HISTORY of SUSSEX
Then, as now, the pursuit of amusement was the principal industry practised
in Brighton, and a prominent personage of the town was the Master of the
Ceremonies. There was quite a dynasty of these potentates of fashion. who
ruled the social functions of their day with autocratic sway.
Theirs it was to ordain the due sequence of events to arrange the weekly
balls and parties at the Castle and the Old Ship, and woe to the rash wight
who venturted to arrange a show at the theatre on a night devoted to one
of these gatherings !
On the Prince's birthday, August 12th, 1794, when there vvere over 1,200
present, and "festoons and musical devices in various coloured lamps,
" and we are assured that "everything was conducted with pleasing
regularity and decorum " - by no means an invariable state of affairs
in those days.
On occasions of great public rejoicing it was the Prince's way to order
oxen to be roasted on the Level, and beer to be distributed. Both the Prince
and his brother, the Duke of York, were good patrons of cricket, and matches
were arranged for very large stakes by leading members of the Court. Cock-fighting
was another favourite amusement of the bloods. In 1740 there was a great
match between the gentlemen of Sussex and Surrey "to show 42 cocks,
besides bye battles."
" Cock throwing," by the way, is said to have been a custom
on Shrove Tuesday at Lewes down to 1780. A cock was placed in an earthen
vessel, and hung some distance from the ground, and people paid 2d. for
four throws. The one who broke the pot and set free the cock had him for
a reward. Hence the expression " to make a cock-shy " of anyone.
Bull-baiting also went on, especially at Hove, where in the case of one
baiting we are told by a journal of the day " there was the usual proportion
of idlers from Brighton."
The Prince set the seal of his affection for Brighton by building himself
a palace there, the Pavilion. At the time his Royal Highness was suffering
under a fashionable craze for everything Chinese, or supposed to be Chinese,
and this accounts for many features of what Black's Guide to Sussex calls
"this notorious building."
The Pavilion has been the butt of many jokes, of which perhaps the wittiest
is the description of it attributed to Sidney Smith: " One would think
that St. Paul's Cathedral had come to Brighton and pupped" It was erected
at an enormous cost, and the same Guide quoted above remarks that "
Of the life led here by the 'first gentleman in Europe' among his favourites
and parasites, the less said the better." In 1849 the Pavilion was
sold to the town for £53,000.
A point of interest in connection with the present Royal York Hotel is
that it occupies the site of what was formerly the Manor House of the Manor
of Brighthelmstone.
Of Brighton's early sea-bathing activities there are many curious records.
In a publication called the "Bon Ton Intelligencer," of August,
1791, we find a curious reflection of the changing fashions of the day.
"The bathers at Brighton," says this mirror of the elite, "
complain bitterly of the trouble they have in pulling the young gentlemen
out of the sea since several have cut off their queues. Till one of these
docked fashionables is drowned from this circumstance, the rage of cropping
will not wear out."
A character named "Smoaker" was engaged to teach the Prince
of Wales swimming, and he appears to have enjoyed great licence with the
Prince, who was much amused by him. On one occasion it is recorded that
the Prince swam out further than Smoaker considered safe, and as he refused
to come back, the bathing-man went in after him and seized the royal ear.
When remonstrated with, the bold Smoaker retorted: " I aren't agoen'
to let the King hang me for lettin' the Prince of Wales drown hisself."
Smoaker once walked to London and called at Carlton House to inquire after
the Prince's health. He possibly had a shrewd idea of the results likely
to follow such solicitude: anyhow, the Prince ordered one of his servants
to "show great attention" to the worthy bathing master, and the
lackey's interpretation of this order was to take Smoaker into the kitchen
and ply him with liquor till he subsided under the table. Another bathing
character who "flourished" for upwards of half a century from
1750 was one Martha Gunn, who shared the honours of her trade, and the favours
of the Prince, with Smoaker.
A great feature of the life of old-time fashionable Brighton was the coaching
traffic, mainly from London. The famous Brighton coaches began to "fly,"
as they were advertised, towards the end of the eighteenth century. The
journey, according to a writer of the time, was " a very formidable
affair. It was really an event only to be well got through by men of a robust
constitution, and women who had been enured to fatigue by early rising,
and scrubbing and rubbing. " It was a very lucrative business for the
coach proprietors, and in the " Brighton Herald " of November
12th, 1808, there was an advertisement offering" for sale the goodwill
of one-twelfth part of the business of No. l, North Street, where the business
of one of the coaching houses was carried on.
In the five months before June, 1811, it was reckoned that between 50,000
and 60,000 people had been carried between London and Brighton by the coaches.
There were then 28 coaches running between the two towns. The fares in 1808
were about 23s. for an inside place, and 13s outside, though a few years
later, under fierce competition, they came down to 10s. and 5s·
In 1813 a great sensation was caused by the running for the first time
of a coach which did the double journey in one day. This was started by
a Mr. Whitchurch, whose success soon brought forth a competitor in the famous
"Eclipse " coach, which covered the journey in six hours. Mr.
Bishop's "Brighton in the Olden Time" tells of some Jews who in
1816 conceived the sporting idea of running a coach which undertook to do
the journey in six hours, or in the event of failure to carry its passengers
for nothing.
The horses galloped all the way. On one journey the coachmen broke three
whips, and in one week 15 horses died. With all this the coach was never
overturned, but continued its hectic career for three months, till information
was laid against its drivers for furious driving, with the result that the
journey was lengthened by about an hour.
Racing between the various coaches was very common, and accidents were
by no means unknown. At an inquest on a luckless passenger killed in a smash
of the west-going coach near the Sussex Pad Inn, the coachman admitted that
his orders were to get in first, though he should lose a horse. Speed was
everything, as the very names given to the coaches testify: "Dart,"
"Alert," " Rocket," " Irresistible," etc.
The golden age of coaches was between 1819 and 1839, and in 1828 it was
reckoned that 16 leading coaches made between them £60,000 a year.
In September, 1822, there were 62 coaches running daily between Brighton
and other places - chiefly London. The great centre of the traffic was Castle
Square, and Mr. Bishop's book, from which most of these particulars are
derived, gives a very lively picture of the scene to be witnessed there.
From early morning till late at night, from the bottom of North Street
to the Stein, the Square was crowded with a motley, ever-changing throng.
Cabs were running to and from the Square with passengers. Bright-coloured
coaches, horsed by splendid teams, many of them having bright-coated guards
who ever and anon sounded their long trumpets, were drawn up waiting. "
Swell " coachmen, not infrequently noblemen dressed for the part, passed
to and fro. " At a given signal, as the clock struck the hour from
the old Pavilion tower, the horse-cloths were dexterously snatched away
by the attendant ostlers, the guard struck up a familiar air on his bugle,
and the words issued from many a mouth : ' Off she goes !'"
The coaching era practically ended with the opening of the railway from
London to Brighton in September, 1841, though there have been various revivals
of the coaches, mainly as freaks of fashion, the last wealthy handler of
the four-in-hands having been the American millionaire, Vanderbilt.
Hove, Brighton's select, ambitious western sister, shared in the increasing
prosperity of the larger town, though as lately as 1700 it was described
by Bishop Warburton as " a ruinous village which the sea is daily eating
up." Of "How" Doomsday Book records that " Here are
6 salt-pans of 7 shillings and sixpence."
In 1813 there was an ambitious scheme, said to be patronised by the Prince
Regent, to establish a " Hove and Brighthelmstone Beach Fishery."
For this scheme £25,000 was to be raised in £50 shares, but
nothing resulted from the venture except the erection of a few huts on the
beach on the intended site of the fishermen's town.
From 'The Story of Sussex' by W.Victor Cook. Published 1920
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