THE OLDEST DIRECTORY OF HASTINGS KNOWN TO COLLECTORS.
I stated in the first edition of "Hastings of Bygone Days and the Present,' page 165, that " the earliest Directory of Hastings of which the Author has any knowledge is one published by P. M. Powell in 1819," with the title page " Guide to the Lodging-Houses of Hastings," printed for P. M. Powell. I am, however, through the kindness of Mr. James Castello, enabled to present the reader with some extracts from one published in 1792, two years before the first local guide to Hastings was issued and known as Stell's - Guide 1794. The title is " The Universal British Directory of Trade, Commerce and Manufacture ; comprising Lists of Inhabitants of London, Westminster and Southwark, and of all the Cities, Towns, and Principal Villages in England and Wales, in 5 vols., 8vo. London, 1792."
This work was broken up into Towns and the sections for various towns were advertised, and Mr. Castello secured the section relating to Hastings, from which I extracted the following account of the town in 1792, as follows :-
"HASTINGS, SUSSEX."
"Hastings is the first of the cinque-ports, and sends two members to Parliament. Its distance from London is 64 miles ; from Rye, 10 miles; Eastbourne, 18; Battle, eight; Winchelsea, seven. It is governed by a Mayor, twelve jurats, and an indefinite number of freemen. King William landed at or. near it with his army, and by him it was made one of the five ports (as the Lord Coke, in the fourth part of his Institutes, affirms) and, as tradition tells us, fortified it with a castle, built on the top of a hill near thereto, a part of the ruins of which are yet to be seen.
"It gives the name to the easternmost of the six divisions of the County of Sussex called Rapes : the barony whereof, and of the Castle, were given by William the Conqueror to John de Britannia (as Speed's Chronicles testify), and since, Edward the fourth conferred, with other royalties, the title of Lord of Hasting on William Hasting, one of his bed-chamber, in the first year of his reign (1461). This hath added to the honourable titles of the Earl of Huntingdon, who enjoyed the honour and profit thereof till the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and the then Henry Earl of Huntingdon, in the 33rd year of that Queen's reign, sold the profits of the rape, etc., to Thomas Pelham, Esq. By the charter of King James the Second, it was incorporated by the name of Mayor, Jurats, and commonalty, of the town and port of Hasting, in the County of Sussex, and under this charter the corporation now exercises its franchises, probably for political reasons ; for in the -
