As we look at our townspeople at the point of the 1881 census on the 3rd - 4th of April we are gathering as much information as we can about their environment to enable us to us to see the world from their perspective. Fortunately for us we can read what they were reading at the time in the Whitstable Times by searching the copies held on microfilm at Whitstable library.

At that time the newspaper was a broad-sheet, the front page mainly consisting of small ads split between local and national types. This was a time of great progress in the field of mass produced pharmaceutical items and branded foodstuffs so we begin to see trade names appearing that still exist on the supermarket shelves of the present day. No combustion engine driven vehicles existed yet and this area had no canals so the main methods of transport for goods and people were either horse-powered, by railway or by sea. As a consequence, although the local roads were of a fair standard as more houses were being built, the roads to Herne-Bay, Faversham and Canterbury were basically little more than horse tracks.

In looking at the newspaper it is easy to get the impression that the town was very insular and that the interests and knowledge of its people stretched no further than other towns around East Kent but the truth is that more news was passed around by word of mouth, the literacy rate being low by today's standards, and that news was brought back to town by the sailors of the trading Brigs and Schooners as they sailed the seas of the world. Once we take this into consideration we begin to see that these people were in fact much more empowered with knowledge than those from farming communities or the growing industrial conurbations of the north.

The following are extracts from the copy of the Whitstable Times that would have been available on census day. They all have relevance to subjects discussed elsewhere on this site.

Advertisement
Auction of Swalecliffe Brickworks by Plummer and Fielding Solicitors of Canterbury to be held next Saturday 9/4/1881. Including 4 cottages, stables, Plant and Machinery for brickmaking. Immediate possession.

Advertisement
Adams Chemist of Harbour Street were extolling the virtues of their 'Adams Balsam of Aniseed and Tolu'. A remedy for ticklish throats and coughs, best taken with a little warm gruel on going to bed. Price: from 1 shilling and a halfpenny to 4 shillings and sixpence.

Shipping Accident
On Monday last the 'L.C.Owen' belonging to Messrs. Josiah Reeves and Company, whilst in Gravesend Reach, misstayed and ran astern of a yacht, doing damage to her chain plates.

Narrow Escape
On Saturday last, as Mr. Cope, our respected and venerable Customs House Officer was boarding a steamer laden with Oysters from Arcachan for The Whitstable Oyster Company his companion in the boat unexpectedly rose from his seat and Her Majesty's officer made his exit over the stern. We are sorry to say our old friend did not find the genuine sea-water so bracing and beneficial as pure unadulterated Cognac in its effects, and though he is now on a fair way to recovery, yet some time must elapse before the memory of his undeserved soaking will be obliterated.

Advertisement
House to be let. Immediate possession, very commodious HOUSE in OXFORD-STREET, WHITSTABLE. Gas and water laid on. Rent £25 per annum. Apply to Mr.T.G.Browning, house agents, Whitstable.

Suicide
On Monday afternoon East Kent Coroner T. T. Delasaux Esq. held an inquest at Pearsons Arms Inn on the body of George Cocks, the landlord age 39, who committed suicide by drowning himself in a water-butt. Witness Florence Crofton found him on Sunday about half-past four in the back yard. She told the coroner she saw a body in the water-butt with its legs hanging over the side. She went for assistance. Thomas Bartlett, a diver, said he was called to the yard where he found the same. He took the body out of the water, he was quite dead and cold and had evidently been in the water for some time, was quite certain it was not an accident. Several witnesses said that the deceased had been very low after frequent quarrels between himself and his wife. An adjournment was made until Tuesday afternoon when Mr. J. W. Hayward, surgeon, gave the result of his post-mortem and was satisfied that death had been caused by suffocation and drowning. The jury returned the verdict of Suicide whilst in a state of Temporary Insanity.

Postal Regulations
Delivery of letter etc commences at 7 am, and at 2 pm.
Sunday - morning delivery only.
Last collection - 7.10 pm at Harbour Street, 7.20 pm at Office, 7.30 pm at Canterbury Road.

Railway Timetables for April
London, Chatham and Dover
Weekdays Down 9.46, 12.10, 2.34, 4.46, 6.04, 8.54
Up 8.40, 12.45, 2.31, 5.06, 8.10
Sundays Down 11.48, 8.56
Up 9.50, 7.37

Whitstable-on-Sea to Canterbury, and then up to London or down to Margate, Ramsgate
7.15, 11.30, 1.30(Saturdays only), 4.25, 6.30, 7.10
Canterbury to Whitstable-on-Sea
6.55, 9.45, 12.25, 2.43, 5.50, 6.50

Severe Weather
Continued gales from east and north-east have brought all fishing operations here to a standstill. No Oyster dredging has been carried out for a fortnight and markets have been without royal natives for nearly the same period. Heavy winds have created a very bad ground sea which is feared will be injurious to the oyster beds and more especially the newly-laid oysters.

The Swalecliffe Brickworks was important as a local producer of the bricks that built Victorian Whitstable but it never gained the prominence of its much larger neighbours at Faversham. Local historians of Faversham maintain that their brickfields were responsible for the development of the East-End of London but then they also insist that their gunpowder plants were the reason that this country was able to colonise half the world. The main chimney of the Swalecliffe works dominated the landscape and was a useful landmark for sailors. It survived well into the 20th century. Its demolition is the subject of one of the Douglas West archive photographs.

Adams cough remedy never made it as a household name. Perhaps aligning it with gruel which nowadays conjures up images of Dickens and workhouses was not an advertising masterpiece after all.

The 'L. C. Owen' did not show up on our people on vessels research of the 1881 census. Perhaps she was hauled up onto one of the Whitstable slipways at the time having the damaged repaired and her crew were either at home or on other vessels. From Wallace Harvey's book 'The Merchant Ships of Whitstable' we find that her master was Frederick Woodcock, probably living at 1 Marine Cottages, Harbour Place. She was a Brigantine of 204 registered tons, length 104 ft 2 inches and was built in 1868 at Grand River, Prince Edward Island. There appears to be a discrepancy in her records as she reportedly was broken up in April 1889, yet insured for £460 on 18th October 1889. Someone insuring a pile of timber? We doubt it.

At the time Customs officers, Policeman and other officials were part of the community. The report of the Customs Officer's mishap shows the emergence of the slightly tongue in cheek familiarising approach we still see in the 'Times' today in their reports of local councillors. In searching the 1881 census we find, living at Victoria Terrace Custonm Office, the following:

Name	Rel.	Mar	Gen.	Age	Where born	Occupation
Cope, William	Head	M	M	62	Bay of Biscay, at Sea	P.C.O.Customs
Cope, Caroline	Wife	M	F	59	Hythe, Kent.
Cope, Ellen Louise	Daur	U	F	27	Folkestone, Kent.	Dressmaker
Cope, Bertha E.V.	Dau	U	F	13	Folkestone, Kent.	Scholar

Data © Public Record Office.

They say the old sea dogs are born with the sea in their blood. William was even born at sea. He had spent most of his working life in and around the English Channel. Maybe Customs Officer at Whitstable was the type of job that was given to the older Officers, a sort of 'putting out to grass'. It appears from the newspaper that he was well thought of and that maybe he enjoyed his tipple.

Oxford Street was more of a residential area then than it later became as an extension of the High Street. It is interesting to note the cost of renting such a house at the time. The present day's rental value would be in the region of £7,500 per annum but you do get the added advantage of electricity! If we use the 'Value of money index' against the £25 rent in 1881 it would come out at £1,675 per annum. When you hear that property prices in Whitstable have gone through the roof it's not just the moan of local people unable to afford them today. It is based on the reality of a cottage that a fisherman built himself in the 1700's for £100 now selling for over £175,000.

Poor George Cocks. Today's pathologist's would have been much more demanding in their search for evidence of accidental death or prove of murder but times were different and such things were more readily accepted. At least now his name is recorded here anyone researching the family will know what happened to him and why he never appeared on the 1881 census. The census details for the Pearsons Arms (4 Beach Wall) the following week were:

Name	Rel	Mar	Gen	Age	Birthplace	Occupation
Cocks, Mary Ann	Head	W	F	36	Ireland	Licensed Victualler
Morn, Michael	Boarder	U	M	27	Ipswich, suffolk.	Mariner
Stroud, Thomas	Boarder	W	M	39	Whitstable, Kent.	Mariner

Data © Public Record Office.

It must have been a very difficult time for Mary. The jury at the inquest had been quite scathing of her treatment of George. She now had to face her customers, take over the running of the pub and bury her poor husband. Incidentally, and we don't want to read too much into this, neither of the witnesses at the inquest appeared on the local census.

The Pearson's Arms still exists today as a public house which serves a wide menu of seafoods and is part of the heritage of the town at the Horsebridge.

The post is still here, except for second deliveries and Sunday deliveries. The trains still run, but not to Canterbury. You can now at least travel directly to Thanet and the trains might be more frequent but they don't hold the magic of the steam-engines of that era.

The item about the severe weather is more than just a simple news report. It reminds us just how much the weather affected the lives of our townspeople at that time. So much was dependent on the sea and the wind. The fishing boats and oyster dredgers working locally, as we can see, were unable to operate. That would mean no income. The mariners working on the high seas were paid per trip. If they were delayed in getting back to port then they were, in effect, being paid less per day. A strong and continual north by north east wind is the worst one for the town. It travels down hundreds of miles of the North-sea building up the wave height as it brings the cold air from the artic climes. Then it hits our beach and our town. If this coincides with prolonged heavy rain it used to prevent the rain water leaving the town into the sea during high tide. When the last piece of the triangle, a spring tide, coincides then the sea gains the upper hand and tries to grab back the land that man took away from it centuries before. Every time the town has been flooded this triangle has been complete.

Just picture the scene: It's 1 O'clock in the morning. Anne Collar is huddled upstairs in a bedroom of her house in Beach Alley with her eight children, trying to keep them warm and calm. They are all hungry. Outside the wind is howling and the rain beating down as it has for a fortnight. She knows the high tide is imminent, the ground outside is already sodden and will absorb no more water. She strains her ears to hear amongst the noises outside the sound of the waves crashing nearer and nearer. On top of that she's very worried about her husband, Robert. He went to sea on what should have been a five day trip some two weeks before and he still hadn't returned. In her heart she was ready for the inevitable, she may never see him again, it was part of life that men left for sea and were lost forever.

The seas didn't take their revenge that night, they left it another 16 years before they came and took away the houses that backed onto Beach Alley. Robert came back safely when the winds subsided and they carried on with their lives.

Shall we say to these people that the seawall we have now and the drainage systems that ripped up the town in their laying have taken away some of the character of old Whitstable? I think not. The character remains in the offspring of these Natives who stoically faced all that was thrown at them and just got on with it.