 31st of October. He made no disavowal of being decidedly opposed to the Reform Bill, and terrible scenes ensued;
"The Mansion House, the bishop's palace, several merchant's stores, some of the prisons (the inmates liberated) and nearly a hundred houses were burnt, and above five hundred people were killed by the military or otherwise perished. Peoples' passions were much inflamed both by seditious pamphlets and by a more legitimate press, whose aim was to reform some imperial abuses[a]
Newspapers were expensive in those days, and it was a practice with many of the working-class to go to public-houses to hear them read. It is probable that more money was sometimes spent in the purchase of liquors that would be required for the purchase of a newspaper, dear as such things then were; but then the refreshment was held to be of itself an equivalent for such expenditure, while the information obtained by hearing the newspaper read, and the means at the same time afforded for political discussion or social conversation, were regarded as an unpurchased boon. There were two or even three public-houses at St. Leonards even before the town was as many years old, and at one of these at least a person was regularly engaged to read the newspaper on Sunday evenings. Why on a Sunday evening? some of my readers might ask, and the answer would be this:- There were then no reading rooms, no Mechanic's Institution, no Working-men's Club and no Temperance Society; and there were also no churches or chapels worthy of the name.
Sunday Newspaper Readings - Commencement of "St. Leonards without" - New coach
The St. Leonards Church, as I have already shown, was only commenced to be built in 1831, and the Wesleyan Chapel was not erected until 1836. Then also there were no railways, and as a necessity, all the weekly newspapers came from London in the mail-bag on Sunday morning. And when they did so come many of them were as proportionately small in size as they were high in price. To illustrate this I need only mention that the Weekly Dispatch was then sold at 8d., stamped, and was only about half its present size at 1d., so that it was relatively sixteen times as dear. Under all the condition named it was not un-natural for working men, while they thirsted for beer to thirst also for the latest news; and hence the provision to quench the double thirst by a double supply. A man, named Edward Tebay, the son of a Hastings auctioneer and broker, was newspaper reader at the Horse and Groom for some years, and this practice was kept up until -
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