HISTORY of SUSSEX
R.Thurston Hopkins (Printed around 1900)
During the seventeenth century the town suffered severely from the raids
of the sea, and in Defoe's time, could only boast of six decent streets.
The women employed themselves in weaving nets; the boatmen were glad to
obtain employment from the Yarmouth merchants in the herring fishery. In
1703 and 1706 it was further desolated by violent storms.
In the latter year no fewer than 130 houses were swept away, and £40,000
worth of property destroyed by the inundations which accompanied the tempest.
In a few years all traces of ancient Brighton were lost under an accumulation
of shingle.
In 1818, during some excavations between Middle and Ship Streets, the
walls of one of the streets of the lower town, called South Street, were
discovered under a layer of beach fifteen feet in depth. An old Dutch atlas
of the English counties made 300 years ago gives Burpham in Sussex as an
important town, and entirely ignores Brighton. Now Burpham is left uncared
for, and Brighton has 150,000 supporters.
Thus it will be seen that Brighton is not very antiquated, and also that
it has developed amazingly. The chief relic of Old Brighton is the Church
of St. Nicholas, about which the tide of new building has risen, but which
formerly stood on high open ground, a land- mark for the fishermen, as indeed
it still is. Previous to 1873 this was the parish church of Brighton. The
building itself, long and low to escape the wind, was restored, or rather
rebuilt, 1853, as a memorial of the Duke of Wellington, who was for some
time a pupil of the Rev. H. M. Wagner, Vicar here, and accustomed to attend
this church.
About 1750, when Brighton had almost faded to a name, Dr. Russell) of
Lewes, first drew attention to Brighton as a bathing-place; and soon after
fine London ladies were prevailed on to undertake the perilous journey through
a country that, as Horace Walpole said, had a Saxon air and inhabitants
as savage as if King George was the first monarch of the East Angles, for
the sake of the bracing sea air and the promenades on the Steine, then open
and unbuilt upon.
From 1750 to 1784 houses were slowly built on the front, and when the
Prince of Wales established himself in the town its prosperity was a certainty.
The original Pavilion was commenced for the Prince Regent by the architect
Holland in 1784? but was entirely reconstructed by Nash in 1818. Nash was
the architect who designed Buckingham Palace and Regent Street. Many bitter
jibes have been shot at the Pavilion, but I might speak for many Brighton
residents when I say that there is something 'homely' about the place in
spite of its Eastern domes and minarets.
Martha Gunn had a world-wide fame as a royal bathing-woman when George,
Prince of Wales, was in residence at the Pavilion. A song then very popular
ran as follows:
'There's plenty of dippers and jockers, And salt-water rigs for your fun;
The king of them all is "Old Smoaker", The Queen of 'em "Old
Martha Gunn".
The ladies walk out in the morn, To taste of the salt-water breeze;
They ask if the water is warm, Says Martha, "Yes, Ma'am, if you please".
Then away to the machines they run, 'Tis surprising how soon they get stript;
I oft wish myself Martha Gunn, Just to see the young ladies get dipt.'
So gay and reckless were the friends of the Prince of Wales that a writer
at that time remarked upon a colony of rooks in the royal tea-garden as
being the only respectable thing in the property.
The life at the Pavilion was hectic. Happy-go-lucky, lovable, care-free,
irresponsible, the Prince lived for the day before him—or rather the
night. He was one who believed in the phrase 'they never come back'. On
the rare occasions when seven days passed without his doing something startling,
the good people of the town knew he was ill or 'resting' in London.
Mr. E. V. Lucas gives us a glimpse of Brighton at this date:
'When the Steine was a centre of fashion and folly; coaches dashed out
of Castle square every morning and into Castle Square every evening; Munden
and Mrs. Siddons were to be seen at one or other of the theatres; Martha
Gunn dipped ladies into the sea; Lord Frederick Beauclerk played long innings
on the Level; and Mr. Barrymore took a pair of horses up Mrs. Fitzherbert's
staircase and could not get them down again without the assistance of a
posse of blacksmiths.'
Sir John Lade and his wife were two of the Prince's bosom friends. Lade
was in receipt of an annual pension of £400, as driving tutor to His
Royal Highness. His wife, Lady Lade, who was born in Luckner's Lane, St.
Giles's, London, was one of the most abandoned women of the Court. She was
for some time the mistress of the notorious malefactor John Rann, known
as 'Sixteen-stringed Jack', who expiated his crime upon the scaffold at
Tyburn.
The Duke of York then took her under his protection, and he transferred
her by marriage to Sir John Lade. Such was the style of language of this
infamous woman that when the Prince of Wales wanted an object of comparison
in the vulgar practice of swearing, he was universally accustomed to say,
'He swears like Letitia Lade'.
The three brothers Barrymore were then the outstanding bucks in the flashiest
crowd at Brighton. Erridge says the eldest—who had been ordained to
the Church - was known amongst them, for his irreligious propensities, as
Hellgate; the second, for his immorality, Newgate; and the third, for his
lameness, Cripplegate. The latter was the survivor of the infamous trio,
his infirmities not permitting him to indulge in the vices which prematurely
terminated the career of his brothers. They had a sister who surpassed them
in evil qualifications, and she bore, for her coarse volubility, the nickname
of Billingsgate.
Another of the clique was Colonel Hanger, familiarly known as George
Hanger, the Knight of the Black Diamond, the wit and satirist of the party.
His Life (The Life, Adventures and Opinions of Col. George Hanger, written
by himself. Two volumes, 8vo, London: Printed for J. Debrett, Piccadilly,
1801.), written by himself, abounds with sarcasms and truisms, but though
designed to 'point a moral', it does not 'adorn a tale' that teems with
sensualities. Upon one occasion Sheridan and Hanger were dining in the room
of the old building where the Prince usually dined, termed by them, in consequence
of its contracted dimensions and generally excessively heated condition,
the Royal Oven.
In the course of the meal Sheridan said,'
' How do you feel yourself, Hanger? '
' Hot, hot, hot as hell, ' replied Hanger.
' It is quite right, ' was Sheridan's severe rejoinder,
' That we should be prepared in this world for that which we know will be
our lot in another.'
The Brighton mariners in the year 1313, becoming numerous and saving money,
began to build two streets of houses westward of the Steine, named from
their situations East Street and West Street, forming the boundary of the
town in those directions. The landsmen, who farmed the land now occupied
by the 'twittens' and the General Post Office, were also increasing in numbers
and becoming prosperous.
The 'farmers' of the north lanes', finding it more convenient to have
their barns, houses and labourers' cottages at that part of the town, built
North Street. The lanes' of Brighton may be inspected by taking a turning
called Union Lane in Ship Street and following the narrow walks through
Meeting House Lane to Brighton Place at the back of the Sussex Hotel. Here
one can find the flavour of old Brighton in the intricate lanes, the low-roofed
houses, and the 'twittens' which ricochet into North Street and 'The Bartholomews'.
A colony of Flemings, soon after the Conquest, settled somewhere here,
and it has been pointed out that from time to time additions were made to
this foreign colony, from Spain, France, and Holland, as the names of some
of the oldest families of the town verify; namely, Mighell (Miguel), Gunn
(Juan), Jasper (Gaspard), Jeffery (Geoffrey), Gillam (Guillaume), etc.
In a house opposite Cranbourne Street, above Duke Street, lived a whimsical
old fellow, Beach Roberts by name, who some time about 1810 was a tinman,
carrying on a respectable and lucrative business. In his latter days he
was termed the 'Walking Newspaper', inasmuch as he was acquainted with all—and
sometimes more than all—of the news of the day. On the 13th March,
1810, some person, by way of a hoax, inserted in the London papers the following:
'Died, yesterday, Beach Roberts, Esq., - a gentleman who had enjoyed
a wider sphere of connexion in the County of Sussex than most men, who
had been elected to the office of High Constable of this Parish seven
different times; for the last twelve years been foreman of the Grand Jury
at the Quarter Sessions at Lewes; and who has left one hundred thousand
pounds; ten thousand of which are to be applied to charitable purposes
within the limits of the town; one thousand towards the support of the
Magdalen Hospital; and the remainder to be equally divided between his
son and daughter.'
The hoax became the current topic of the day, and subjected Roberts to
several congratulatory addresses from his friends, as he was at the time
about forty-five years of age, in the enjoyment of good health, and of a
promising constitution. It may be added that he never served the office
of High Constable, and that he had no children.
The next house above that wherein Roberts lived is now the Eight Bells
Inn. Here in 1820 James Ings carried on the business of a butcher. On the
23rd of February, 1820, Ings, on the information of a confederate, was apprehended
with eight others in a hayloft in Cato Street, Paddington, for being concerned
in a plot to destroy the Ministers of the King while at a Cabinet dinner
that evening in Grosvenor Square, London, at the residence of the Earl of
Harrowby, the President of the Council.
The plot is known as the Cato Street Conspiracy, wherein Ings took so
conspicuous a part that it was arranged that on their leader, Arthur Thistlewood,
presenting a parcel at the door of Lord Harrowby's house, he should head
the rest of the conspirators, rush in where the company were assembled,
and massacre the whole of them indiscriminately.
Just previous to their apprehension Ings prepared himself for the desperate
enterprise by putting a black belt round his waist and another over his
shoulder: he also put on two bags like haversacks, and placed a pair of
pistols in his belt. Then looking at himself with an air of exultation he
exclaimed, uttering an oath, I'm not complete now: I have forgot my steel';
whereupon he seized a large knife, about twelve inches long, and, brandishing
it about, swore he would bring away two heads in his bags, and one of Lord
Castlereagh's hands, which he would preserve in brine, as it might be thought
a good deal of hereafter.
The whole of the conspirators were found guilty of high treason, and
on the morning of the 1ist of May, Thistlewood, Ings, and three others were
hanged and decapitated at Newgate; the rest of the traitors were transported.
The executioner of these misguided men was James Botting, a native of Brighton,
and son of Jemmy Botting, the possessor of some small property at the back
of West Field Lodge, immediately to the west of the bottom of Cannon Place,
and known as Betting's Rookery, from its being the resort of tramps of the
lowest order.
Botting also, on the 30th November, 1824, at Newgate, carried out the
last penalty of the law upon Henry Fauntleroy, the banker, who formerly
had his residence at the west end of Codrington Place, Western Road, and
was found guilty of uttering a forged deed with intent to defraud Frances
Young of £5,000 Stock, and a power of attorney to defraud the firm
of Marsh, Stacey, Fauntleroy, & Graham, Bankers, Berners Street, London,
of which house he was the acting partner.
For several years previous to his decease, which took place at Brighton,
October 1st, 1837, Botting, in consequence of paralysis, retired from his
situation as public hangman, the latter days of his existence being eked
out by a pension of five shillings a week granted by the Court of Aldermen
of the City of London, for whom in the course of his duties, he had deprived
175 'parties' - as he termed them - of their lives; as during his career
executions at Newgate were very common, the offences for which life was
forfeited being so numerous that in one week thirteen persons, namely, eight
on Wednesday, November 23, and five on the Tuesday following, November 29,
1821, suffered, none of the crimes for which they were executed - thanks
to the enlightenment of our legislators—now exacting as a penalty the
life of a fellow creature.
Botting, in his latter days, was a well-known character about Brighton,
the streets of which he was accustomed to traverse by means of a chair,
which he alternately used as a species of crutch, and as a seat, but he
always appeared isolated from the world, as no grade of society seemed ambitious
of the acquaintance of Jack Ketch.
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