and 1826. He qualified as a solicitor in 1826 and then spent two years working in the Temple as a conveyancer before starting his own practice in Hastings in 1828.
In 1834 William Scrivens the Younger married Elizabeth, the elder daughter of Thomas Potter of Manchester. His marriage settlement for £4,000 together with two indorsed deeds of appointment is in Hastings Borough Museum, It is an interesting parchment because it bears the signatures of Thomas Potter, members of the Scrivens family, Robert Bayley and Thomas Baker Baker. It is witnessed by William Hallaway and Frank Selby Gill - Clerks to William Scrivens and by George Meadows, Clerk to Thomas Baker Baker. (A photograph of George Meadows hangs in the town centre offices of Percy Walker & Co. who acquired the business of Thorpe Meadows & Co. where he was subsequently a partner.)
The circumstances behind the link with the Potter family are unknown but there are interesting details. Sir Thomas Potter MP (1773 - 1845) was the first Mayor of Manchester in 1838. He grew up with his younger brother Richard Potter MP (1778 - 1842) (known as 'Radical Dick') on their father's farm at Tadcaster, North Yorkshire. Together they collaborated both in business and in politics in Manchester. They helped to found the Manchester Guardian newspaper in 1821 which eventually became The Guardian in 1959. Richard Potter's granddaughter, Beatrice Webb (1858 - 1943) was a prominent social reformer and the wife of Sidney Webb.
William Scrivens the Younger practised on his own at 113 High Street between 1828 and 1844. The Sussex Records Office holds one of his bills dated 1840 for legal fees relating to Ebenezer Chapel. The Firm has little additional information about his legal activities, but has deeds executed by him with his seal - a handsome turkey. The choice of a seal may be a pun on the "gobbling" speech of Hastings fishermen or it may relate to the well-known association at that time of Dorking (from where his grandfather had come) with the quality farming of poultry, including turkeys. Dorking had the reputation of being the greatest market in England for poultry. Their first football club had the original nickname of "The Chicks" while the Dorking Cock is still the emblem of the town.
William Gill made his Will on the 11th November and died on the 16th November 1831. He left his widow (who died in 1848 aged 96) a life interest in a settlement of £2,500 which then passed to his son James also for life before being divided equally between his grandchildren William Scrivens the Younger and George Scrivens. James was also left the residue of his personal estate. Unfortunately he was profligate and mortgaged his reversionary life interest to his nephew William Scrivens the Younger as security for a loan of £500. In April 1847 he was adjudged bankrupt.
William Scrivens the Younger acted for the Hastings Old Bank and was also the Clerk to the Trustees of the Charity Lands between 1843 and 1846.
In 1844 he was joined in partnership by W.B. Young but from the end of 1846 ceased to practise and left W.B. Young to run the business of Scrivens & Young. In the autumn of 1846 he completed two watercolour paintings - "The East Cliff at Hastings" and "Hastings Beach". Both were presented to the Borough in 1945 by A.J. Bray and are displayed in the Fishermen's Museum.
Despite his retirement, the Firm remained known as Scrivens & Young. For the rest of his life William Scrivens took out an annual solicitor's practising certificate at a cost of one guinea. He devoted much of his time to public and social pursuits. He clearly had property interests across the town for, in 1858, he applied to the Charity Trustees for permission to dig a well on his land in St Leonards where it bordered the 'Maudlin Fields' (See Appendix IV). He was a Major in the First Administrative Battalion of the Cinque Ports Artillery, President of the Hastings Working Mens Club, Vice President of the Hastings Mechanics Institution, and connected with the Literary Institution in George Street and the YMCA in Wellington Square.
He was also Treasurer of the Hastings Cottage Improvement Society, a director of the Hastings & St Leonards Gas Company (resigning as Chairman in 1857) and Chairman of the Pier Company. Both he and his father are included in the list of those persons appointed as Commissioners under the Hastings Improvement Act of 1832.
Jointly with his brother, he owned the premises belonging to the White Rock Brewery which stood on the present site of Palace Chambers.
He was a Freeman of the Borough and an Alderman by 1848. He was Mayor for four terms between 1866 and 1870 and his photograph hangs in Hastings Town Hall. As Mayor he was the returning officer for the parliamentary elections held on the 17 November 1868 and 17th November 1869. The latter were the last elections when the hustings at the Central -
