Blue Plaques Trail
Hastings Town Centre
40. Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
9 Pelham Crescent
The feminist and artist Barbara Leigh Smith was born in Whatlington, near Battle on 11th April 1827. She was known as an extraordinary, unconventional woman with a free spirit that turned away from high society. Despite her wealth she associated herself with the bohemian, the artistic and the downtrodden. Her father had a number of properties in Sussex including at Robertsbridge and at Westfield.
When she reached the age of 21, Barbara’s father gave her the deeds to Westminster School as a source of income. This placed her in an extraordinary position for a woman in 1848. Where most women were forced in to marriage and child bearing Barbara was free to live her life almost as she pleased.
At her address in Pelham Crescent, Smith employed three live-in servants, and during her time there she became acquainted with many local notable people. One lifelong friend was the printer and stationer William Ransom who was based at 42 George Street. He gave Barbara the means to get her radical ideas in to print by publishing her feminist articles in the Hastings newspaper, the Hastings & St. Leonards News. Barbara was deeply and passionately involved with four major campaigns; for married women’s property rights, career opportunities, the vote and higher education.
There is no doubt that Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon was an important figure in the Victorian women’s rights movement.
Barbara died in 1891 and was buried at Brightling.
41. Lewis Carroll
2 Wellington Square
Lewis Carol, whose real name is Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgeson was born in Daresbury, Cheshire on 27th January 1832. Before he became known as a writer he became a don of mathematics at Christ Church, Oxford and he also took Holy Orders, though he never took charge of a church.
He often stayed at 2 Wellington Square with his two aunts during his student days, in vacations from University. He also stayed at Eastbourne during summer vacations from Oxford and was known to walk to Hastings to visit his aunts and to consult Dr Hunt who was treating him for a stammer.
Lewis Carroll was a keen theatre enthusiast; he attended the Royal Concert Hall, Warrior Square, St Leonards and sometimes preached at the nearby St Mary Magdalen church. He was on friendly terms with local writers including George MacDonald and Coventry Patmore; and with the artist and cartoonist Harry Furniss who illustrated Carroll’s work ‘Syvlie and Bruno’.
Lewis Carroll died in Guildford, Surrey on 14th January 1898.
42. Arthur Haygarth
29 Wellington Square
43. Robert Tressell
115 Milward Road
Robert Phillippe Noonan alias Robert Tressell was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1870. The house painter, decorator and sign writer came to live in Hastings in 1901 from South Africa where he had been married and widowed. He chose to move to Hastings as he had family in the area and believed that the area would be beneficial to his health.
Probably Tressell’s most artistic work was a mural that he executed in the chancel of St. Andrews Church in 1905. The church was later demolished but one panel was retrieved and has been restored and now resides at Hastings Museum.
There are many relevant buildings and landmarks in the town that relate to Tressell. ‘The Tressell Trail’ as it is sometimes known includes the Town Hall, Burton and Co Decorators, Furnishers and Undertakers – 88 Stonefield Road and 119a Queens Road, 241 London Road as well as 1 Plynlimmon Road where he lived for a brief period.
A blue plaque commemorates the address where Tressell spent most of his time at number 115 Milward Road. Then called Grosvenor Mansions Robert lived there with his daughter Kathleen, his sister Adelaide and her son Arthur. This is where much of Tressell’s novel ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’ was conceived if not written. The book thinly disguises the town under the pseudonym Mugsborough and satirically portrays the ordeal undergone by the working classes. Robert Noonan departed Hastings in 1910 from Warrior Square Station. Noonan died in Liverpool in 1911 and was said to have been given a paupers burial with an unmarked tomb.
44. (and 46, 53) Grey Owl
36 St. Mary’s Terrace
Grey Owl’s story is one of true eccentricity. His story begins in Victorian England and ends in the plains and forests of Saskatchewan in Canada. He became famous as a full-blooded Indian with the name of Grey Owl having been born and raised by two aunts in Hastings. When his true identity was discovered shock waves were sent through the associations and individuals who supported his and admired his work, but luckily interest in his publications has been retained and many take a keen interest in studying his fascinating story.
The conservationist who spent most of his adult life amongst the Indians of Canada, and lived as one of them was in fact born in Hastings where he spent his childhood.
Named Archibald Stansfield Delaney he was born on 18th September at 32 St. James’s Road. He later lived at number 36 St. Mary’s Terrace. Blue plaques now commemorate Grey Owl at both these addresses as well as Hastings Country Park where along with St. Helen’s Wood he spent much of his time acting out battles between Cowboys and Indians. He was known to have told schoolmates, even at a young age that he had Indian blood in his veins.
It was in March 1906 that Archie left Liverpool docks heading for Canada, aged 17.
Whilst in Canada he attached himself to the ‘Ojibway’ Indians and he developed an excellent knowledge of animals about which he wrote. Some of his publications include ‘Pilgrims of the Wild’, ‘Men of the Last Frontier’, The Adventures of Sajo and her Beaver People’. Grey Owl was later to become a pioneer of Wildlife Conservation in Canada, making significant contribution to the saving of the beaver.
45. James Abbot McNeill Whistler
43 St Mary’s Terrace
James Abbot McNeill Whistler was an American-born painter and graphic artist, active mainly in England. He was born in 1834 in Massachusetts, however as a young boy he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia. James Abbott spent most of his childhood years in Russia, studying drawing at the Imperial Academy of Science.
He soon became a hardened traveller, and as part of his travel he came to London in 1848 to live with his sister and her husband.
The following year the family moved back to the United States, where Whistler enrolled in the United States Military Academy, where he excelled in the drawing class. He was dismissed from the academy in 1854, and so resigned himself to becoming an artist; he moved to Europe permanently in 1855to embark upon his career. He settled in Paris first, where he studied for many years. In Paris he quickly associated himself with the avant-garde artists, and was influenced by the popular realist artists of the time.
Whistler was a great admirer of the Dutch artists of the time, including Jan Steen and Rembrandt he visited Holland regularly.
In 1866 he visited South America, where he painted seascapes in Chile. After returning to Europe he commenced on a series of monumental compositions called the Six Projects, these reflect the influence of English artist Albert Moore. It was in 1869 that Whistler began to sign his work with a butterfly monogram composed of his initials.
James’ mother Anna McNeill Whistler retired to Hastings in 1875 and died in the town six years later. It was for his mother that James had a reason to visit Hastings and used Hastings as the inspiration for a number of his works; including On the Beach, Hastings.
The artist died in 1903.
46. Grey Owl
32 St. James’s Road
See No. 44
47. (and 49) John Logie Baird
21 Linton Crescent
The inventor of television, John Logie Baird, was born in Dunbartonshire in Scotland in 1888. He came to Hastings in 1922 to recover from ill health taking lodgings at 21 Linton Crescent and rented a dingy workshop above a shop in Queen’s Avenue for five shillings a week. It was in this room that he built his first crude transmitter in 1924. Later in 1924 John Logie Baird returned to London, where he received support the owner of the famous Oxford Street store Selfridges where demonstrations of his television were held. Baird’s own Television Company began transmitting programmes in 1929 until the BBC took over responsibility in 1932.
Baird’s working methods were eccentric; he kept no regular notes, his mind worked too quickly for that. He left instructions for employees on paper bags, envelopes, or scribbled on walls.
His lifelong experiments were dogged by bad luck and bad health, and it has been said that he was on the brink of success when he died. The competition between his system and the all-electronic system around at the same time became a particular problem, when in 1936 the BBC adopted the EMI-Marconi electronic system. As a strange turn of events after this, Baird took to manufacturing sets to receive the EMI-Marconi system as a way of financing his scheme.
The positive impact of Baird’s tireless work is not difficult to identify, the television has gone from strength to strength. From just 300 receiving sets in 1936, to billions world-wide reporting all momentous events, great sporting occasions tragedies and politics.
John Logie Baird died in Bexhill on 14th June 1946. A plaque can be found at 1 Station Road, Bexhill to commemorate the pioneer of television.
48. Earl Cornwallis
Railway Bridge linking South Terrace and Priory Avenue
49. (and 47) John Logie Baird
Queen’s Avenue
See number 47
50. Charles Dickens
Yates’ Wine Lodge, 53 Robertson Street
World famous as the most popular writer of his time, Charles Dickens was born at Portsmouth in February 1812.
During his career he undertook tours in which he gave public readings of his own works. And it was during the second of these tours that he was to come to Hastings.
He performed at the Music Hall on 6th November 1861; this building has subsequently undergone many changes, currently housing Yates’ Wine Lodge, Robertson Street. He stayed overnight at the Marine Hotel, Pelham Place where the DeLuxe Leisure Centre still stands.
His popularity is evident in reports from the time that state that despite severe stormy weather, he hall was filled to its maximum capacity with enormous crowds unable to obtain admission.
Hastings also features in many of his writings.
51. Canadian Defence Forces
Albany Court, Roberston Terrace
52. Beatrix Potter
Hastings Children’s Library, Robertson Terrace
Beatrix Potter was born on 28th July 1866 in South Kensington, London.
She lived a lonely life as a child, being educated by a governess and having little contact with other people. She spent much of her time studying and making drawings of her pets.
Beatrix’s work is adored worldwide by adults and children alike. Possibly, her most famous work being The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
As a young girl, Beatrix and her family spent much of their time holidaying in the Lake District, where Beatrix developed a keen interest in nature and the preservation of the countryside. She maried William Heels, a solicitor, in 1913. This started the next stage of Potter;s life as a Lakland farmer.When she died Potter left fourteen famrs and 4000 acres of land to the National Trust.
Beatrix Potter had a strong connection to Hastings; she stayed frequently at 16 Robertson Terrace between 1898 and 1907, spending the winter months here away from London. A letter to Norman Warne, written in December 1903, describes two stories she had written, 'the result of a very wet week here'. These stories were The Tale of Two Bad Mice and The Pie and the Patty Pan.
Years later Beatrix Potter used the net huts as a background to her drawings for Little Pig Robinson. 16 Robertson Terrace was destroyed by a bomb in 1943 - Debenhams Store now occupies the site.
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