If
you have lived in Hastings all of your life, have an interest in the history of
our town or just relish the thought of a few moments of quiet reading and
reflection away from the hubbub of a busy family Christmas, then this
informative (and occasionally light hearted) article from 'Hastings Town' is for you…
Christmas
In Hastings – A Timeline
24th
Dec 1836 – A great snowstorm cuts off communications with London for ten days
(no such thing as telephones, e mails or texts in those days!)
1852
– There are floods in The Old Town and the Priory.
1858
– The Prince of Wales visits Hastings en-route to Portsmouth.
1862
– The Queens Hotel is finished.
1863
– The Albert Memorial clock tower is finished but it lacks a clock! This was
eventually installed in mid 1864. (Good to see that ‘forward planning’ was just
as good in those days as it is today!)
1869
– The first pile of Hastings Pier is driven into the seabed at 3.am. (I have
checked this and it does say 3 am – what a funny time to be building piers!
With the current fanaticism with ‘Health & Safety’ they’d never get away
with it now would they? I suppose they had to start then because of the tides?)
1870
– There is snow at Christmas and a great many people go skating at St Andrew’s
Gardens (in Alexandra Park).
25th
Dec 1870 – A rare buzzard is seen and shot in Warrior Square. (Hilariously, our
local newspaper also reports that it was ‘later mounted by John Bissenden of
the Archway’. Thank God there are such things as dating agencies these days!)
On
a more serious subject, 254 people spent Christmas Day this year at Hastings
Workhouse (and we moan about today’s welfare system).
18th
Dec 1881 – Hurricane-force winds drive a sailing vessel onto the rocks at
Fairlight Cove at 5.30 am. The ‘Sacitta’ struck a reef near The Hassocks and
immediately broke into two. One member of the crew is washed ashore but the
other six lose their lives. The German vessel had been on route to Mexico and
was carrying a general cargo, including pianos, utensils, rifles, toys, twine
and a large amount of alcohol in the form of casks, bottles of spirits and
bottles of beer. This tragedy was compounded when some of the local fishermen
decided to visit the scene and help themselves to some of the wrecked goods.
Two youngsters by the name of Adams and Benton drank far too much of the
contraband liquor and paid with their lives. Harry Benton, who was 16 years of
age, was found dead the next morning on a hillside near the Lovers Seat and
Adams was never seen again – presumed washed out to sea. Other youngsters
mistakenly drank quantities of perfume, which drove them mad, and a quantity of
rifles was also smuggled back to the town.
1882
– The Fishermen’s Institute opened at no 97 All Saints Street.
17th
Dec 1883 – A local branch of the ‘Women’s Suffrage Group’ was formed after a
meeting was held in Cambridge Road. The women of Hastings were no doubt
inspired by a suffrage talk by Elizabeth Blackwell (the first woman to graduate
in medicine and be placed on the British Medical Register) on August 29th.
1894
– The 189 feet high spire and tower of Christ Church, London Road was
completed.
1906
– There is chronic unemployment in Hastings and with no chance of an economic
turnaround in the New Year; pressure is applied to Hastings Council to ‘put in
hand all work that may be required for the town’.
1907
– The unemployment situation in Hastings is still dire and in early December
there are a number of marches. (Maybe I should give that idea a whirl at the
moment!)
1908
– The body of a recently dead child is found in the roof of 37, Paynton Road,
Silverhill. The incident becomes known as ‘The Silverhill Roof Mystery’ and all
of Hastings is gripped by the tale.
1918
– Hastings welcomes home troops from the First World War.
Dec
13th 1924 – Work begins on the White Rock Pavilion.
Dec
18th 1926 – The town council sanction the building of a new bowls
Pavilion at White Rock at an estimated cost of over £8,000.
1927
– Alexandra Park is flooded and closed to the public. This is due to surplus
water from Buckshole Reservoir.
1932
– It is announced that work will start in Jan 1933 on a new boating lake at the
Fish Market. There are still over 2,000 people unemployed in Hastings and a
dance at The Palace Pier raises over £20 for the unemployed. (£20! How times
have changed eh? You wouldn’t get anywhere near that these days!)
Dec
7th 1935 – Excavators on the south side of Hastings Castle unearth
the remains of five human bodies and two animals. (For once, it was nothing to
do with Jordan or Peter Andre either!)
1938
– Hastings suffers arctic weather conditions over Christmas with seven and a
half inches of snow and eleven degrees of frost. Casualty wards overflow with
injuries caused by the weather.
1939
– 680 men aged 20-23 are called up in Hastings. 2.5% are conscientious
objectors.
1940
– The true spirit of Christmas is alive and well in Hastings as one local
benefactor supplies 350 struggling homes with free food and coal for Xmas.
Dec
24th 1942 – 4 FW 190’s machine gun Sedlescombe Road, Marliene Avenue, Madeira Drive,
St Helen’s Road, Bexhill Road and Bulverhythe Rd. One woman is killed.
1944
– Many evacuees return home to find their houses looted, lack of accommodation
and much higher rents.
Dec
23rd 1950 – The Jenny Lind, High Street, reopens after being blitzed
in the war. It is the first building to be rebuilt in The Old Town.
Dec
30th 1950 – The Town Council decide to purchase the derelict St
Leonards Pier with a view to demolishing it in 1951. (Not so quick with the
cheque book these days are they!)
1957
– The Mayor switches on the Xmas lights in Kings Road, St Leonards to open the
annual Christmas Fayre. (Those were the days eh?)
1962
- The town is in the grip of the worst weather recorded in living memory. There
are frequent snowfalls and blizzards and people are unable to travel causing
many cancellations for hoteliers.
1963
– Hastings man Peter Forsyth Baxter is convicted of murdering Mrs. Linda Grace
Bennett. (There’s always something rotten that happens at Christmas, isn’t
there?)
1966
– The people of Hastings are upset and outraged when 320 headstones at the
Borough Cemetery are defaced with offensive slogans in French.
1968
– Another Christmas in Hastings with bad weather. There are mountainous seas
and there is damage to the new 100,000 groyne and the paneling protecting it.
1970
– There are electricity cuts and blackouts in Hastings due to an electric power
workers strike. Many people have to make do with candles. (I bet it wasn’t half
Christmassy though!)
Dec
29th 1973 – The 3 day week is introduced.
1976
– Unemployment in the town reaches its worst level since 1939 and 10% of the
male work force is out of work. Interestingly, at the same time it was reported
that Hastings had a rate 5% above the national average of unmarried mothers.
(Well, it was a REALLY hot summer that year wasn’t it!)
1980
– The Ice Rink housed in what used to be The White Rock Baths opens.
1983
– Police are still searching for missing Hastings man Gary Collins who was last
seen on December 12th (I remember Gary coming into Stylus Records
with his dog a few times)
1988
– A bomb alert closes the town centre.
1991
– The pedestrianisation of Wellington Place and Castle Street is completed.
1994
– The Royal Navy Bomb Disposal Team blow up wartime mine in the sea two miles
of Hastings.
1999
– Sion Jenkins loses his appeal against his murder conviction and Desmond
Llewelyn (‘Q’ in the James Bond films) dies in a car accident on his way home
from a book signing.
2007
– There is snow in Hastings over Christmas and some magical pictures of All
Saints Street are taken that take us all back to the days of Charles Dickens.
(Ironically, I went to Austria that year determined to enjoy a white Christmas.
I had a pretty dire holiday and missed out on a great one at home!
HO,
HO, HO (and all that!)
Have a great Christmas – Tony May.
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