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…
Category: Family History
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 SUSSEX KIWI REMEMBERED
Today I attended the ANZAC service at the Cross of Sacrifice at Eastbourne’s Ocklynge Cemetery. There was a short but moving service and a Māori hymn was sung. Wreaths were laid at the foot of the soaring Cross-of Sacrifice, which indicates a cemetery has more than forty war-graves – this cemetery has over a hundred. After…
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…
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…
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…
Quirky Sussex History by Kevin Gordon 