Hanover on the death of his brother, had been suspected of a desire to supplant his niece in the succession to the English throne. This little fight for municipal honours was therefore regarded as a signal triumph for the Loyalists and an equal discomfiture for the Hanoverians. The gossips bruited it that a smartish breeze thereupon sprang up between Anthony Harvey and "Joey" Brown, the former having blamed the latter for bringing Mr. Hickes out at an inopportune moment, and without due consultation. The disaster, however, had to be repaired if possible; and so a week later, at a meeting of the Council, Mr. Grenside, a "Hanoverian," was pitted against Dr. MacCabe, a "Royalist," and was elected an alderman. Mr. Deudney - himself a "Hanoverian," - complained that no alderman had been elected from St. Leonards, nor from any other part of the West Ward; and he considered it to be anything but right to elect a gentleman whose residence even was scarcely known to them, and who had only been a burgess about twelve months. A good deal of bitterness was also
expressed by a certain section of the non-official public, whose indignation was rather freely bestowed on Messrs. North and Shadwell for the part they took in the proceedings. By the Hanoverians, however, with a few exceptions, the victory was regarded as a set-off against the success previously achieved by the Royalists.
At about that time, too, the rivalry between the Commissioners and the Town Council was not of the most amicable character. It was a feeling, however, that would be almost sure to exhibit itself at one time or another between two bodies of local rulers whose functions, in one sense, would be conflicting, and whose interests in another would be identical. In this instance the Commissioners complained that the Councillors received the rents and dues of the stade, yet refused to repair the groynes. The latter body, however, claimed to have jurisdiction over the groynes, as the following case will show. There was a Council meeting on the 16th of November, when a stormy discussion ensued which lasted for three hours. Orders had been given to the ship-builders and owners of property at Beach cottages to lower the groyne at that place to the extent of a single plank, which order the said shipwrights and proprietors had refused to comply with, and had dared the ruling authorities to touch it. This was a sore subject, for it was contended that the property having been placed on the beach, the possessors had no more right to the unpurchased site than had those persons who built property on the Priory beach and lost it; but especially had they no right to protect their property by means which endangered other property more valuable and legitimate. The irritation continued after the meeting had closed, and even intensified as the winter gales set in, and the houses eastward of Pelham Crescent appeared to be in still greater danger. Another stormy discussion took place after Christmas, when it was argued that Thwaites and Winter, having been permitted to construct a groyne on the stipulation that they were to remove or lower it if it should prove inimical to adjacent property, and having refused to do so they ought to be compelled to obey the order. Mr. Shadwell said he had had fifty years' experience of the town, and had never seen so little beach between that spot and the battery as there had been since the construction of the groyne. The piles of the old pier which had not been seen for a century, were then entirely bare. Dr. MacCabe, however, wishing, apparently, to serve his political friends, described Messrs. Thwaites and Winter as having great interest in the town, as highly useful to its trade, and as being entitled to a little further indulgence as to time. The discussion continued with considerable warmth, and the recalcitrants were at last sent for, when Mr. Thwaites made his appearance, and explained that to remove or alter the groyne would enable the sea to sweep under the vessel which they were building, and thus endanger its stability. The vessel, he said, would be launched in March, after which the groyne should be lowered, but until which time he would not suffer a plank to be touched.
It ought to have been remembered by those who contended that the owners of Beach-cottages and occupiers of the ship-building-yard had no more right to the property and the protection of the same than had those who built on unpurchased ground at the Priory and lost it, that although the said owners had built without purchase or permission on the waste beach, they were afterwards compelled to pay the Corporation for the several sites thus appropriated. It was in January, 1825, that the Corporation, on receiving the sum of £20, granted to Samuel Nash a piece of the beach waste-ground in front of the "Condemned Hole" which he had enclosed and built upon some years before. A similar grant was made to P. M. Powell, a librarian, on payment of £20, of a piece of ground on which Richard Chandler had built a house several years before, the same to be Mr. Powell's and his heirs or assigns for ever. Another grant was made to the owners of Beach-cottages, 24 feet of ground at the east end and 20 feet at the west end of that row of houses wherewith to make a parade in front, but the sea wall not to be higher than three feet above the ordinary level of the beach. A further grant was made to Solomon Bevil (if other parties did not object) of 17 feet on the north side of Condemned Hole and 32 feet on the east and west sides, on payment to the Corporation of £100.
Also in 1825, the Corporation sold to William Camac, Esq., for £70, a site on the beach, near Beach-cottages, whereon Wm. Golden, some years before, had built a cottage. Again in 1826, the Corporation sold another piece of stone-beach to Mr. Camac adjoining his previous purchase, for £50, the size being 53 ft. by 10ft. 8in. The same gentleman had purchased, in 1823, a smaller piece then in the occupation of Thomas Thwaites, for £30, thus making a total of £150 paid by him for the site on the beach for his stables. This was where is now the covered seat near to Beach terrace; and, much as might seem to be the money demanded by the Corporation for a bit of waste beach, it was little in comparison with the exorbitant sum demanded of them in return by Mr. Arnold, when, in after years, the town desired to remove the obstruction.
But, as regards the parade in front of Beach-cottages, there seems to have been a misconception. The owners of the houses - or some of them at least - thought that if they built a wall and made a parade for the protection of property which contributed £200 to the rates - a parade which would be used by boatmen and the general public as well as by themselves, they ought not to be called upon to pay for the mere beach on which that parade was made. Permission, as before shown, was granted in 1825, and I suppose the original claim, if such there was, remained in abeyance for eight years, and then, in 1833, the Corporation resolved that the owners of Beach-cottages should pay for the waste beach enclosed by them in forming the parade. William Jordan, George Prior, and Mr. Ansted were called upon to pay £20 each, under a threat of legal proceedings being entered upon in case of non-compliance.
Then came the question - Was the parade public or private? - If the former, it was held to be an unjust proceeding of the Corporation to demand payment for the site which could not possibly have been made to yield a revenue in any other way; and if the latter then the public by using it would be guilty of trespass. To put this question to a practical test, Mr. Ansted, who owned the easternmost house, put up a fence at his end of the parade, whilst Mr. Thwaites barred the approach to the parade at the other end. I do not quite know how the affair was settled, but it may be presumed that the Corporation either rescinded or modified their demand, for at a later meeting they ordered the removal of Mr. Ansted's fence, and a suspension of the demand on Mr. Jordan.
But the parade itself did not afford the wished-for protection from the flow of the sea in rough weather, and so, on the 6th of December, 1836, the Corporation was applied to for permission to construct a groyne by Beach-cottages of 150 feet in length, by the then owners of the houses - namely, Thomas Thwaites, John Gill, J. Phillips, George Prior, Samuel Nash, Thomas C. Hutchinson, George Wingfield, Geo. Reeves and William Jordan. The application was complied with on condition that each owner pay 1/- a year and remove the groyne if required. There was no stipulation about taking off a plank and this was the point in dispute at the December meeting in 1837. Messrs. Thwaites and Winter had a brig on the stocks, to be named the Diamond, which would be launched in the following March, but which in the interval would be endangered by lessening the height of the groyne. Therefore Mr. Thwaites's refusal to do so until after the launch was very reasonable from his point of view. But, on the other hand, the said groyne was thought to be withholding the shingle which might afford protection to the Pelham place wall and parade which at that time were also private property, although used by the public, and for the site of which the Earl of Chichester paid the Corporation no less a sum than £200. And here, before returning to the year '37, it may be well to cite a few more demands of the Corporation and compliance therewith, if only to dispel an illusion which still exists in a traditional form that the original owners of property nearest the sea stole the ground above the ordinary high-water mark whereupon to erect it. Centuries ago by some convulsion of Nature the sea had overrun the land, and had afterwards receded to a considerable extent. Then came a time when the fishermen, from a conception of chartered rights, used the beach not only for drying their nets, and constructing depositories for their fishing gear, but, ultimately converting some of their so-called rope-shops into dwelling huts and backing the same with more substantial houses; thus forming streets and alleys outside of the town wall under the general name of "The Suburbs." In some cases an application was made in due form to the Corporation, and the price of the grant readily paid, and in other the ground required was taken under the belief that the Corporation had no legal right to the foreshore, and that it might be acquired by anyone who chose to risk a habitation in dangerous proximity to the sea. That the Corporation were not always consistent in their dealings with applicants and non-applicants for the waste beach is shown in the fact that no charge was made for that portion on which the Marine parade was first constructed, whilst, a few years later, £200 was charged for a smaller piece on which the Earl of Chichester constructed a parade in front of Pelham place. Also that the Corporation were not always certain that their claim to the sea-beach waste-land could be legally substantiated, will be shown in what follows.
Elderly natives are familiar with the fact that even in their time by far the largest portion of the Bourne stream was uncovered, and that it descended towards the sea in open form onto the waste beach at the foot of Bourne street. On one side of the Bourne mouth (more often called "Gut's mouth") were the Watch House and other buildings, and on the west side there were two tenements and some fishermen's rope-shops. It seems to have been not far from this locality that in the 38th (SIC) of Queen Elizabeth (1596) the Corporation granted to an ancestor of the present writer, then a jurate and afterwards Mayor) as thus worded:-
Sea-Beach Waste Land
"At this assembly is granted to John Brett a piece of waste ground lying at the -
