I thought you may like to hear about one of the long standing characters of the Sussex Police, Charles White who served in Seaford as both constable and detective for 37 years. (and – after his retirement served a further eight years as a civilian.) Luckily he wrote a brief memoire of his service which…
Category: East Sussex
An African slave buried at Brighton
The grave of 12-year-old Tom Highflyer is not easy to find. It is amongst the steep, dark overgrown slopes of the Woodvale extra-mural cemetery at Brighton. I had heard of him and wanted to visit the grave and pay my respects which I did this morning. The headstone reads IN MEMORY OF TOM M.S. HIGHFLYER RESCUED FROM…
Church Vergers for 202 years!
Simeon Hart was born in Old Town, Eastbourne in 1844. He was born in an ‘old-fashioned tumbledown cottage’ that until 1898 stood on the corner of the High Street and Star Lane. (roughly were the front or Waitrose is now) He was the son of George and Mary Hart and his family had a long…
The Road-Poet of Black Robin Farm
There is plan to spend millions of pounds of government funding to create a second Towner Art Gallery at Black Robin Farm at Beachy Head. I don’t know what my ancestor Ephraim Mitchell would have thought of that, as he lived at Black Robin Farm. However I do know how he would have responded to…
A Policeman involved in a Sussex Disaster
This story starts with a sepia coloured photograph in the archives of the British Transport Police History Group titled ‘William Holman – Brighton Railway Police’. The photograph shows a bewhiskered, top-hatted man making a note in his pocket-book. But who was he? William Holman was born in Ightham, Kent in 1801. He was married to…
The War Memorial that Moved
In the 1950s my great-uncle Reginald Gordon took photographs of a memorial. The negatives were recently developed and I realised they were taken at Birling Gap near East Dean (East Sussex) and show the Robertson War Memorial. The memorial was erected by the National Trust to commemorate the gift of £50,000 by William Alexander Robertson,…
Reserved for Greater Misery
Henry Lushington is remembered at St Mary’s Parish Church, Eastbourne with a massive memorial which includes his bust. Henry’s life was short but action packed. He was the son of Mary and the Reverend Henry Lushington, the vicar of Eastbourne and resident of the Manor House. In 1754 at the tender age of sixteen, Henry left Sussex ,…
A Sussex Life (Part 2)
My Mum, Jean, was born in 1930 and, before her death a couple of years ago, she wrote down her earliest memories. In Part 1 she told the story of her difficult early years in Eastbourne and how she lived with her grandparents in East Dean. This second part of her story records how she was adopted…
A Sussex Life (Part 1)
In 2016 I asked my mother to write down her early memories and was quite shocked by what she wrote – I was surprised at how poor her family was and the problems she had as a young girl. This is what she wrote…. I was born Jean Alice Sainsbury in October 1930 at the Maternity Hospital,…
THE SHE-BULLY OF EASTBOURNE
The Brodie Family and a tale of two portraits. I enjoy visiting the Old Parsonage at Eastbourne for a coffee on a Thursday morning. You will always get a warm welcome at his ancient half-timbered building – and usually home-made cake too! The room is dominated by two portraits, the severe, glowering portrait of the Reverend…
Quirky Sussex History by Kevin Gordon 