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,…
A Little Entertainment
Among my family archives I have a postcard showing four dancing midgets. The card is titled “THE WORLD RENOWNED WILLY PANTZER AND HIS WONDERFUL MIDGETS”. A little research found that Willy and his theatrical troupe of acrobats and comedians appeared twice at the Hippodrome in Eastbourne in the summer of 1928 and 1929. I was fascinated 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…
Burial by Proxy?
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,…
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…
Quirky Sussex History by Kevin Gordon 