- | –1700
- | 1830s
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- | 1850s
- | 1860s
- | 1870s
- | 1880s
- | 1890s
- | 1900s
- | 1910s
- | 1920s
- | 1930s
- | 1940s
- | 1950s
January 1 The new National School in Church Street opens with nearly 1,000 children assembled. A large number of parents are given a joint of meat, a bushel of coal or an article of clothing given by the Vicar.
January Magistrates decide the boundaries of the Division: 1st Brighthelmstone cum Blatchington; 2nd Preston; 3rd Hove; 4th Portslade; and add: 5th Ovingdean; 6th: so much of Rottingdean as intervenes between Ovingdean and the sea to the distance of half a mile from the south-east corner of the parish of Brighthelmstone; 7th: Hangleton. The 5th to 7th districts thus come under the jurisdiction of Brighton rather than Lewes.
January Many public gas lamps are unable to burn as water that collects in the pipes has frozen; oil lamps are used instead.
January 18 The Committee for the Relief of the Poor allocates a second £100 to buy coal, in addition to £200 to provide soup.
January 24 A fire that begins in the house in the Royal Colonnade of Mr Bradley, a straw bonnet maker, spreads. The police fire engines arrive quickly but the hose on one bursts, giving rise to suggestions of poor maintenance.
February 18 Tolls on the turnpike road from Brighton to New Shoreham are let by auction for the period from 25 March, two months’ rent payable in advance and monthly thereafter.
February 18 The annual meeting of the Society to Promote the Abolition of the Use of Climbing Boys in sweeping chimneys is held at the Old Ship.
February 23 A dense fog envelops the town.
February 26 The new Police Committee selects among applicants to become policemen, who are then confirmed by the Commissioners.
March A flint wall is erected around Brighton (Queen’s) Park, where improvements are to be made.
March 27 The eight-year-old daughter of the landlord of the Hereford Arms in Hereford Street dies when she falls down a well.
March 28 Distribution of soup in Edward Street ends and will end in Spring Gardens on 3 April.
March 28 The Brunswick Square Bill has its third reading in the House of Lords.
April 13 Brighton police force begins its duties, modelled on that of Robert Peel in London; each of three districts of the town has a superintendent (paid £90 a year), with 21 watchmen employed full-time, and a chief superintendent over all.
Penfold becomes chief officer with a salary of £120 a year.
April 13 Night soil men discover the body of a newly-born infant in the p[rivy of a house in Essex Street.
April 15 George IV is reported to be unwell; he is being attended at Windsor by Sir Henry Halford and Sir Matthew Tierney.
April 22 Work has started on construction of a flight of steps from Marine Parade down to the new Esplanade.
April 22 A vestry meeting is held to elect 30 Directors and Guardians for the coming year.
April 23 A special meeting of the Commissioners agrees to borrow £42,000 from the Protector Fire Insurance Company at four per cent. The company declines .
April 24 The esplanade of the Chain Pier suffers considerable damage in a gale, protective shingle being washed away.
April 29 Improvements are being made to the London Road between Patcham and Pyecombe, including straightening.
May 20 A town meeting is held to elect 14 Commissioners; 28 nominations were received.
May 23 During a severe storm, a sheep is severed in two at Rottingdean by a lighting strike.
June 10 Part of the cliff at the bottom of Russell Street falls, partly because of heavy rains and partly the work to build the new wall.
June 17 The Commissioners give the treasurer and clerk authority to borrow £42,000; the town’s current revenue is about £13,000.
June 24 The Preston turnpike gate-keeper reports that no post horses have arrived through the gate for three days part.
June 24 Thomas Attree’s villa at the park is under construction.
June 24 The Directors and Guardians resolve not to erect a building in Brighton for the reception of pauper lunatics.
June 26 George IV dies and is succeeded by William IV.
June 27 No less than 125 journeymen tailors in the town strike for double wages.
June 28 Proclamation of William IV is held at the Old Ship, followed by a procession through the town; further proclamations are made at New Road, St Peter’s Church, New Steine, Grand Junction Road and the Market Place.
July 1-2 A town meeting elects 16 Commissioners on the rotation basis. Mr Wilds tops the poll with 1,293 votes.
July 5 A section of the sea wall under construction between Royal Crescent and New Steine collapses. The damage will cost at least £1,200 to repair.
July 17 Brighton theatre opens for the season under the management of Mr Russell.
July 21 An escutcheon is placed over the Castle Square entrance to the Pavilion.
July 21 Another section of the sea wall under construction collapses.
August 14 A hastily convened town meeting considered the demonstrations of joy that the town should display on the expected arrival of the king on 16 August; the king’s visit is to make arrangements before the arrival of the queen later in the month for a stay of six weeks.
August 16 More of the sea wall collapses.
August 30 First visit to Brighton of William IV and Queen Adelaide. They are greeted with fireworks, a single line of carriages along the road from the Preston toll-gate to St Peter’s Place and decorations throughout the town.
August 31 The Brighton Society of Change Ringers rings a peel of grandsire triples—5,040 changes—at St Nicholas Church.
August Construction of a new groyne has started opposite Charlotte Street.
September 3 A dinner for the charity children of the town is held in the Steine, attended before serving by William IV, Queen Adelaide, Princess Augusta, the Landgravine of Hesse Homburg, the Duke of Cambridge, Prince George of Cambridge and other dignitaries.
September 11 Queen Adelaide attends a fancy sale at the National School in Church Street.
September 16 The Brighton Gazette reports that a survey is about to be made of the route for a railroad from Brighton to London for goods and passengers, based on the experience of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (which opened on 15 September 1830—the day before).
September 17 The Red Rover and Union coaches collide on the corner of East Street and the shaft of one enters the chest of the lead horse of the other, inflicting a terrible wound. Both coaches were speeding and one was on the wrong side of the road.
September 18 In ‘the heaviest rain ever known’, the bottom of North Street, Castle Square and Pool Valley are flooded.
September A toll house has been built at the entrance to the Chain Pier and the new roadway approach from Grand Junction Road is nearing completion.
September 23 The Brighton Gazette reports that during the king’s return to London for the opening of parliament additional rooms will be added to the Pavilion for the queen’s retinue, the work to be completed within a month. A carriage road all round the Steine is also in contemplation.
October 3 A policeman attempting to suppress a disturbance in Chesterfield Street is bitten on the leg by J Andrews, who rushed from a house, declaring in court next day that he had no recollection as he was drunk. Unable to pay a £5 fine he is committed to six weeks in the House of Correction.
October 3 Elizabeth Fry preaches ‘in a kind of chant’ at the Quakers’ Meeting House.
October 10 Beer Act (1 Wm IV, c64) comes into force, allowing any ratepayer to open a beer house on payment of a 2 gns (£2.10) fee. Anyone retailing beer without a licence, other than in a tavern, inn or ale-house, will be liable to a fine of £20. Brewers and established public houses lower their prices by as much as 50 per cent.
October 11 Upwards of 100 licences for beer-houses are issued at the Excise Office, exceeding the number of public houses.
October 15 A special meeting of the Commissioners to consider raising a loan of £20,000 is adjourned as inquorate.
November 11 Work has started to create an esplanade below the cliff at Kemp Town, at one end of which a green sward has been laid.
November 15 Riots and arson attacks are reported across east Sussex and Kent, this evening reaching Lewes and Worthing, by labourers demanding higher wages and threatening destruction of machinery.
November 16 A town meeting at the Old Ship adopts resolutions to petition parliament for the abolition of slavery and to form an anti-slavery society.
November 16 The Directors and Guardians are to build an infirmary at the workhouse, as a cost of at least £1,200, to treat chiefly infectious diseases, of which there can at times be 30-40 cases.
November 20 A considerable portion of the Manchester Street groyne is destroyed in a storm.
December 1 The magistrates of the eastern division of Sussex meet at Lewes to report on measures to supress outrages and to appoint special constables.
December 18 The king and queen return to Brighton with their family for the Christmas period.
December 20 The Commissioners accept the only tender, from Lambert & Son of 28 Portland Street at 27s 6d per square, to build a shingle wall from the Old Steine to the New Steine.
December 27 The wedding of Amelia Fitzclarence, fifth illegitimate daughter of William IV by Dorothea Jordan, to Lucius Cary, 10th Viscount Falkland, takes place in the Pavilion, in the presence of the royals.
January 7 A brilliant aurora borealis is seen in Brighton.
January 7 Fanny Kemble appears for the first time in Brighton playing Mrs Haller in The Stranger with her father, Charles Kemble, in the title role.
January 8 William IV holds a large evening party at the Palace.
January 9 Prince Leopold, husband of Princess Charlotte of Wales, arrives at the Palace. [On 21 July 1831 he becomes the first King of the Belgians.]
January 13 The contralto Madame (Emma) Albertazzi gives a concert at the Old Ship.
January 13 Mrs Egerton commences an engagement at the theatre.
January 20 A vestry meeting of the Directors and Guardians disallows a charge of £58 2s 2d in the High Constable’s accounts for special constables’ staves.
January 24 Over 400 people attend the Master of the Ceremonies’ ball.
January 25 Maria Foote appears at the theatre. [She retires from the stage on 31 March and on 7 April marries Charles Stanhope, 4th Earl of Harrington.]
January 28 Over 800 nobility and gentry attend a grand ball given by their majesties at the Palace.
February 1 Their majesties visit the Earl of Chichester at Stanmer and tour the house.
February 1 The Duke and Duchess of Cumberland and Prince George arrive at the Palace. The Duke leaves on 7 February, the Duchess and Prince on the 10th.
February 2 Their majesties visit the Duke of Devonshire in Kemp Town.
February 3 Over 500 people attend a grand juvenile ball at the Palace.
February 7 Mr Russell’s lease at the theatre expires and he gives a farewell performance.
February 9 Michael Boai, ‘the chin chopper’ (playing tunes by tapping his chin with his fingers), makes his Brighton debut.
February 14 Prince Leopold arrives again.
February 14 A ball at the Old Ship raises over £100 for the hospital.
February 15 Madame de Bellville Oury (‘the queen of the pianoforte’—Paganini) and M Collinet (Parisian flageolet-player) perform with the Russian Horns at the theatre.
February 18 A Reform meeting is held at the Old Ship.
February 21 The royal family and Court leave for London.
February 25 The Grenadier Guards march from the barracks.
March 2 Mr Ranger, the Commissioners’ surveyor, resigns.
March 8 New road in front of York Hotel opened.
March 14 Another Reform meeting.
March 19 The Brighton Address and Petition for Reform, with 6,709 signatures, is forwarded for presentation.
March 21 Chantry’s bust of Lord Egremont is placed in the board room at the hospital. [It is now at Petworth House.]
March 24 The Coast Guard takes possession of the Blockade station.
March 28 The Times coach leaves Brighton for London at 16:30 for the first time.
April 3 Flight & Robson’s new organ at the Chapel Royal is inaugurated.
April 7 A public meeting at the Old Ship discusses founding a lying-in institution.
April 16 A public meeting to petition parliament that Brighton should have two MPs instead of one.
April 25 A town meeting addresses the king on the dissolution of parliament.
May 2 The German Spa [in Queen’s Park] opens for the season.
May 26 Mr Wright elected the Commissioners’ surveyor.
May 30 The census is taken: Brighton’s population is 18,047 males, 22,261 females.
June 6 A special Commissioners’ meeting to debate the alteration of Marine Parade.
June 18 An election of Commissioners.
June 26 The County Hospital is full and cannot admit any more patients.
June 30 Another election of Commissioners.
July 23 The theatre opens under the management of Frederick Vining and his wife Marian Jemima Bew.
August 13 The mutilated trunk of Celia Holloway is found in a copse by Lover’s Walk; her husband and Ann Kennett, his cohabitee, are arrested.
August 14 A verdict of wilful murder is passed at the Preston inquest on Celia Holloway and her husband is committed to jail.
August 15 The Brighton Bench remands Ann Kennett.
August 15 The Coast Guard seizes 40-50 tubs of contraband spirits near Birling Gap.
August 17 Celia Holloway’s head, legs and arms are found in a privy in Margaret Street and removed for examination at the town hall.
August 20 Holloway confesses to murdering his wife.
August 22 Ann Kennett is again remanded.
August 30 A numerous meeting convened by the High Constable at the Old Ship to consider the recent increase in assessments on houses resolves that ’the increased assessment charged on the property of the town is calculated to create disgust and contempt towards the Government’.
September 1 Ann Kennett is committed for trial.
September 3 Queen Adelaide comes to the Brighton Palace for one night with the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar.
September 19 Queen Adelaide returns to Brighton for two nights with the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar and her daughter, Princes Louise. The princess remains when they leave.
September 21 First meeting of the Commissioners in the new town hall; ‘the Fourteen’ are defeated in a debate about expenditure on the town hall.
September 23 or 25 Post Office opens in New Road.
September 26 A Reform meeting in the new town hall to petition the House of Lords.
October 3 The Reform petition presented to the House of Lords has 4,325 signatures.
October 3 First meeting of the magistrates in the new town hall.
October 4 Princess Victoria’s first visit to Brighton.
October 17 Frederick Vining makes his first appearance the theatre under his own management.
October 19 The Commissioners vote to demolish that part of the town hall that has led to litigation with Mr Vallance.
October 20 The first stone is laid of the Norfolk Bridge at Shoreham.
October 29 Their majesties and the court arrive in Brighton.
October 31 A town hall meeting to establish a Board of Health.
November 2 William IV goes to London and back in the same day for a Privy Council meeting.
November 8 An entertainment for Princess Augusta’s birthday is attended by about 200 of the local nobility and gentry.
November 21 The inhabitants of Hove meet to discuss cholera.
November 21 William IV again goes to London and back in the same day for a Privy Council meeting.
December 5 The king and queen leave for London. They return on 9 December.
December 6 The headless trunk of Hannah Hobbs is found on the beach at Aldrington and a verdict of wilful murder is returned at the inquest.
December 7 Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini gives his first performance in Brighton at the theatre.
December 9 Paganini plays a second concert, this from the balcony in the Old Ship Assembly Rooms.
December 12 At Lewes Assizes Holloway is sentenced to death for the muder of is wife.
December 14 A town hall meeting opens subscriptions for portraits of the king and queen to hang in the building.
December 16 Holloway is executed at Horsham.
December 17 Holloway’s body is put on public display at Brighton town hall.
December 23 An anti-slavery meeting at the town hall.
December 26 Over £200 is raised for the benefit of the poor by a ball at the Old Ship.
December 28 Experiments with a signal code using 10 coloured rockets devised by Lt Hughes RN are made on the Chain Pier in the presence of the Duke of Sussex and seven admirals, communicating with a second battery at the Bear’s Hide in Newhaven.
January 2 Soprano Fanny Ayton appears at the theatre in the opera The Slave.
January 5 A smallpox scare; several inmates of the Palace are vaccinated.
January 13 Signor Piozzi gives his annual concert at the Old Ship.
January 24 A petition in favour of the Bristol rioter is signed by 300 Political Unionists.
February 21 Their majesties and most of the court leave Brighton after a stay of nearly four months.
February 29 Henry Solomon is appointed chief officer of police in conjunction with Mr Pilbeam.
April 6 A vestry meeting on the subject of emigration.
April 24 Samuel Ridley is elected High Constable for the Hundred of Whalesbone.
April 27 The Enterprize sails from Shoreham with 99 emigrants for Montreal.
May 14 A second Reform meeting is held on the Steine.
June 6 Brighton Zoological Gardens are opened.
June 10 The Red Rover coach reaches London in four hours 10 minutes.
June 13 A cauldron containing two tons of molten iron being used to cast an oven for the Patent Bread Company overbalances at the Regent Foundry and hits the sand on the floor in a sheet; none of the 40 workmen is seriously injured.
July 2 The Little Red Rover coach to Bath and Bristol begins.
July 4 A great vestry meeting about the Commissioners’ affairs.
July 11 The Commissioners suspend progress of public works because of the state of their finances.
July 11 A meeting at the Old Ship to form a Temperance Society.
July 11 An entertainment at theZoological Gardens is attended by 1,500-2,000 tradesmen and inhabitants.
July 21 The theatre opens for the season.
July 26 William Cobbett lectures at Brighton.
August 15-16 The new market below the Town Hall opens around now.
August 27 Niccolò Paganini gives a concert in the Old Ship Assembly Rooms.
September 8 A public breakfast at the Chalybeate, Wick (St Ann's Well Gardens).
September 8 Springs are running low and water is sold at 1d a pail and upwards.
September 19 The Commissioners accept Mr Fabian’s offer to build a new groyne opposite the Crescent for £765.
October 4 Unusually violent storms about this time.
October 4 The body of a man lashed to a plank is washed ashore opposite Kemp Town.
October 10 The Commissioners meet in their new room at the town hall for the first time.
October 10 Henry Hetherington, founder-editor of the Poor Man’s Guardian (‘Published contrary to “law” to try the powers of “might” against “right”—a challenge to the stamp duty on newspapers, a tax on knowledge), addresses the Political Union at the Bricklayers Arms, 58 North Street.
October 25 The Brighton mail coast is upset near Reigate, killing the driver and seriously injuring several passengers.
October 31 Walter Hancock’s 10-seater steam bus, the Infant, arrives on an experimental trip to Brighton. It later made commercial journeys—a world first—over the route, being able to cope with icy hills on which horses struggled.
November 10 Their majesties and the court arrive at Brighton.
November 19 Andrew Ducrow (‘the father of British circus equestrianism’) performs before their majesties and the royal family at the Pavilion Riding School.
December 11-12 First parliamentary election in Brighton under the Reform Act; Isaac Newton Wigney and George Faithfull (both Radicals) are declared elected on 13 December.
January 15 Their majesties give an evening party ‘on an extensive scale’.
January 24 Madame Tussaud’s waxworks exhibition arrives in Brighton.
February 4-13 Their majesties go to London.
February 6 A vestry meeting receives the report of the committee investigating the affairs of the Commissioners, adjourned until 6 March.
February 16 The whole stock of the zoological gardens is sold.
February 21 The court leaves Brighton for the season.
March 6 The vestry meeting about the Commissioners’ affairs resumes.
March 2 Mr Poune succeeds Mr Ridley as High Constable.
April 4 Sailing of the steam packet Eclipse begin for the season between Brighton and Dieppe.
April 13 Prevalence of influenza about now.
May 1 The Norfolk Bridge at Shoreham opens to the public. It becomes a favourite ride of the king and queen.
August 29 The Brighton Anthaeum falls down.
October 3 A vestry meeting to appoint an assessor and set a church rate for St Nicholas’ Church ends in confusion when objections are raised about the rate.
October 15 The Chain Pier is seriously damaged in a storm, threatening its total destruction.
October 17 A meeting of inhabitants in the town hall raises subscriptions for the restoration of the pier.
October 26 Their majesties, the court and their household arrive in Brighton for the season.
November 4 Their majesties visit the County Hospital.
November 8 Their majesties given am evening party in honour of Princess Augusta’s birthday.
November 16 In the King’s Bench, Levy Emanuel Cohen, proprietor/editor of the Brighton Guardian, is sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in Chelmsford gaol, a fine of £30 and to find securities, for a libel on the Sussex magistrates.
November 29 Conde de Funchal, the Portuguese ambassador to Rome on a special mission to the British court, dies at his lodgings in Marine Parade on the day of his arrival.
December 16 Mr Batty’s circus opens in Devonshire Place.
December 21 The new butcher’s market opens.
• The Royal Newburgh Assembly Rooms opens in St Margaret’s Place.
January 5 The Dolphin sloop out of Glasgow is wrecked on the beach at Brighton.
January 6 The Commissioners resolve to borrow £30,000.
January 15 Their majesties give a grand entertainment for the Duke of Gloucester’s birthday at the Palace.
January 21 The tradesmen’s annual ball raises about £100 for the County Hospital.
January 23 Capt Pechell MP secures the promise of a Royal Navy cruiser to protect the fishery.
February 3 The king and queen travel to London; they return on 7 February.
February 6 Flooding of several underground apartments as springs rise.
February 7 Capt Samuel Brown drives his carriage to the head of the fully repaired Chain Pier.
February 11 Violent speeches at a meeting of dissenters in the Hanover Chapel.
February 20 Their majesties an the Court leave Brighton for the season.
February 25 The Commissioners hold a special meeting about altering the road in the Steine.
February 26 The vestry clerk informs the Commissioners he has succeeded in borrowing £12,000.
March 26 The new eastern entrance to the Chain Pier opens.
March 26 Workmen begin excavations for the site of new servants’ quarters at the Palace.
March 27 An inhabitants meeting sanctions alterations to the Steine.
March 31 A fireworks display on the Chain Pier.
March 31 Work on the road across the Steine begins.
April 3 All Souls Church is consecrated by the Bishop of Chichester.
April 7 The funeral of a trades unionist attracts a large procession of workmen.
April 10 A crudely made canoe is excavated on the Earl of Egremont’s estate.
May 5 A meeting of dissenters at Mr Goulty’s Union Chapel petitions against the government’s church rates measures.
May 15 A public meeting at the town hall petitions against the Poor Law Bill.
June 14 One of the most violent storms in living memory, with hailstones as large as walnuts, shatters about 6,000 panes of glass on Marine Parade and causes havoc to greenhouses.
June 29 Funeral of another trades unionist.
September 4 Operatic bass Giuseppe de Begnis gives a concert at the Newburgh Rooms.
September 16 The Directors and Guardians sack the clerk, Mr W Gates; he and the assistant overseer are subsequently charged with embezzlement. Numerous meetings take place about the financial affairs over the coming weeks.
October 20 Thomas Potter Cooke begins an engagement at the theatre to excellent houses.
October 23 The Brighton-Maidstone coach is upset neat Lewes and the coachman, Mr Strivens, is killed.
October 27 W Gates is committed for trial on charges of embezzling parish funds.
October 28 A large number of special constables are sworn in to preserve the peace on 5 November.
November 1 Their majesties and the Court arrive in Brighton.
November 5 A notice preventing squibs and tar barrels in town leads large mobs to parade the street with ‘formidable bludgeons’, in defiance of the police and special constables; several arrests are made.
November 6 Violinist Nicolas Mori gives a concert in Brighton.
November 6 The Bishop of Chichester consecrates the new burial ground.
November 11 Musician-composer Robert Nicholas-Charles Bochsa gives a concert at which French soprano Maria Caterina Rosalbina Caradori-Allan sings.
November 26 At Lewes Assizes, W Gates, the clerk of the Directors and Guardians, is acquitted of embezzlement.
December 22 An anonymous meeting at the town hall for candidates at the forthcoming election reveals a split among radicals, only Mr Wigney and Mr Faithfull attending. The meeting is adjourned for a week to allow more invitations to be sent.
December 29 The adjourned meeting of candidates is also attended by Sir Augustus Dalrymple; Capt Pechell is indisposed.
December 29 The king visits the German Spa [in Queen’s Park].
December 29 The King holds a Privy Council at the Brighton Palace at which the proclamation for the dissolution of parliament received the royal assent.
January 8-9 Parliamentary election. Wigney retains his seat but Faithfull is replaced by Capt George Pechell (Whig), who keeps the seat for the next 25 years.
January 15 The Duke of Wellington has an interview with the King at the Pavilion.
January 16 Tusk of a young elephant is found embedded in clay by workmen digging a well in Western Road.
January 30 The Brighton Commissioners agree to Mr Hallett’s motion to extend the sea wall from the Crescent to Kemp Town.
February 17 Their majesties and the court leave Brighton.
February 19 In violent gales large masses of the cliff between the Crescent and Kemp Town give way.
March 4 The Commissioners agree to extend the sea wall immediately.
March 23 A meeting at the town hall to petition for the ballot is adjourned.
March 30 At the adjourned ballot meeting, it is agreed to send an address to the House of Commons.
• Brighton and Hove General Gas Company builds a gasworks adjacent to St Andrew’s Church in Hove, avoiding the coal tax of £8 per ton imposed by Brighton.
April 11 Work begins on construction of the sea wall.
April 26 The Brighton Conservative Club is formed in a meeting at the Regent Hotel.
May 6 The Commissioners grant permission for the water company to lay pipes.
May 29 A Vestry meeting resolves that it would be beneficial for the assizes to he held in Brighton.
June 5 The partnership of Cowell & Co at the Albion Patent Bread Company is dissolved.
July 7 Hove parish joins the Steyning Union.
July 10 New Roman Catholic chapel, St John the Baptist's Church, opens in Brighton.
July 27 A public meeting resolves that it is expedient to establish a railroad from London to Brighton.
August 16 Three state prisoners who escaped from St Pelagie in Paris arrive at Brighton in a fishing boat from Fécamp, whose master had his boat impounded by revenue officers for trying to import brandy.
August 17 A committee is set up by a Vestry meeting to confer with the Church Building Commissioners about their claim for £3,000.
August 24 Charles Kean is engaged at the Theatre.
September 8 Charles Kean is succeeded by John Reeve at the theatre.
September 11 Riotous assembly at Steyning.
September 16 Charles Kemble plays at the theatre.
September 25 Names of Quakers are removed in the revision of the Brighton jury lists.
October 15 A Vestry meeting resolved to defend any proceedings by the Church Building Commissioners for the recovery of £3,000.
October 19 William Farren plays at the theatre.
October 29 A Vestry meeting votes to discontinue the practice of giving £30 for the High Constable’s inauguration dinner.
November 2 Their majesties, Prince George of Cambridge and the court arrive in Brighton.
November 3 Princess Augusta arrives in Brighton.
November 16 Sheridan Knowles plays at the theatre.
November 29 The Irish actor Tyrone Power plays at the theatre.
December 8 Edward Fitzwilliam plays at the theatre.
December 15 Madama Sala, mother of George Augustus Sala, gives a concert.
December 15 Mr Mortimer O’Sullivan (‘this incendiary parson’) airs his anti-Catholic views in a public meeting for the first time in Brighton. ‘Skull and cross-bones’ placards are displayed all over town. Prince George of Cambridge and is tutor are said to have been present.
December 17 A Vestry meeting refuses a church rate.
January 7 The Vestry clerk is directed to oppose proceedings by the Church Building Commissioners for the recovery of £3,000 borrowed for the completion of the new church.
January 20 The Commissioners order the negotiation of of a loan for building the sea wall.
January Brighton’s police force comprises three superintendents (£90 a year each), 21 constables (21s a week and an annual suit of clothes), a prison keeper (15s a week) and a beadle (18s a week); total annual cost: £24,918 plus the suits.
January 29 Their majesties go up to London.
February 2 Their majesties return to Brighton.
February 18 A town meeting votes in favour of Sir John Rennie’s direct line of railroad. Lewes And Cuckfield later vote in favour.
February 19 Their majesties leave Brighton for the season.
March 5 The members for the borough pledge to support Rennie’s railroad line at a meeting in the town hall.
March 7 A public meeting in the town hall petitions for the repeal of taxes on knowledge, for the vote by ballot, for a repeal of the septennial act and the tax-paying clauses of the Reform Act.
March 14 The Commissioners vote in favour of Rennie’s railway line.
March 17 A Vestry meeting warns the Poor Law Commissioners against introducing the new poor laws at Brighton.
March 22 John and James Huggett are sentenced to death at Lewes Assizes for sheep stealing.
April 22 The Brighton Patriot is charged with criminal libel against the Guardians of the Rye Poor Law Union at the Sussex Summer Assizes in Lewes.
May 3 The Commissioners rescind their resolution about the railroad line to London.
June 17 Hove Church reopens for services after renovation.
June 19 The South-eastern Railway Bill received the Royal Assent.
June 20 A large town hall meeting petitions parliament in favour of Sir John Rennie’s railway line.
June 24 The Directors and Guardians agree to appoint a chaplain to the workhouse. Rev Mr Mortlock is appointed on 7 July.
July 27 The Brighton Patriotchanges its plea in the libel case to guilty and issues an apology.
August 2 Stephenson’s railway bill is thrown out by the House of Lords.
August 4 Lord Egremont’s portrait is hung in the town hall at a celebratory dinner.
October 12 Mr Laing appointed surveyor to the Brighton Commissioners.
October 17 Storms cause considerable damage to the new sea wall and elsewhere.
October 26 A town meeting appoints a committee to collect subscriptions to place an organ in the town hall.
October 28 Their majesties and the court arrive in Brighton for the winter.
November 12 A snow storm.
November 14 Their majesties confer their patronage on the Sussex Scientific Institution and Mantellian Museum.
November 14 The Duke of St Albans, Grand Falconer, flies his hawks on Dyke Road.
November 24 A Vestry meeting at the town hall about making a church rate ends after four days’ polling with 1,702 votes in favour, 1,389 against.
November 29 Storm-force winds cause the Chain Pier to oscillate, causing extensive damage, including the destruction of the third platform. A man named Leggatt is killed when a sheet of lead is blown from a roof in New Steine and a young woman called Redding is seriously injured when a stack of chimneys crashes and demolishes the house of confectioner Mr Mutton at 29 King’s Road.
December 24 Severe snowstorm begins, ‘the worst ever remembered’. Within days the town is cut off. One man freezes to death in Brighton; an avalanche from the Cliffe hills in Lewes destroys seven houses, burying 15 people, of whom seven die.
January During the first week of the year 586 men are employed by the Town Commissioners to clear snow. The following week 336 men. The cost of snow clearing is £921 3s.
January 5 A ball is held at the Old Ship to raise funds for the Sussex County Hospital. Tickets 7s.
January 30 A public ball is held at the Old Ship to raise funds for the Brighton Dispensary. Tickets 10s.
February Charles Kean appears at the Theatre Royal in the title roll of Hamlet.
February 27 William IV and entourage leave for Windsor at the end of his last visit.
March 6 A public meeting in the town hall petitions for the vote by ballot, for repeal of the Septennial Act and abolition of the rate-paying clauses of the Reform Act.
March 16 Many petitions sent from Brighton and the surrounding area against the abolition of the church rate.
March 20 The temperature falls to 20˚F (-7˚C) and snow impedes the arrival of the mails.
March 27 Mrs Fitzherbert dies at her mansion on the Steine, aged 81.
April 10 At the election of Directors and Guardians, the whole Conservative list is elected.
April 28 At committee stage, the House of Commons votes in favour of the direct railway line to Brighton.
May 13 Saturday 06:00 The General Steam Navigation Company’s packet Belfast makes its first sailing of the season from the Chain Pier to Dieppe with 15 passengers, returning on the following Monday evening with 12. The weekly crossings usually take about eight hours. The ticket office, which also provides passports and insurance, is in Castle Square.
May 24 A fete to celebrate the coming of age of Princess Victoria is held in the Royal Gardens in Brighton.
May 25 A town meeting petitions for the abolition of the church rate.
May 30 The House of Commons appoints a government engineer to report on the various railroad lines between London and Brighton.
June 7 A meeting in Brighton again agrees to petition in favour of the direct railway line.
June 16 Mr Becher is elected clerk of the Directors and Guardians.
June 20 William IV dies at Windsor and is succeeded by his niece, Victoria.
June 24 The accession of Queen Victoria is proclaimed in Brighton.
July 6 Shops are closed throughout Brighton on the day of William IV’s funeral.
July 6 Lawrence Peel gives £500 towards construction of the new ‘Victoria wing’ at the County Hospital.
July 6 A temperance hotel opens in Western Road.
July 15 The London and Brighton Railway Company Act received Royal Assent.
July 25 Parliamentary election. Pechell retains his seat but Wigney is displaced by Sir Adolphus John Dalrymple bt (Conservative).
August 21 William Exton, a Methodist preacher is fined 20s and costs by Brighton magistrates for obstructing the highway by stret preaching.
October 4 Queen Victoria arrives in Brighton to stay at the Pavilion. The town puts on a lavish display of welcome.
October 5 The High Constable and members of the borough present an address to Queen Victoria.
October 20 The Queen visits the Chain Pier.
October 27 A town meeting resolves to give £415, the balance from subscriptions raised to celebrate the queen’s coming of age and her arrival in Brighton towards the cost of the Victoria wing at the County Hospital.
November 2 A dinner at the town hall celebrates the accession of Queen Victoria and her visit to Brighton.
November 4 The royal party leaves for London.
November 11 The Earl of Egremont dies at Petworth.
November 24 A vestry meeting appoints a committee to investigate the Directors and Guardians accounts.
December 12 The Directors and Guardians agree to discontinue compositions on houses with a value of £10 or more.
December 28 Cherriman, the Brighton town crier, dies.
• Brighton Savings Bank has 567 depositors, nearly half having deposits of less than £5. The average account balance, including compound interest, was £5 13s 10¾d
January 15 George Cheesman & Son commence the north drain.
January 17 Nearly 500 persons, the largest number ever recorded in Brighton, apply to the Directors and Guardians for relief. Colonel Webster and Captain Beresford drive a sledge through the streets.
January 25 The Queen subscribes £20 to the fund for relief of the poor.
February 7 The Commissioners contract with Thomas Wisden to build a new fish market for £917.
February 8 The Earl of Chichester is elected president of the Sussex County Hospital in the place of the late Earl of Egremont.
February 16 First catch of mackerel of the season.
March 16 William ‘Brighton Bill’ Phelps is killed in a bareknuckle boxing match with Owen Swift in front of a crowd of 3,000 at Melbourne Heath, Essex. Phelps had previously killed one man and Swift two. Swift and three of the organisers were found guilty of manslaughter and the rules of boxing were subsequently rewritten as a result of this incident.
March 19 Work begins on construction of the London and Brighton Railway.
March 31 The Whig magistrates of Brighton appoint four Whig overseers.
April 17 John Bradshaw is appointed High Constable of the Hundred of Whalesbone.
April 24 At the election of Directors and Guardians, the whole Conservative list is again elected.
April 26 Christ Church in Montpelier Road is consecrated.
April 28 The steam packet Belfast makes its first crossing to Dieppe with 19 passengers.
May 16 The Commissioners appoint a committee to enquire into the present state of the parish’s roads and whether any have been stopped up in the past 10 years and if so on what authority.
May 30 A town meeting adopts measures to recover the use of the downs, which have been encroaches upon by the building of walls.
June 4 A town hall meeting plans for celebration of the coronation.
June 6 Fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the establishment of Sunday schools by the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion.
June 14 Experiments under the auspices of the Brighton branch of the Royal Humane Society are staged on the Chain Pier with John Dennett’s rockets and Capt G W Manby’s mortar for communicating with vessels in distress.
June 21 The Belfast, bringing the Duke de Nemours for the Coronation, and replaced by the Brocklebank. The duke spends the night at the Albion Hotel in Brighton.
June 28 To celebrate the coronation, 5,000 children are regaled on the Steine, children from the National School dine on the Chain Pier, affair is held on the Level, where an ox and several sheep are roasted whole and distributed to the crowd in beer, a fete and dinner in the a href="../streets/streets_i.html#Irelands">Royal Gardens end with a fireworks display.
July 9 The Earl of Chichester gives a dinner for 250 poor people in Stanmer Park to mark the coronation.
July 18 Two Ashanti princes from the Gold Coast, Prince William Quantamissah and Prince John Ansah, visit Brighton.
July 20 The Shoreham branch of the London and Brighton Railway commences.
July 23 A day mail coach starts running between London and Brighton.
August 11 Brighton Regatta.
August 17 Work begins on building the Victoria Wing of the County Hospital.
August 30 Charles Kean performs at the theatre.
September 20 Dr Mantell’s museum removed to the British Museum.
September 22 A public meeting at the town hall, attended by Feargus O’Connor, adopts the ‘People’s Charter’, the manifesto of the Chartist movement.
September 22 Brighton borough registration commences.
October 6 Brighton (county) registration begins.
October 15 On his return to Brighton, Sir David Scott is presented with an address signed by 1,122 people, requesting him to resume his seat on the Brighton Bench.
October 24 Workmen on the Shoreham railway track discover three skeletons and ancient pottery contain bones at Aldrington.
November 1 Adelaide, Lady John Russell, dies at 14 Sussex Square ‘from the consequences of a difficult and protracted accouchement’ (ie, in childbirth).
November 1 Princess Augusta, aunt of Queen Victoria, visits Brighton for a period, staying at North Lodge of the Pavilion estate.
November 19 Robert Owen of New Lanark gives a series of lecture in Brighton about his ‘New Social System’.
November 22 A large town hall meeting about the cause of education in Syria and the Holy Land is addressed by Assaab Yacoob Kayat, a Persian.
November 29 A severe storm begins and last for several days; the Johanna, a galliot out of Bremen is wrecked off Kemp Town, the crew in lifeboats are picked up and taken to St Valery-en-Caux in Normandy.
December 18 The Court moves from Windsor Castle to Brighton, the Queen arriving at 16:35.
December 24 A skeleton is unearthed in a garden at the top of Trafalgar Street.
December Queen Victoria spends Christmas in Brighton.
December 27 the high tide washes ashore several tubs of contraband spirit; more are found floating by the coast guards.
December 28 A jury assesses the value of Mr Kemp’s land taken by the London and Brighton Railway Company at £12,950.
December 29 Mr and Mrs Alban Croft (Eleanor Griffiths) give a concert at the Newburgh Rooms.
January 8 The Court leaves Brighton for Buckingham Palace.
March 20 House of Commons considers petitions to place retailers of beer on the same footing as licensed victuallers under the Sale of Beer Act, including two from Brighton.
April 8 A vestry meeting at the town hall appoints 30 persons as Directors and Guardians.
April 19 The ceremony of walking the bounds takes place.
April 24 A public meeting of Brighton residents passes motions that the erection of a toll-gate side bar at Hove Street would be injurious to Brighton and Hove and that it was illegal.
April 27 A special meeting of the trustees of the Brighton, Shoreham and Lancing [Turnpike} Road rescinds the proposed toll side-bar.
April A committee of housemaids has determined that ‘in consequence of the enormous height of some of the houses at Brighton . . . those useful persons shall hereafter demand wages in proportion to the number of stories they have to climb in their labours ‘.
May 18 The Belfast makes the first crossing of the season to Dieppe.
May 27 The first stone for the New England bridge is laid by the Worshipful Master of the freemasons, Mr Folkard.
June 21 The sexton at All Saints Church, Patcham, digging a grave, finds a long-interred corpse with full bottle of liquor.
June 24 The wooden railings along King’s Road are being replaced by an 'elegant' iron fence.
July 1 Amon Henry Wilds has returned to 8 Western Terrace from working in Kent.
July 2 Brighton theatre is granted a licence at Lewes on the application of Wakeford Attree.
July 2 The new gas company holds its first meeting under the new Act at the Albion Hotel. Mr Welch will chair and I N Wigney is treasurer. Borrowing of £600 was authorised.
July 15 Sixteen new Commissioners are elected in rotation.
August 7 The magistrates swear in 40 people as special constables during the Brighton races.
August 8 A man aged about 60, ‘whose dress bespoke extreme poverty’, was seen walking through Brighton with a coffin on his back, which he took to the town hall, where he said he had walked from Fletching and that the coffin contained his son, aged about four, whom he wanted to have buried in a Catholic cemetery. As there is no such in Brighton, he is send to the workhouse and the coffin is buried next day in the parish churchyard.
August 17 The Brighton Cemetery Bill receives the royal assent.
August 19 Bronterre O’Brien, the Chartist leader, addressed several hundred people at the Brewers’ Arms in Church Street, arguing that the land belongs to all the people.
August 19 A meeting is held at the Old Ship to for a Brighton Auxiliary to the Prayer Book and Homily Society.
August 20 The Commissioners remove Waterloo House to create a new approach from King’s Road to the market.
August 23 The Belfast makes an excursion to Portsmouth with about 200 passengers.
August 23 Workmen digging for the railway line south of Clayton Hill discover an earthen coffin about nine feet deep, which crumbles on exposure to air revealing a human skeleton, of which two more are found nearby along with a considerable number of coins, some from the reign of Antoninus Pius.
August 31 Since its establishment in 1831, the Brighton Lying-in Institution and Dispensary for the Diseases of Women and Children has delivered 2,242 children.
October 22 Labourers working to excavate the railway line at Pyecombe discover a silver coin from the reign of Ethelred in near mint condition.
October 23 The Belfast sails for Dieppe with 20 passengers.
October 24 The church at Stanmer is consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
October 30 The Belfast returned on the last sailing of the season from Dieppe with 16 passengers.
October 31 The Brighton Gazette reports that ‘Prince Albert is a tolerably comely youth, about the middle height, with moustaches in a very promising state of cultivation’.
November 4 Two fishermen, brothers Henry and Robert Marchant, are drowned when the lugger in which Robert was fishing for cod with three others half a mile off Regency Square is capsized by huge waves. They were picked up by another boat, the Defiance (with a third brother, Thomas, on board) but that too is capsized. The Glasgow and the Snake picked up survivors but the two brothers were found dead in the water.
November 12 The font at the Chapel Royal is moved from opposite the alter to near the porch and a faldstool and desk installed at the expense of Rev Thomas Trocke, the perpetual curate.
November 25 The railway track of the Shoreham branch of the London and Brighton Railway is now less than three-quarters of a mile from Shoreham; the New England tunnel at the Brighton end is completed and tracks laid to its entrance; the engine makes its first journey through it.
December 2 A clock is added to St George’s Chapel, which strikes every quarter-hour.
December 5 The Sussex County Hospital has 112 in-patients, including five admissions this week from an accident; the Brighton Gazette calls this ‘overflowing’ and notes that of about 80 accidents on the railway, ‘only four’ have been fatal, one of them on 3 December.
December 9 The Brighthelmston Dispensary has admitted 43,442 persons since its establishment in 1809.
December 10 A vestry meeting is held to consider providing more space for burial of the dead and appoints a committee; the parish churchyard has room for no more than 50 more funerals.
December 11 The volume of letters at the Brighton post office has increased by 70 per cent in the past seven days as a consequence of reducing the inland postage rate to 4d.
December 27 A meeting is held at the town hall to establish a Brighton branch of the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Benevolent Society.
Page updated 18 August 2023