One of the great losses of the Great War was the enigmatic Field Marshall Lord (Horatio Herbert) Kitchener whose face and pointing finger recruited thousands of men. He was Secretary of State for War and a Cabinet Minister. In 1904 a young man had joined Lord Kitchener’s Staff. He was Oswald Arthur Gerald Fitzgerald from Eastbourne,…
Author: sussextalks
Anchored
Symbolism on gravestones is often lost. In coastal Eastbourne we would expect a grave swathed with a large chain and anchor to represent the sea, maybe a fisherman or lifeboatman, but Henry Coleman Hurst was neither. He was one of the Hurst family who had arrived in Eastbourne at the time of the Civil War and who…
The Music of Bells is Sweet
Thomas Lewis was born on 28th December 1845 in Church Street, Old Town, Eastbourne, the son of Thomas Lewis (1805-1883) and Elizabeth Miller (1804-1871) originally from Ringmer. Living so close to the Parish Church it is no wonder that the Lewis family were all bell-ringers. Tom had six brothers who all became bell-ringers at St Mary’s and…
The Sailor-girl with a Rocky History
The ship Coonatto started its life in Rotherhithe on the south bank of the Thames in 1863. She was built by Thomas Bilbe & Son to a new design which used both timber and iron – known as “composite hull construction” Although this made the hull stronger, it was of course heavier. She was a square-rigged clipper and…
The Painter, The Policeman and the Pug
I am in contact with a gentleman whose great-grandfather was an artist William Edwin Pimm (1864-1953) who lived for a few years at the Manor House in Alfriston. He came from a distinguished family, his father James Norris Pimm (1837-1903) was a Deputy and Common Councillor of the City of London and was present at…
A Nutty Shipwreck and her Figurehead
A few years ago I was shown two ivory nuts which had just been found on the beach at Seaford. Although the shingle of Seaford beach is relatively new I think that they may have originated from the hold of the ship the ‘Peruvian’ which grounded in Seaford Bay over 100 years ago. The…
Buried alive in Alfriston?
On 23rd January 1816 a strange and macabre incident occurred at Alfriston Church in East Sussex. At this time when the ‘gothic novel’ was popular, taphophobia was rife. Taphophobia is the fear of being buried alive. This fear was so great that people could purchase ‘safety coffins’ in which a recently awaked corpse could not…
Alone with the Doodlebugs
My grandmother Bessie Gordon was in her early 40s during the Second World War. Her husband Alex, had been seriously wounded in the Great War and it is likely that he suffered from ‘shell-shock’. Alex and their 9 year old son Roger, had been evacuated to Dursley in Gloucestershire along with his sister Dorothy (Dolly)….
The father of Eastbourne Bellringing
Before lockdown I visited the bell chamber at St Mary’s Church, Eastbourne and was interested to see an unusual marble memorial for Harry Packham Bennett in the form of a large bell. Harry was clearly one of the bell-ringers and, as a former railway policeman, I was interested to see that he had lost his…
A Good Soldier and Always a Gentleman
John William DANIELS was born in Loughton Essex in 1885, the son of landscape gardener Edwin Daniels from Ruabon, north Wales and Lydia from Shropshire. The family moved to Eastbourne and John was educated at Holy Trinity School. The 1911 Census shows that John with living with his parents and younger sister Annie at 2,…
Quirky Sussex History by Kevin Gordon 