-rock place numbered 1 to 20. The numbers of all those ranges of houses commenced - as they still do - from the St. Leonards end, as being an expansion of St. Leonards, and not of Hastings. They were nearly all designed by St. Leonards architects (Inskipp and Voysey) and mostly built by St. Leonards people, among whom Messrs. Beecham, Inskipp, Eldridge, Austin, Manser, Waghorne, Putland, Duke, Woodford, Kenwood, Barton, Chamberlin and others. The only Hastings men that I remember who built houses in the coveted territory were Messrs. Winter, Bromley and Vidler, the two last, with Mr. Ross, being Town Councillors and members of the autocratic H. I. P. S., as well as the prime movers of the sought-for change, notwithstanding that area in question had been called St. Leonards from the year 1830, and had retained the name for considerably over twenty years without protest, and had thus obtained a prescriptive title in addition to other rights and usages. It joined Hastings for the application of the Health of Towns' Act, for sanitary purposes, but not for a change of name, to effect which the said Act gave no power whatever.
Among the self-styled "Americans" who removed to St. Leonards from the Priory ground as I remember the names at the moment of writing were Akehurst, Austin, Bissended, Brett, Barnes, Bassett, Beney, Cork, Cutting, Chapman, Chester, Goodsell, Hook, Hyland, Honiss, Jinks, Knight, Kirby, Lee, Lansett, Levett, Milstead, Murdock, Noakes, Neve, Naylor, Prior, Perfitt, Prendegast, Picknell, Ranger, Russel, Smith, Sinden, Shaw, Starnes, Shepherd (from whom was named Shepherd street), Strickland, Thorne, Taylor, Tyhurst and Weller. These, with about three exceptions, who took up their quarters in the Burton-founded town, made their new homes outside; and, together with the builders and property-owners previously mentioned, extended the dwellings and other premises eastward and northward in such manner and magnitude as was never contemplated by the original founder. And so close and cordial were the relations of the two sections that the Archway was only useful - and that in a very partial manner - as indicating the eastern limit of the Commissioners' jurisdiction. Except for trading purposes - greatly to the advantage of Hastings, as I have more than once shown and many hereafter afford additional proof - that town was only associated with the district in question in its political aspect as being in the same borough. There was really no other community of intrests such as bound together the "insiders" and "outsiders" of St. Leonards. Readers of this history will have seen that an attempt had been made by the Lord of the Manor and a few of his friends to get an Act of Parliament for the whole of the district between the St. Leonards Archway and where is now the Albert Memorial to be a separate township with the name of West Hastings. That scheme would have embraced not only the greater portion of the Magdalen parish, but also the parishes of St. Michaels and Holy Trinity. To prevent this, the majority -
