Starting in 1946, a columnist calling himself simply 'E.B.' wrote articles in the Whitstable Times. This person, male or female, (we've not yet been able to identify him/her), seemed to have an affinity with the history of the town and was able to talk with ease with many members of the old Whitstable families.

The legacy that E.B. has left us, which we have just re-discovered, is a fascinating insight into these people and their lives. Whilst most of the articles are based around known facts, many more personal memories are brought to life with local pride and a style that helps paint the picture of our ancestors and town, together with personal quotes from individuals that are a wonderful bonus for any family history researcher.

These pages are exact transcripts of the articles that relate to the town. Even if you do not find any connections within them, simply reading them will give you the experience and feeling of knowing these people and the lives they lived.

The turnpike gate swung open and William Chandler stepped through into Oxford Street. A journeyman carpenter from Elmstead, near Denton, where he had served his apprenticeship, he had made the long walk to Whitstable, carrying his tools on his back, for the purpose of finding permanent employment in the town.

The foundation stone of the new Seasalter Church had just been laid by Sir. Brook William Bridges, in the month of August, 1844, and Chandler was hoping to be taken on by one as one of the workmen engaged in the construction of the building. Looking around him, as he walked from the turnpike, he decided that Whitstable was a place he was going to like. There was a freshness and charm about it that made a strong appeal to him. On his right, green fields stretched as far as the eye could see. He passed a newly erected brick house that at once took his fancy. There and then he made up his mind to obtain possession of it, if that was in any way possible, and make his home in it. He followed the road until it ended at the “Bear and Key” Hotel.

With time to spare, he made it his business to study the lay-out of the town, and in doing so he found it was made up of 605 houses, and that the combined population of the two parishes, Whitstable and Seasalter, numbered 3,319 people. Having acquired this useful information, the young carpenter proceeded to make his application for work on the new church that was being put up at Seasalter. He was at once engaged to do the carpentry for the interior.

With future prospects rosy, he hastened to make enquiries respecting the house he had seen and liked. The agent he went to told him it was to be let, and his credentials being satisfactory, he became its tenant. The house, built of modern red brick material, was put up in 1835.

Needing a workshop, William built one on spare ground in his garden with second-hand timber and rippings from the saw pit that was where the Parish Hall now stands. The workshop itself was constructed on posts seven foot high above the ground, was 29 foot by 12 foot in size, and covered nearly the whole of the little back garden. What an unholy rumpus with officialdom there would be in these days if any man, owner or tenant, dared to put up as much as a small shed on his own plot of land without conforming to red-tape rules and regulations devised to strangle free-enterprise and individual initiative!

In his workshop, William made the pews for the new church at Seasalter. When that important task was finished, and there was no more church work for him to do, he turned his skill and attention to house-building and repairs, and, in addition, set up as an undertaker. He carried on business in conjunction with Thomas Porter, who founded it in the year 1829, and it was Porter who was responsible for putting up the brickwork of the new houses, Chandler seeing to the woodwork.

As an undertaker, the energetic and ambitious carpenter had plenty to do. The undrained marshes around round the town made Whitstable unhealthy to live in. The annual death rate on an average was 70. There were two burial grounds, one at All Saints’ and the other at Old Seasalter against which as a burial ground there was, for some reason, strong popular predujice. The price of a coffin was usually 35 shillings. There being no sandpaper in those days, the wood was rubbed with brick to give it a smooth and polished surface. When the New Cemetery was opened in 1857, the first coffin lowered into the ground was one made by William Chandler.

After his death, the business he had built up was taken over by Wallace Camburn, whose apprenticeship to the building trade had been served with John Lawson. Houses in Swanfield Road were put up by him. He was given the work of pulling down the old Pearson's hotel, and in 1873, used up the materials in the building of the Whitstable almshouses. Waterworks house on Borstal Hill was built by his firm. As an undertaker, he introduced to the local market polished coffins. The prices for which ranged from 45 shillings to 60 shillings. By this time, 1890, the population of Whistable had risen to about 6,200, and the yearly death rate averaged six per 1,000.

The fitting of ships' cabins was a branch of work that Wallace Camburn specialised in with marked skill and success. In construction of new houses neccessitated by therapid expansion of Whitstable he took a prominent part. So that room could be made on the east side of Oxford Street for a pavement he gave up hisown front garden. The first pavement on the west side of this street, it is interesting to note, was laid down in 1857.

The Wallace Camburn firm, during the years that Whitstable made such quick growth, especially marked as this was between 1900-1910, put up 70 shop fronts in the town. During these years the firm was hard at work building in Argyle Road, Clare Road, Westcliff, Essex Street, Cromwell Road, Tankerton Road, Seasalter and at Willow Woods.

In 1927, Wallace Harvey, grandson of Wallace Camburn, joined the firm, becoming sole proprietor of it in the early part of 1945. Under his management and control the firm is giving special attention to the work of house repairs and is developing and modernising the undertakers' branch of the business founded by William Chandler, the journeyman carpenter who came and settled down in Whitstable over a century ago.

Many facts about dates and population levels are given. The death rate is something that we would have had difficulty learning elsewhere, although the reason about the damp marsh land is already documented. We are given a time-line that connects to this very day in terms of builders and undertakers and we now know who was responsible for building the houses in certain parts of the town.

On a more personal note, William Chandler was a ggGrandfather of my wife. I heard the story of his coming to the town to work on the church by word of mouth from her family. It's good to be able to corroborate any such information and even better to have the details filled in so succintly.
_{(Brian Baker).}

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