poorer than themselves - was an evil that had been too long endured. It had a tendency, it was believed, to train young and able-bodied men to indolence and it encouraged early and imprudent marriages. It was a system in which paupers were paid by the parish for nursing their own children, and the children, when upgrown, for taking care of their aged parents. It was also believed to be a system fraught with inducement to "vice and immorality;" and, were it necessary, much might be cited from old parish documents to fortify that belief. A Committee of the House of Commons was appointed, and after an exhaustive investigation, a report was drawn up, which contained the following remarks :-
"It is obvious that a disinclination to work must be the consequence of so vicious a system. He whose subsistence is secure without work, and who even by the hardest work could not obtain more than a mere sufficiency, will naturally be an idle and careless labourer. A surplus population if encouraged; men who only receive a small pittance know that they have only to marry, and then that pittance will be increased proportionately to the number of children. When complaining of their allowance, they frequently say, 'We will marry, and then you must maintain us.' This system secures subsistence to the idle as well as to the industrious; to the profligate as well as to the sober; and, as far as human interests are concerned all inducements to obtain a good character are taken away."
I should be sorry to impute such motives to those whose cases I have brought forward as illustrations of the expensive and irregular mode of distributing relief before the Poorlaw Act of 1834 was applied to our own district; but that a reformation was required, and that an improvement was ultimately achieved, must be apparent, not only to the ratepayers, but also to the relief-recipients themselves. There was, I know, a great outcry at first among a certain class of people at the change, and the complaint was echoed by some of the press-writers - notably by a Hastings correspondent of a county journal, who likened the new Union-house to the French Bastille, and hoped it would never be his misfortune to become one of its inmates. Poor man! it was his lot in his declining days to live and die in that house, where the poor are properly, though economically, cared for, and where many of them prolong their days to a greater span that they perhaps would have done in their endeavour to drag out a feeble existence amid the buffetings of the outer world. There was, of course, a certain amount of confinement, and there was the separation of man and wife, two provisions of the new poor-law that presented objectionable features to those whose liberty had been hitherto unrestrained, and whose home associations were about to receive a rude shock; but these restrictions were regarded as unavoidable, and as being more than compensated for by the general advantages which would accrue to a heavily burdened community. Besides this it was held to be a maxim of some weight, even by persons not by any means destitute of sympathy with the poor or unfortunate, that "beggars ought not to be choosers/" When however, in 1836, the paupers were transferred to the new Union-house from the several parochial workhouses, or private houses the rents of which had been paid by the parishes, I have reason to believe that as much consideration as possible was shown by the officials too those under their charge as the altered circumstances would permit, and that the alleged grievances were more sentimental than real.
Among the benefits resulting from the new law for meeting the needs of the poor was the almost electrical effect exerted upon certain temperaments and ailments which changed invalided persons into able-bodied men and women. I think I could name two or three persons in the parishes of St. Leonards and St. Mary Magdalen who suddenly found themselves better capable of work than they had previously imagined, when the notice had been given them that after the 25t of March, 1835, no further sums would be paid to them for rent, as heretofore, and that all persons to whom the parishes were indebted for the rent of houses occupied by paupers were to send in their final claims. As proof of the increased ability to work, it may be said that some of the dwellings for which the parishes had paid rents continued to be occupied by the same tenants notwithstanding that the said tenants had to provide the rent themselves. Of course they were allowed the alternative of going into the "big house," and in one case, at least, an exception to this was even made. It was on the 25th of March, 1835, that at the "New England Bank" at Bopeep (Chas. Overy being chairman) a vestry meeting decided that "No more relief than 5s per week be allowed to Robert Dunk and wife, but that they be permitted to live in the poor-house, and work for the parish." This house, it will be remembered, has been described as having existed at Silverhill, near the spot on which now stands St. Matthew's Church. There came a time, of course, then, under the provisions of an Act of parliament, this house, as well as other poor-houses, might be sold for the benefit of the parish; but as the St. Leonards poor-house was not so disposed of until 1837, and I am now referring to the year 1835, any further notice of it at present will be premature.
It was in the month of June, 1835, that the wall and parade between the St. Leonards Archway and the White-rock had advanced to completion, and which, with the western parades, formed a continuous promenade of a mile and a half in extent. It was divided from the road by a neat iron railing; and the new via media formed a striking contrast to the rugged, fagoted and winding road, with projecting cliffs and the fatiguing White-rock hill, which previously existed. In the winter of the preceding year a series of storms and high tides tore up the old road to such an extent as to render it at places impassable, and another road, not much better, had for a time to be substituted for it. In June of that same year the new road, sea-wall and parade were determined on, and In August the contractors and sub-contractor (Messrs. Tester, Marchant and Ranger) commenced operations with an energy that augured well for a speedy accomplishment of the undertaking. From the date stated above, it will be seen that the great work of hewing-down cliffs, filling-up hollows, building a wall three-quarters of a mile long by 20 feet high, forming a raised road and constructing an excellent parade, was satisfactorily accomplished in about ten months.
At the same time, Mr. Troup published his designs for a square, crescent, terraces and church on the Warrior square Estate, previously known as the Gensing valley. Those designs were extremely picturesque, and in the judgment of most persons who saw them, superior to the design which was ultimated adopted. The lower enclosure, if I remember rightly, was to be flanked by the terraces, and the upper enclosure by two sides of the square, whilst in the centre of the crescent a church was to be the crowning object at the top. The villa, partly below ground, between the two enclosures, and intended for bath rooms, had been already built, but the original design not being carried out, the house in question has been long since demolished.
Whether these great improvements served as an immediate attraction to visitors I am not competent to determine, but it is at least worthy of note that in May and June of that year - off-season months as now regarded - there was a great influx of fashionables, and from that time to beyond the year's end there were more families of distinction at Hastings as well as at St. Leonards than there had been for a long time previously. The common remark was "It seems as though the good old times have revived." Perhaps the weather had something to do with the season commencing earlier than usual, the summer of that year being very hot, fine and dry, and the harvest so early as to admit of wheat on the Priory Farm being stacked on the Rock-fair days, 26th and 27th of July. The corn of that year was sold as low as 34s a load.
The archery meeting of that year was a brilliant affair, the Society's royal patrons, the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, having jointly presented an embroidered silk banner, for the Society's ensign, together with the Victoria Challenge Prizes, to be annually competed for by the members. The first winners of those prizes were Miss Sympson, and P. H. Fleetwood, Esq., M.P.
The Duchess of Kent also gave a cup of £25 for the Races which took place on the 23rd and 24th of September on Filsham Salts, near the present Railway West-Marina Station. The other objects competed for on those days were the St. Leonards Cup of £50, the Town Plate of £50, the Ladies' plate of £50, and a Sweepstakes for losing horses. The said races were attended by an immense throng of pedestrians, whilst the number and style of equipages were such as are now only to be seen at Goodwood or Epsom.
A few months later, namely, the 4th of December, witnessed the arrival of their graces the Duke and Duchess of St. Alban's, wo with their suite, occupied apartments at Edlin's Royal Victoria Hotel. What with falconing, hunting, and the fashionable parties daily given by them and others all was gay animation for a considerable period, to be eclipsed only by the still greater rendezvous of royalty, nobility and gentry of the next two years. I should mention that the changing the name of the principal hotel from "St. Leonards" to "Royal Victoria" was by express permission of their Royal Highnesses the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria.
It was in 1835 - the year still under consideration - that the north side of Norman road began to be formed with a few houses which Messrs. Milstead, Naylor and others transplanted from the Priory Ground in consequence of the said ground having to be cleared by order of His Majesty's Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The houses in question were those which led the way up from the Warrior's-Gate Inn, and had no architectural features to commend them to special notice. They were, indeed, quite unpretentious both in size and appearance; and but for some recent improvements in their shop windows, they might be regarded as an average sample of the tenements which once existed in nick-named America, on whose site has since been reared the most stately buildings of Carlisle parade, Robertson terrace, Robertson street, Claremont, Trinity church, and the Queen's Hotel. Some three or four of the Priory houses were also re-erected at White-rock, whose precipitous road had just been levelled and the continuous parade completed. As this was beyond the jurisdiction of the Hastings Improvement Commissioners, and situate in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, an idea was broached to designate it "St. Mary's," and to include the already erected Verulam place as well as some other buildings between the latter and the St. Leonards Archway. The attempt, however, was unsuccessful; for, not only were Cliff cottages, Seymour place, Adelaide place, Norman road, etc., regarded as constituting St. Leonards [without], but the postal district of St. Leonards also embraced the whole of the property between Bopeep and the Infirmary. St. Leonards, I may say in passing, was a post-town by itself, and it so continued for twenty years, when the arrangement was re-affirmed by the Postmaster-General.
The exodus to St.Leonards
But having had occasion once more to refer to the Priory Ground as a place whence many of the inhabitants migrated to St. Leonards during the general exodus, it may interest the readers if I place before them a few facts concerning it which to some may be altogether new, and to others a refresher of their memories. For some few years prior to 1826, the beach between the Priory-bridge and the White-rock, from which the sea had receded, was seized and built upon by some of the Hastings inhabitants, who thus gained for themselves the name of squatters, and might have very appropriately been called squabblers. Many a contest took place between these occupiers of No-man's land, arising from the desire in some to possess themselves of what others had laid claim to. When only six or seven years of age I was witness to a painful scene between a blacksmith and a sweep over a disputed claim of that description; and on the 10th of March, 1823, there was another desperate struggle on that same Priory Ground over disputed rights to certain building sites. Ultimately, the original assailants were beaten off, and a blue flag was hoisted by the defendants as a token of victory. In the same year, on the 26th of June, hostilities were resumed at the Priory, near to the Rock-fair ground, in consequence of two persons claiming the same piece. The battle was long and desperate, in which wounds and bruises were inflicted, and on the following night the windows were broken at the private residences of Messrs. Mark Boykett and James Breeds. Several of these cases ended in law-suits, one of which, I suppose, was that of Mark Boykett Breeds versus Sol Bevill, when at the house of E. Milward, Esq. (the Town Hall then being -
