Story Category: Legacy

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

One of the most interesting aspects of our work at Brighton History Centre is answering enquiries from members of the public. These range from the very specific to the more general. We might be asked, for example, when the houses in a particular street were built, or who designed the city’s Victorian schools. Or, perhaps, how Brighton was affected by the coming of the railway.

Charles Dickens Farewell Tour

Recently, we were asked if we had any information about Charles Dickens’ links to Brighton. How often did he come here? Where did he stay? It seems Dickens was a frequent visitor, coming first in October 1837, around the same time that Queen Victoria was making her first appearance in the town. Unlike Victoria, Dickens obviously liked what he saw and came back repeatedly over the next 30 years, staying in a variety of places on the seafront. The Bedford Hotel seems to have been a particular favourite, but he also ‘put up’ at the Old Ship Hotel and, from time to time, stayed in private lodgings with friends and family.

On one occasion, he and his entourage, which included the illustrator John Leech, were forced to flee their rented accommodation because the landlord and his daughter apparently went quite mad. Dickens described the scene vividly in a letter to a friend: ‘If you could have heard the cursing and the crying of the two, could have seen the physician and nurse quoited out into the passage by a madman at the hazard of their lives; could have seen Leech and me flying to the doctor’s rescue…you would have said it was quite worthy of me…’

While parts of Bleak House and Barnaby Rudge are said to have been written in Brighton, the novel that has the closest connection with the town is Dombey and Son, first published in monthly parts from 1846. In it, the young Paul Dombey, a frail and sickly child, is sent here by his father for the good of his health. He and his sister Florence lodge with Mrs Pipchin, whose home ‘in a steep bye-street at Brighton’ is thought to be based on a house in Upper Rock Gardens, and he is sent to Dr Blimber’s academy, which was probably inspired by one of the many private schools for young gentlemen that operated here at that time.

In later years, Dickens came to town for readings of his works, which always attracted a large and fashionable crowd. After one event at the Town Hall, Dickens wrote, ‘Last night I had a most charming audience for [David] Copperfield, with a delicacy of perception that really made the work delightful.’ In 1868, Brighton was included as part of his ‘farewell tour’, and again, each performance was hugely popular – a report in the Brighton Gazette describes ‘a room full to repletion’ at the Grand Concert Hall, where ‘the dialogue throughout was delivered by [Dickens] in his liveliest and most felicitous manner.’

For more information about Brighton History Centre’s Research Service, please refer to our website. To see images of Brighton Museum & Art Gallery’s Dickens-related objects, posted to commemorate the anniversary of his death in June 1870, vistit Flickr.

Kate Elms, Brighton History Centre

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

This pair of flint axeheads were found together at Clappers Platts near Fulking in 1905 and were later purchased by Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. They date from the Neolithic Period, around 5,000 years ago.

Although they are unpolished, the axes have been finely worked so that they are almost identical in size and shape. The flint they were produced from was carefully chosen to ensure that the patterning and coloration match perfectly. Given the effort and care put into their production, it would seem unlikely that the axes were intended for practical use. They were probably made by the same person and then deliberately buried in an act that must have had some important ritual meaning.

The production and trading of stone axes, particularly polished axes, is an important feature of the Neolithic. At a time when land was being cleared of woodland and then cultivated to produce crops, the axe may well have been an important symbol of the change of lifestyle from hunter-gatherer to farmer.

This importance may be reflected in the deliberate burial of groups or ‘caches’ of axes which is fairly common at that time. In general, axes are found in unpolished pairs and because of the similarities in their production, it is thought that in each case the same person would probably have produced them. At the Neolithic site of Combe Hill, one of the six Sussex sites where axe caches have been found, three axes were found carefully placed in the eastern ditch of a causewayed enclosure. Local archaeologist, Professor Peter Drewett, has speculated that the eastern side may well have faced the wilder, uncultivated land and the burying of the axes may well have signified the boundary between the tamed and the untamed.

Although we have little information about the discovery of the axes at Clappers Platts it may well be that they were buried on a similar boundary, as Neolithic farming communities spread from West to East, using their axes to tame the wild woodland.

Andy, Volunteer Local History & Archaeology

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

June marks the anniversary of the death of Charles Dickens (1812-1870). To mark the occasion, we take a look at an object from the Decorative Art collection which was inspired by his work.

The blue-printed plate made by Doulton has a central portrait of Dickens with the profile of St Paul’s Cathedral in the background. Around the rim are many of his best known characters, including Fagin and Bill Sykes from Oliver Twist, Sam Weller and Mr Pickwick from the Pickwick Papers.

Charles Dickens Memorial Plate

The works of Charles Dickens are, understandably, well represented in the collections at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. He was born in Portsmouth to John and Elizabeth Dickens. Soon after being sent to school in 1821, his whole family, apart from Charles, were sent to the Marshalsea prison because of his father’s bad debts, an episode that was to inform the experience of Little Dorrit whose father was similarly detained. Charles’s father was the inspiration for the character of Mr Micawber in David Copperfield. Charles spent three years working in Warren’s blacking factory and endured appalling conditions as well as loneliness and despair. Although he returned to school, the experience became fictionalised in two of his best-known novels, David Copperfield and Great Expectations.

Dickens began his literary career as a journalist, becoming parliamentary correspondent for The Morning Chronicle in 1833. In 1836 he published the highly successful Pickwick Papers with illustrations Hablot Knight Browne, known as Phiz, who died in 1882 and is buried in Brighton’s Extra-Mural Cemetery. Dickens himself spent time in Brighton and wrote Dombey and Son while staying at the Bedford Hotel.

Stella Beddoe, Senior Keeper and Keeper of Decorative Art

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Henry Willett, a founding father of Brighton Museum, was a man of great energy, enthusiasm and wide-ranging interests.

Henry Willett pictured with a child, possibly his grand-child

He was born in 1823, the youngest of the eleven children of William Catt an energetic farmer and miller. His mother Hannah died shortly after his birth, so Henry was raised by his eldest sister, Elizabeth. She died in 1863 leaving her 8 surviving siblings £13,000 in her will provided they change their name from Catt to Willett. Three challenged this in a High Court case entitled ‘Catt’s Trusts’ and were able to benefit from her will but keep their name.  Henry was happy to adopt the name of Willett, perhaps to forestall teasing. In 1864, during an early foray into Brighton politics on behalf of the Liberal candidate, Professor Fawcett, he was mocked by the Tory press under the headline;

‘Mewsings on Cat-iline Willett’s Cat-asstrophe’.

Henry and his brothers and sisters were raised at Newhaven Tidemills, the largest watermill in Sussex, built on reclaimed land. He moved to Brighton in 1841 where he ran the West Street Brewery (another family business) and bought property throughout Sussex, particularly after his marriage to Frances Coombe, who came from a landed West-Sussex family. He was an astute businessman, investing in the Blackpool Electric Tramway, the Midland Railway and public utilities including electricity companies in Western Australia. In his will of 1905 he left an estate worth over £230,000.

At his family home in Upper North Street, Brighton he cultivated the acquaintance writers and thinkers such as John Ruskin, the American Oliver Wendell Holmes and Sir Augustus Franks, an influential curator at the British Museum who helped him to develop his ideas on collecting. Willett’s first collecting passion was for chalk fossils, which he excavated from the Sussex Downs. He also collected natural history specimens, archaeology, local products such as iron fire-backs and Sussex pottery as well as artefacts from other cultures.  Most of the important paintings he collected were later sold to international collections.

His most innovative collection was that of pottery and porcelain intending to illustrate British history, political social and cultural through the medium of ceramics. In pursuing his idea he acquired many mass-produced pieces that were disregarded at the time as well as rare ones, uniquely signed or decorated. They were first shown as a loan collection in the newly opened Brighton Free Museum in 1873, then enlarged and developed until it was presented as a gift to Brighton in 1903.  In his catalogue of 1899 he grouped the 2000 pieces in the collection, vessels, plaques, tiles and figures, under the twenty-three subject headings.

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Lieutenant Colonel John Fawcett, first Mayor of Brighton, 1854.

Lieutenant Colonel John Fawcett

Before the creation of the Borough of Brighton by Incorporation on 19 January 1854 the town was led by Town Commissioners. Several attempts had been made to create a Borough prior to 1854; supporters arguing that the Town Commissioners were extravagant, too numerous and had only limited powers. Those who were anti-incorporation argued that there would be an even greater burden on the town’s rate-payers if incorporation took place.

John Fawcett was born in Mumbai (then Bombay) in 1803 and was listed on the 1851 census as ‘retired Major (East India Service)’. Fawcett was elected to Town Commissioner in January 1854 and was an active promoter for the Charter of Incorporation. At the first election of Councillors and was returned second for the newly formed Park Ward behind  William Hallett (who became Mayor of Brighton in 1855).

Brighton’s first Mayor

On 7 June 1854, at the first meeting of the new council, Fawcett was elected Mayor of Brighton. A strong Liberal in politics, he wasn’t without his critics. One newspaper article stated that:

‘The Mayor on his inauguration, addressed the Council in one of his incomprehensible speeches’.

The Brighton Guardian was outraged when the Mayor suggested he should be paid a salary. One figure mooted was £300 per annum. The Brighton Herald was no less shocked, stating that:

‘By once fixing a salary, the door is open to numerous abuses’

The Mayor’s chain was presented to the Fawcett by Jeremiah Pilcher. He had worn it himself when Sheriff of the City of London. The badge was added by ‘some ladies of Brighton’ and the borough arms and motto were selected by Alderman Burrows (Mayor of Brighton in 1857, 1858 and 1871).

Fawcett left Brighton around 1865 and resided in Jersey where he died on 24 March 1878.

Paul Jordan, Senior History Centre Officer

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Countryside 2011 takes place from the 28^th May to the 12^th June. To celebrate we take a look at some of the species on display at the Booth Museum.

The stoat has had an unfortunate relationship with man over the centuries. Along with being a highly prized fur species, gamekeepers and farmers have persecuted stoats in Britain for hundreds of years because they eat game bird eggs, chicks and even the sitting hen. However, in their natural ranges stoats are far more likely to eat rabbits, and act as a strong natural control on their numbers. This relationship is so clearly marked, that the rabbit myxomatosis outbreak in the 1950s decimated stoat numbers due to an overwhelming loss of prey.

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The stoat’s predilection for rabbits was used as justification for introducing them into New Zealand in order to control the rabbit population (which had also been introduced). However, the flightless indigenous birds proved to be easier prey for the stoats, and they have in turn become pests, helping to push many bird species to the brink of extinction. Efforts are now underway to completely eradicate stoats from many of the islands of New Zealand.

Stoats are often mistaken for weasels, but there are several differences. Appearance wise, weasels do not have a black tipped tail, and do not have a white winter coat. Stoats can live significantly longer than weasels, some living for up to ten years. Stoats also have one of the longest gestation periods in mammals, demonstrating delayed implantation, where the fertilized eggs are held in suspension for up to ten months before beginning to develop.

There are several examples of stoats in the Booth Museum collection, but one of the best examples is a case of two stoats in their winter ermine coat. This case was created by the award winning taxidermist William Farren. Farren operated in the late 19th and early 20th century, and his shop was located at 23 Regent Street, Cambridge. Farren often accompanied the Hon. E S Montague, Secretary of State for India, on expeditions, and many of his works are cared for by Leicester museums’ service. The case of stoats is typical of Farren’s creations as they usually depict the animals in their natural surroundings, with an absence of prey species. This particular example is part of the education collection, and is often used in the Booth Museum for learning.

Lee Ismail, Curator of Natural Sciences

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I was born not far from the Booth Museum of Natural History in 1943 and lived over a large garage in Preston Road, Brighton until I was about 10 years old. My first school, called Preston Primary (although an Infant School) was opposite Preston Manor and just around the corner from where George Hole, the telescope maker, later had his workshop. I then went to Balfour Road Primary School, from where I saw the eclipse of the Sun in 1954 from the playground. My family moved to Upper Portslade and, having passing the 11+, I spent a few rather unhappy years at the Grammar School, next to the West Blatchington Windmill leaving with some GCEs and not going on to University.

I spent most of my working life doing clerical and warehouse jobs and another twenty years working at an electrical wholesaler’s in Hove and Portslade. I was living in Mile Oak, just down the hill from the Foredown Tower, when it was first opened as a Countryside Centre by Hove Borough Council in 1991. The building had been the water tower for the old Isolation Hospital in its suitably remote location and, as part of the renovations, a camera obscura was installed. It proved to be quite a tourist attraction as its telescopic lens and mirror reflected 360 degrees living views of the surrounding countryside onto a screening dish. It was also an ideal way of looking at eclipses something I was able to witness with the partial eclipse in 1996 and the full eclipse in 2003.

I started working at Foredown Tower as a volunteer and finally became a staff member. During my very enjoyable years of working there, I gathered an enormous amount of information on camera obscuras from all over the world and it was this which became the Camera Obscura Archive which is now held at the Brighton History Centre. It includes correspondence and photographs from as far afield as Bondi Beach in Australia; Chattanooga in the USA; Fish Hoek, South Africa; Jerez, Spain and Kyoto in Japan along with material on all the camera obscuras that we know about throughout the United Kingdom. It’s an ongoing archive as members of staff at the Brighton History Centre continue to keep it updated with any new information that they or I come across.

My research into sundials (one was specially made for the Millennium and is on the Foredown Tower) and Timeballs (there is one in Brighton on the Clocktower) were also given to the History Centre, along with the complete set of ‘Towering Sky’, the newsletter of the Foredown Tower Astronomy Group, which I edited for over a decade.

Mike Feist

Mike Feist’s Camera Obscura Archive and his research into sundials and timeballs, is available to view at Brighton History Centre, Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

The whistles pictured in this blog are from the collection of A J Willins (1878-1950). The collection was donated to Brighton Museum & Art Gallery by his wife, Mary Willins, on his death.

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The 454 whistles were gathered in Britain but originate from all over the world and date from between 1780 and 1934. At home, Willins displayed his collection in a cabinet with little drawers and often took them out to show visitors. It is not clear why Willins formed his collection but he was clearly interested in the diversity of whistle types and their different purposes as he compiled a catalogue of the whistles dividing them into thirteen categories according to their function. The catalogue was also donated in 1950.

The collection has whistles for every occasion. Some have a practical purpose, such as a bosun’s whistle, whilst others, like a bone whistle with a microscopic lens showing views of the Royal Pavilion and the Chain Pier, are simply beautiful souvenirs. The collection also includes toy and novelty whistles like a porcelain eggcup whistle in the shape of a rooster driving a car.

A selection of the whistles were displayed at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery December 1930 – March 1931 and in 1998 another selection was exhibited under the title ‘Just for the Shrill of It…Mr Willins’ Collection of Whistles’.

This is a legacy story from an earlier version of our website. It may contain some formatting issues and broken links.

Earlier today, we were visited by the Beech class of St Giles School, Horsted Keynes. The pupils wrote this poem about a Royal Pavilion dragon. We like it a lot, and thought we’d share it with you.

The Brighton Pavilion Dragon

Body as flexible as a gymnast,
as bendy as a rubber tube.
Scales as strong as a suit of armour,
smooth as they can be.

Lashing tail, deadly as cobra’s poison,
coils of silver-plated muscle
glistening in the light of the chandelier
As long as a giant python.

Teeth as sharp as diamond daggers.
Forked tongue, gritty like sandpaper.
Bloodshot eyes as big as bowling balls.
Volcanic fire like a scorching oven.

Wings patterned with a leaf-like structure,
twisting and turning like shiny, leather parachutes.
Silver palm trees, bony like a skeleton,
shimmering wildly under the moonlight.

By Beech class, St Giles School, Horsted Keynes

Well done Beech class!