of this neighbourhood may induce your Royal Highness to make a lengthened stay amongst us, and that the present visit may prove an auspicious presage of our again welcoming your Royal Highness to this our Ancient Town and Port.
"We entreat your Royal Highness to believe that nowhere are feelings of Loyalty to the King and attachment to the Royal Family more deeply entertained than among the Corporation and Inhabitants of Hastings and St. Leonards; and that towards no part of that Royal Family have they more sincere gratification in expressing those feelings than to your Royal Highness and your Illustrious Daughter."
"Witness the common seal of the Mayor Jurats and Commonalty of the Town and Port of Hastings, and the hand of the Chairman of the general meeting of the Inhabitants, the 24th day of Oct. 1834."
The Deputation for presenting the address consisted of Wm. Scrivens, sen., Esq. (Mayor); Fredk. North, Esq., M.P.; W. Lucas-Shadwell, Esq.; Jas. Burton, Esq.; Wastel Brisco, Esq.; Robt. Montague Wilmot, Esq.; John Harwood, M.D.; Robt. Ranking, Esq.; J. G. Shorter, Esq.; the Rev. J. G. Foyster; the Rev. G. S. G. Stonestreet; the Rev. W. Davis, and the Town Clerk.
The Duchess of Kent replied as follows:
"Gentlemen, — It affords me the most sincere pleasure to hear the sentiments you have just conveyed from the Mayor, Jurats, and Commonalty of the Town and Port of Hastings, in conjunction with the Magistrates, Clergy, and other Inhabitants’ of Hastings and St. Leonards. The Princess and myself feel most grateful for such marks of interest and regard which your loyalty to the King leads you to evince towards us as members of his family. I must also express our sense of our reception yesterday, distinguished, as it was, by a hearty cordiality from all classes, which we know how to appreciate. My maternal feelings, and those I owe the country warmly respond to the interest you express for the Princess. Providence seems to have destined her to fill a great station (you will believe how anxiously I pray it may be at a very distant day), and if she feel and act as a Constitutional Sovereign, called to preside over the destinies of a free and loyal people.
"I can hardly trust myself to advert to the sentiments expressed to me personally. The only way in which I can repay them is by my devoted attention to the care and education of the Princess; and when I close these important duties, may I then have the great reward of witnessing the happiness and prosperity of the people so interwoven with her own as to prove to me that my efforts have not been unavailing to render her deserving the respect and regard of all classes in this country."
Each member of the Deputation was then presented to their Royal Highnesses, and then withdrew, thereafter to meet at the Swan Hotel, where dinner was served to about 150 persons,
It is probable that no English watering-place has been more patronized by royalty than has St. Leonards combined with Hastings. Our royal visitors have included many members of Queen Victoria’s family, and it has often been a matter of surprise that her Majesty herself has not paid a second visit. I can only account for it with the supposition that although in many particulars her sojourn at St. Leonards was a pleasant one, in some other respects her memory was saddened by several untoward occurrences, the associations of which tenaciously located themselves in her mind at an impressible age. There was her journey to St. Leonards via the narrow and rugged lane over Cuckoo Hill, necessitated by the irruption of the sea at White Rock; there was the suicide of Lady Lubbock’s coachman and the gun-accident to MacDermot on the same day; there was the damaged parade in close proximity to the royal residence which a succession of high tides threatened to sweep away entirely; there was the subsequent necessity for opening the drains in front of Victoria House; there was the great fright which the Princess and her mother sustained when the royal carriage was made the sport of runaway horses until my own uncle (of whom more anon) and Mr. Micklethwaite stopped their wild career, and the latter afterwards made a baronet as a recognition of his services; there was the drowning of a lieutenant and five seamen at St. Leonards, three weeks after the arrival of the royal party; and there was the subsequent pension to MacDermott as a yearly reminder of the several associative episodes.
The case of drowning was as follows:— On the 24th of November, 1834, the sloop "Good Intent" was observed to be dragging her anchor during a strong wind, and was thought to be waterlogged. With the object of rendering assistance, as was mostly believed, or of ascertaining whether the vessel was laden with contraband, as some asserted, Lieut. Gilly, of the Royal Navy, and five men, named respectively, Weeks, Conelly, Andrews, Sheehan and Alexander, put off from 41 Martello Tower, contrary to the advice of those who deemed the sea too rough for such an adventure. This was between seven and eight o’clock in the morning; and, as at that time of the day and at that period of the year, the light might not be sufticient to satisfy a coastguard’s curiosity, it is quite within the scope of possibility that in Lieut. Gilly’s view the water-logged appearance might be due to a heavy cargo of smuggled goods, or that the vessel was dragging something more than her anchor. Be that as it may, the galley put off as stated, and had nearly reached the shore again in safety when she filled with water and sank with all the crew. Those who witnessed the catastrophe were powerless to render aid, and the event created great gloom throughout the town. Among the monuments on the east side of the St. Leonards Church may be seen the stone which was placed there as a memento of the sad event.
And now I will close my promiscuous narrative of maritime disasters with a brief allusion to the last great storm of that stormy year. On a Thursday night in the latter half of December — probably the 18th — further damage was done to the parade wall at St. Leonards, and the townspeople began to lose all hope of ever being able to efficiently protect the town from tidal irruption except at an outlay quite beyond their means.
However discouraging were the prospects of maintaining the sea-wall in a state of efficiency at the time of the royal sojourn, the Commissioners grappled with the difficulty as far as in them lay, and at their December meeting they recommended measures to be adopted for repairing and strengthening the wall and, among other provisions, ordered an estimate to be prepared for facing it with hardstone. They also gave an order for a stone crossing to be laid down from Victoria House to the parade, and for an opening in the parade rails to be made for the convenience of the royal party.
It was in the same month of December that their Royal Highnesses became Patrons of the St. Leonards Archers, which Society, I have before stated, was established in 1833. The patronage thus bestowed was followed by sundry presents to the Archers at subsequent periods (which I shall notice as I come to the dates), and in recognition of the honours thus conferred, it was afterwards the established practice of the Society for over thirty years, whenever the weather and other circumstances permitted, to hold the first prize-meeting in each season on the 24th of May, in celebration of Her Majesty’s birthday, and the annual grand meeting on August 17th, in commemoration of the birthday of the Duchess of Kent.
The melancholy drowning of Lieut. Gilly and five seamen heretofore described reminds me that on that same day Messrs. William and Thomas Ranger took possession of the Horse-and-Groom Inn as successors of Mr. Stephen Milstead; and although I allude to this fact in but little more than an incidental manner, I shall have, by-and-by to relate an exploit of the two brothers which in its object and results stands out quite alone in the history of St. Leonards.
At a time when the town had already attained to considerable dimensions; when royalty and nobility were largely patronizing it; when the Archery Society had just been established, as a revival of old customs; when hawking, as well as hunting, was in vogue; when stage-coaches and mail-coaches and post-chaises were in full swing; and when, next to the hotels, the Horse-and-Groom was the principal tavern in St. Leonards, the business transactions of that house were, as may be conceived, of a multifarious and extensive character. It was not only a public-house in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but it was also a coffee-house and an eating-house.
Thus, practically, as well as nominally, it was a licensed Victualler's house. On almost every week-day evening, there were card parties in one room and bagatelle parties in another, whilst in the large room there was a ball, a supper, or a "free-and-easy". Then on Sunday evenings there was a quiet but numerous party assembled to hear the newspaper read — the eightpenny broad-sheet, with its compulsory stamp, being in those days beyond the purchasing power of any save the rich or otherwise well-to-do inhabitants. St. Leonardensis, who, amidst other pursuits, had just entered upon a career of music, was frequently engaged for some of these parties at the Horse-and-Groom; sometimes alone, and sometimes in conjunction with others, among whom was a noted hard-handed violinist familiarly known as Tom Reed. This unpretending and untiring fiddler followed also the occupation of a carpenter, and both he and his wife died at very advanced ages.
This has been shewn at another place, but it may here be said that in 1871 Tom Reed, at the age of 84, was still working at his trade, and his wife, aged 86, was still doing her house-work. They had then had 60 years of married life and a previous 7 years of courtship.
Messrs. Ranger's sister (Mrs. Raven) acted as cook and manageress at the Horse-and-Groom, and a youth, whom they called George, lived in the house as pot-boy. It may be assumed that even pot-boys have their occasional whims and fancies; and as George stood in no exceptional position in, that respect, it was one of his peculiarities to object to beef-steak puddings being made with suet in the crust. "I really can’t eat it, Missus," said our man-of-all-work, one day. "Well," replied the Mistress, "if you will promise me never to tell anybody that I make my puddings without suet, I will see what I can do." The promise was made and faithfully kept, and ever after that time, George — in blissful ignorance of the fact that the only deviation from the ordinary method of pudding-making was the chopping the suet into smaller particles — declared that he never tasted such delicious puddings before. Somebody has said that "there is as great a pleasure in being cheated as to cheat," and the simple anecdote just cited appears to be a fair illustration of such statement.
It was in the same year (1834) that the late Frederick Ticehurst — who was afterwards Borough Coroner and several times Mayor of Hastings — obtained the appointment of surgeon to the St. Leonards parish — at a salary of £5 per year. For this magnificent stipend he was to supply medicine and attendance to all paupers within five miles, but to be paid at the usual rate for journeys beyond that distance. Even this amount was an increase of £3 upon his salary of the previous year, when having succeeded Mr. Robert Watis, of Battle, he was content to accept the £2 which the latter gentleman had been receiving for some years previously.
The St. Leonards' Poor-house - Rates from 10s. to 23s. in the £ - The parish a/cs
It was also in 1834 (on the 14th of Aug.) that the Poor-law was passed which necessitated the formation of Union Workhouses, and the abolition of separate poor-houses for each parish. There are many of our old inhabitants who remember the St. Mary-in-the-Castle poorhouse, opposite York buildings; the St. Clement’s, in George street (where Mr. Clark's printing-office now is); and the All Saints near the Old London road, on the present site of the Springfield Nurserys -
