numbering 42 persons, together with their luggage, thus saving them from what threatened to be a watery grave. He was heavily freighted at the time with a cargo of coal, but rescued the last man only a few minutes before the vessel went down. He received from the party a sum of £8, but our townspeople at the time thought that for the saving of 42 lives under such trying circumstances merited a more substantial reward.
Heroic conduct of the Coppards
The Coppards Again. Verily, this family was destined to achieve a most honourable fame! On the 14th of September, Dennis Coppard, jun., of the Galloway Ark, took 11 persons from the side of a Neapolitan brig which had struck on a rock, off Scilly, and washed off on her beam ends. He landed them, two days later, at St. Mary’s. This made a total of nearly 60 lives up to that time saved by this intrepid family. Such heroic conduct, while it merited substantial reward, was a credit to Hastings as the town which owned the men who possessed it. It was therefore gratifying to learn that Capt. James Coppard afterwards received from the South-Holland Institution, at Rotterdam, its large silver medal and several complimentary letters from private Dutch gentlemen for his humane exertions in saving them and the crew of the Apollo steamer which struck on the Kentish Knock and went down.
Railway Items
The Ashford Extension Railway was examined on the 24th of January by the Government Inspector (Capt Wynne), together with the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and six Directors of the South-Eastern Company, and when returning, they travelled from Hastings to Rye at the rate of 65 miles an hour.
Guestling Station. The inhabitants of Ore, Fairlight, Pett, Westfield and Guestling memorialised the S.E. Railway Company for a station in the last-named parish. The Board of Directors afterwards made it known that the memorialists and public generally might understand that a station would be erected at near the “Three Oaks”, Guestling. The station in that parish, was, however, never built, and more than 40 years went by before the present station at Ore was built.
Winchelsea Station. — This station which was closed because the traffic did not pay for its maintenance, was again opened on the 4th of December.
Petitions
On the 7th of February, petitions were presented to the House of Commons from Hastings, Bodiam, Battle and Hailsham, praying for relief to agriculture; also from Hastings against the window-tax. Also against Romanist aggression from Hastings, Ninfield, Pett, Arlington, Ore and Fairlight.
