inches high and much stouter than on his frst visit; that on the latter occasion he was accompanied by his wife and child, the maiden name of the former being Lavina Warren, her age ten years younger and her stature one inch taller than her husband’s; and that with this remarkable group of five lilliputians were "Commodore Nutt" and Miss Minna Warren.
The Priory Brooks & Fields of Ice - St. Leonards Caves - Obituaries
The remaining events of 1844 are few in number, and to these I shall make but a passing allusion. The first was a stupendous fall of chalk from the cliff at Beachy Head, which, it was subsequently asserted, stopped the traveling of the beach eastward, and thus commenced the denudation of the foreshores of Pevensey, Bulverhithe, St. Leonards and Hastings. The next was the journeying of several interested persons from Hastings and St. Leonards to join the forty or fifty thousand witnesses to Capt, Warner’s successful experiment at Brighton in sinking the ship John O' Gaunt. The third was the removal ot the old Corporation pews at All Saints’ church, when a monumental brass was discovered, representing a man and a woman in an act of supplication, and on which was the following inscription:- "Here, under this stone, lyeth the bodies of Thomas Goodenough, some time burges of this town, and Margaret, his wyf, for whos soules, of your charitie, say a Paternoster and Ave." The fourth and last, was the giving of beef to nearly one-hundred poor families by Mr. James Troup, the founder of Warrior square, for their Christmas dinners.
And now, as has been my custom with previous years, I will close the life, so to speak, of 1844 with an alphabetic record of human mortality in and near the borough, adding thereto the places of sepulture, so far as personal knowledge or acquired information serves me.
Brignell, Stephen, 15 years, Feb. St. Leonards,
Bartram, T. C., Esq. of Lincoln’s Inn, at St, Leonards, Sept. 22.
Brown, Hugh Wm,, Esq., 68, Dec. 2, St. Leonards,
Barnard, Mary, wife of Thos., 68, July 23, Bexhill
Bray, Sarah, wife of James, 65, April 16, St, Mary’s-in-Castle.
Bell. Matthew Howard, 11, son of Alfred, Feb, 21, do.
Brown, Lieut, Jno. Geo., 24, April 6. do,
Baumgardt, Geo, Augustus, 14, June 5, do.
Blogg, Samuel Waites, 68, Feb. 20. All Saints.
Bevins, Jno,, churchwarden, 52, March 24, All Saints.
Crouch, Chas,, 22 mos September, St. Leonards,
Chamberlin, Edwd,, son of Wm, & Ann, 29, at St, Leonards, Nov. 3, St. Mary in-Castle,
Church, Wm., 29, Oct. 16, Fairlight.
Davies. Frances Amelia, 34, Nov. St. Leonards.
Duke. George, 42, Nov. do.
Duplock, liza, wife of Geo.; 914, April 16, Bexhill.
Deudney, Chas, 52, at Marina, St. Leonards, Dec. 16.
Duke, Elizh, 21, April 17, All Saints.
“The soul that with sincere desires
Seeks after Jesu’s love,
That Soul the Holy Ghost inspires
With breathing from above.”
Fowler, William, 29, June, St, Leonards.
French, Sarah, 71, September, Bexhill.
Farbridge, Mary, 30, d. of Capt. Geo. Nov, 10, St, Mary-in-Castle.
Farncomb, Ann Eliza, 28, d. of Hy. & Louisa, Nov. 22, Fairlight,
Gill, John, of Tiverton, 57, July 14, St. Mary in-Castle,
Galton, Tertius, H-q., 61. Oct. 29, St. Leonards.
Golding, Joseph, 53 or 63, Dec. 7, St. Clement’s
Glazier, Samael, 70, April 30, All Saints.
Harris, John, 14 weeks, February, St. Leonards,
Harmer, Henry, 66, August 6, do.
Harmer, Geo, Jas. 3, September, do,
Jefferies, Jobn, 69, August, do.
Jenner. Jesse, 11, Oct. 3, St. Mary-in-Castle,
Landell, Ann, 90, March 13, Bexhill,
Lloyd, Elizabeth Mary Ann, 33, June 24. St, Mary’s.
Lees, Eleanor CG, 21, d. of Sir G.W. April 22, do.
Lucas-Shadwell, William, 78, September 18, Fairlight,
Mawe, Emily Jane, 7 months, October, St. Leonards,
Mackay, Ch. Douglas, of Antrim, 85, June 12, St, Mary's.
Money, Emma Kemp, 35, wife of Rev. K. A, Feb. 9, All Saints,
Mills, Ellen, d. of G. & A. Sargent, Dec. 4, All saints.
Nisbett, Charlotte, 18, November, St. Leonards.
Nelsen, Wliz. Ann, d. of T. & 7,12, Dee, 3, St. Mary-in-Castle.
Offer, James, 36, February 8 or 9, St. Leonards.
Prendergast, Bridget; 43, March 1, do.
Penfold, Wm. Peter, 3, April, do.
Pariah, Eliza, 20, Oct. 17 or 18, do.
Quaife, Eliza, 1, June, do.
Roper, Hy. John, 8 mes. Sept. do.
Sparshott, Sum. Jas. 10 days, March, do.
Strickland, Sarah, 1, March 3, do.
Smith, Wm., 72, June 36, Bexhill.
Standen, Jno, Hutchings, 4, July 23, St. Mary-in-Castle,
Steward. Ann, wife of C. W.H.27, April 7, St. Clement’s
Scrivens, Wm, banker, 71, Jan, 15, All Saints.
Towner, Ann, 30, July, 5t. Lecnards.
Towner, Charles, 2 days,July, do.
Tebay. Ann. 60, April, do.
Tooth. Edwar', 28, Nov. 30, St, Mary-in-Castle.
Thwaites, Thos., grocer. 79, Oct. 25, St. Clement’s.
Vennall, Wm., 59, August 31, St. Mary-in-Castle.
Walter, Alexander, 50, March, St. Leonards.
Waterman, Kmily, 3 mos., July, do.
Waters, Ann. 14 moa., September, do.
Waden, William, 69, November, do.
Watson, George, Esq. , 65, September 6, Bexhill.
Weston, Benjamin Bossom, 20, August 10, All Saints.
Interpolatory Obituaries
In the preceding columns I entered into a description of certain marriages and deaths which occurred in the year 1844, associating therewith some genealogical details; and now, also while I am writing in 1883, I am suddenly called upon to notice in conformity with a plan hitherto pursued - the demise of one or two persons who have been gathered to their fathers concurrently with the time of writing. The first to claim this obitual notice is the late George Potter, whose sudden illness while out for a ride on Saturday terminated in death at half-past seven on the following Sunday morning. The deceased was 74 years of age, and although his end was so comparatively abrupt and unexpected, it had been apparent to his friends and acquaintances that notwithstanding a characteristic cheerfulness, there were traces of a gradual approach to dissolution. As a servant at the Saxon Hotel prior to the year 1836, and as principal at the Horse and Groom Inn from 1848, Mr. Potten had been an inhabitant of St. Leonards during a period of from forty to fifty years. When writing of the events of 1836, I stated that in the month of May, Mr.W. M. Eldridge, who had been proprietor and occupier of the Saxon Hotel for about four years, removed to the Swan Hotel, Hastings, which he had purchased for about £5,000, and, that he was accompanied thither by his faithful employee, Mr. Geo. Potten, A few years later the "Swan" again changed hands, and on the 3lst of July, 1843, Mr. Potten returned to St. Leonards, to take possession of the Horse-and-Groom, and here it was that for a subsequent period of forty years, his industry, orderly management, genial nature, steady habits, and regular attendance at church on Sundays, gained for him a host of friends and patrons. The deceased had been twice married, but died a widower and without family. His second wife - who had been barmaid at the Swan when Mr. Potten was also there employed - died on the second of October, 1880, after a short illness, at the age of 66. And now, after little less than three years, the husband has gone the way of all flesh, to the sorrow of a numerous circle of friends. His remains were conveyed to the Borough Cemetery on Thursday, just a day after the completion of a forty-years’ tenancy of the house which he had so well conducted. The hearse was accompanied by no fewer than two mourning coaches and seven private carriages, containing mourners and acquaintances, The deceased had acquired considerable property, which, if we are correctly informed, has been left to some eight or nine nieces and nephews.
The other person whose death, in 1883, is held to be sufficiently noteworthy to claim a notice at my hands is not, like the last, an old inhabitant of St. Leonards, but one, nevertheless, whose patriarchal age, comparatively near residence, and local associations are such as to form a not unworthy connecting link of the present and the past. On Sunday last the venerable Mrs. Beal, a native of Pevensey, passed away at the extraordinary age of one-hundred years and four months, Her maiden name was Plumley, and, as shown by the parish register, she was baptised at Pevensey in 1783, her birth having taken place on March 20th of that year. Until within three weeks of her death, the old lady had been in good health, and retained the use of her faculties, the only drawback being the necessity to use a crutch in walking, consequent upon a fractured thigh some years ago, which her great age, it was thought, would render hazardous to set. Nearly the whole of her life had been spent in and about the parish of Pevensey, and many have been the visitors to the Castle ruins who will miss her well-known features. For very many years her daughter Mary has watched over her aged mother with filial devotion, and although her charge has now been. taken from her the pleasant lineaments of the mother will still be present to the daughter in a photograph which was taken about three months before her death. It is said that Mrs. Beal at one time lived at the Pevensey-Sluice public-house, and that being sturdy of limb and muscle, she hesitated not to turn out of doors any man who misconducted himself. As already stated, her maiden name was Plumley, and it was on the 1st of May, 1814, that at St. Clement’s Church, Hastings, Sarah Plumley, when about 30 years of age, became Mrs. Beal. It was on a Sunday, and the day was made memorable by the election of Mr. Edward Milward as Mayor, Mr. J. G. Shorter as Deputy-Mayor, and Mr. John Tompsett as Town Clerk, These appointments took place on the beach, as was the custom in those days, the electors being the Jurats and Freemen of Hastings. There was the usual adjournment from the beach to St. Clement's Church, and it is more than possible that Mrs. Beal and her - newly-acquired husband witnessed the procession of Corporate dignitaries. Not only was Mr. and Mrs. Beal’s wedding-day an important one, but the year was also a memorable one both in a local and a national sense. It was a year when Hastings received with joyful demonstrations the success of the British arms in America and the splendid victories of Wellington near-Bayonne; it was a time when the Priory Brooks were a field of ice, simultaneously with the frost-fair on the Thames; it was the year when the remains of the Elizabethan Pier at Hastings were laid bare by high tides in a manner never before nor since witnessed; it was a time when conflicts with French and British privateers in view of the town were almost of daily occurrence; it was a time when Hastings and its neighbourhood were full of soldiers and other armed men; and it was a year of many strange events which would take columns of space to describe; and therefore for the present I must say no more.
Also, whilst I am writing, the remains of the youngest son of the late Mr. Alderman Putland, J.P., of St. Leonards, have been deposited in the Borough, Cemetery, where other deceased members of the family lie buried. Alfred Ernest Putland, who was 62 years of age, and greatly respected by his relatives and friends, died after a brief illness, on the 28th of February. On the same 28th of February, died, as before announced, the much loved patriarch of St. Leonards, Mr. Robert Deudney, J.P., who had attained to the age of 81 years, and whose remains were interred at Hollington (old) Church on Monday, in the grave where also rest the remains of his wife, his youngest daughter and a granddaughter. No words of ours will so much show the esteem in which our aged townsmen lived and died as the personal attendance at his funeral. Besides the hearse which conveyed the coffin, there were no fewer than twenty-one carriages, including those of Mr. C. J, Murray, M.P., and other gentlemen. The Revs. T. W. Adam and H, Powell conducted the funeral rites, and the large concourse of people who assembled in the grounds rendered the spectacle as imposing as it was solemn. Clergymen, gentlemen, tradesmen and tenants made up a mournful procession which reached from the entrance of the burial-ground to the church-porch, whilst the large number of townspeople and villagers crowded the surroundings of the church.
It is another of those many coincidental associations which have occurred while writing the St. Leonards History in 1883 that a first-cousin of the late Charles and Robert Deudney has died within the last few days in 1885} at Hastings, in her 90th year. She was the widow of Mr. William Thomas and the third daughter of Thomas and Mary Deudney, the former of whom died in 1839, at the age of: 82, and the latter in 1815, at the age of 52. Her father was the elder brother of the late Alderman Deudney’s father, and consequently the son of Thos. Deudney who first settled here in 1750.
Among the accidents of 1844 was one which occurred to a man named Weller, who, while at work in the St. Leonards Caves, 40 feet below the road and 300 feet from the top of the cliff, haa the misfortune to fracture both legs and to sustain other injuries. He was assisted to the Infirmary by Mr. Gilbert, a surgeon, who resided at the time on the Marina, and who was the inventor of a tooth-drawing fulcrum-chair, afterwards shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The wife of the writer was the first person operated upon by means of this novel appliance, whilst the writer himself, although on familiar terms with the surgeon, was less amenable to his professional blandishments. He was unwell, probably from overwork, and Dr. Gilbert - as he was courteously, described - observing the weak condition of his friend, insisted upon sending him a bottle of medicine. The mixture was taken as prescribed, and a second quantity was similarly used, but to no visible effect. A third compound, with certain modifications, which was to be a "sure cure," was duly forwarded, and as duly placed upon a shelf in a bottle, the cork of which was purposely unremoved. In the mean time the patient, while throwing physic to the dogs, was dieting himself after his own fanciful method, giving up the use of tea thenceforward for thirty years, and for the space of eight days abstaining entirely from all kinds of fluid except a small quantity of milk which was incorporated with a morning and an evening meal of Scotch oatmeal-porridge. The improvement in the health of the patient was so rapid that, on meeting surgeon Gilbert one fine morning, It evoked a gleeful expression in these words :— "I was sure I had hit upon the right medicine at last, and now I must send you one more bottle and then you will be entirely restored." When told that the medicine was still on a shelf untouched, the surgeon’s countenance visibly changed as he exclaimed "Oh, this is the unkindest cut of all" "But go on with your oatmeal diet (he afterwards said); it is capital food as a rule, but I did not think to recommend it in your case." We continued as good friends as before, and were frequently thrown into each other’s society - he as the surgeon and I as the secretary of the Adelaide Lodge of Oddfellows.
As, however, poor Weller’s accident occasions a reference to the St. Leonards Caves, which have been some years closed, it may be explained that they were situated under the cliff in rear of West Marina, and were entered from what is now Caves road. They were almost as extensive, but not so secure, as the St. Clement’s Caves at Hastings, and were mainly formed by the exertions of a Mr. Smith, in the operation of sand-getting for building purposes. The entire length of the excavation was upwards of 400 feet, and it led to a reservoir from which St. Leonards was at one time supplied with water. It contained several neatly trimmed and furnished apartments, including kitchen, parlour, bed-rooms, &c., occupied by Mr. Smith’s family; and the whole, together with baby’s cot in the rock, used to be shown to visitors for a small fee. The founder of these caves died in the year 1855, at 56 years of age, and at a subsequent period his widow and family exchanged their residence in the rock for one of less primitive formation near the Undercliff. The -
