Index

Chatham Dockyard
Smugglers in Kent
Famous Writers With Links To Kent
Kent Housing Boom
Kent Trains And Railyways

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard

By the seventeenth century, tensions between Britain and the continental powers of the Netherlands and France led to increasing military build-up in the county. Forts were built all along the coast following a daring raid by the Dutch navy on the shipyards of the Medway Towns in 1667. The Royal Dockyards in Chatham provided the Royal Navy with the shore support facilities it required to build, repair and maintain the fleet. By the mid-18th Century the Royal Yards had developed into the largest industrial organisations in the world with complex facilities supporting thousands of skilled workers in a wide number of trades. Indeed it was the level of the facilities and skills provided in the Royal Dockyard's, particularly at Chatham that underpinned the Royal Navy's success at sea.

Smugglers in Kent

In the 1800s smugglers were very active on the Kent coastline, with gangs, such as The Aldington Gang bringing spirits, tobacco and salt to Kent, taking goods like wool across the English Channel to France.

Due to the isolation of New Romney, its low lying marshland, and being close to France, the marshes and the small villages were dominated by smugglers or 'owlers' where smugglers swapped local wool for brandy from France. There were pitched battles between smugglers and the revenue officers in most towns. Some reports speak of 200 smugglers regularly using an inn when the revenue men had a day off!

Smugglers

Wool and gold guineas were smuggled out of the country and teas, wines and spirits and tobacco were brought back. Tea was very heavily taxed in the eighteenth century and yielded the best returns to the smuggler until the duty was removed in 1784. A 'Preventive Service' had been established in the 1670s, with sloops patrolling the coast. In 1689 Surveyors and Riding Officers were introduced to look for contraband which came ashore. In 1817 naval officers and troops returning from the Napoleonic Wars swelled the 'coast blockade'. They were all deeply unpopular and local people did their best to mislead them. When they confronted the smugglers they often came off very badly. The Hawkhurst Gang dominated smuggling along the coast from Margate to Hastings, feared by local people and all other gangs. It was claimed that 500 men could be assembled in Hawkhurst within an hour. In 1749 one of the gang's boats was intercepted by a Revenue cutter and taken to Poole. The gang marched to Dorset, broke open the Customs House, took the contraband and loaded it onto horses, killing two hostages in the process. The gang was finally broken when 2 ringleaders, Thomas Kingsmill and William Fairall were executed after trial at the Old Bailey.

Smuggling reached its peak during the Napoleonic Wars when the trade was used by both French and English. Smugglers acted as intelligence gatherers for both sides as well as shipping gold guineas to France to help finance Napoleon's campaigns.

After peace was re-established with France returning troops were deployed to the new 'preventive' service, organised to stop the smuggling trade. The successful rate of capture of the gangs led directly to the formation of the Customs Coastguard Service in 1822.

Smugglers caught were sentenced to transportation or, after a violent confrontation, they were hanged. Ultimately it was reduced customs duties that made smuggling less profitable and less common.

Famous Writers With Links To Kent

	Daniel Defoe 1660-1731, author of 'Robinson Crusoe', visited Kent in the early 1720s and wrote a detailed account in "Letter 2, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain", published in 1724. Of the visitors to Tunbridge Wells, he wrote, "those people who have nothing to do anywhere else, seem to be the only people who have anything to do at Tunbridge".
	Jane Austen, 1775-1817, often came to Kent to visit her brother, Thomas Knight, at Godmersham Park. It is thought that she took the house and parsonage as models for Rosings Park and Mr. Collins' parsonage when she came to write "Pride and Prejudice", published in 1813.
	Charles Dickens, 1812-1870, had many links with Kent. He wrote "David Copperfield" whilst living at Bleak House in Broadstairs and wrote many of his later books at Gads Hill where he died in 1870. He also based his novel "Great Expectations" in Kent.
	Charles Darwin, arguably the most important of all scientific writers lived and worked in Kent. During his voyages on the survey ship, Beagle from 1831 - 1836, Darwin developed his theories of evolution and natural selection. His house at Down is owned and maintained by the National Trust.
	Herbert George (H.G.) Wells came to the coast in 1898 for his health and rented lodgings at Beach Cottages, Sandgate. He and his family then employed Charles Voysey to design Spade house, and lived there until 1909. During this time he wrote some of his most popular tales, for example, the story 'The New Accelerator' is set on The Leas. Perhaps best known is 'Kipps; the story of a simple soul' where Mr Kipps moves from New Romney to work at the 'Folkestone Drapery Bazaar'. The book was also adapted into the popular musical 'Half a Sixpence' which was first seen on stage in 1962.

Kent Housing Boom

The brick boom began in the 1820s. Brick making was concentrated in north Kent between Crayford and Faversham. Bricks and cement were transported to London in barges which were built in the rivers and creeks of north Kent. New housing was also needed in the growing towns and resorts, another market for building materials produced in Kent.

Facilities in the towns were slowly improved, with piped water supply and mains drainage was installed between the 1870s and 1890s. Streets were lit by gas, from around 1840, if there was a local gasworks. Dover had an electricity works in 1894. Telephones were in use in Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone by 1895.

Property development was big business in the new towns of Kent. At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Tunbridge Wells was still essentially a quaint village centred on the Pantiles. This began to change in the years after 1823, when John Ward, a London businessman and property developer, acquired the thousand-acre Calverley estate. He commissioned the young architect Decimus Burton to design a new town centred on the hill known as Mount Pleasant, where facilities would rival and eclipse those of the old settlement to the south. The arrival of the railway in 1845 boosted demand for property and a further phase of building on the Calverley Estate began.

In the eighteenth century, with the arrival of horse drawn coaches, towns like Dartford once again benefited from its position on one of the main routes into Kent. Several hotels existed in the High Street enabling travellers, including Jane Austen, to break their journeys and stay overnight. Sittingbourne grew rapidly during the 1700's along the line of the main road. Previously the main town in the area was Milton Regis, but it was isolated from the main turnpike road between Dover and London. There are several very large coaching inns still to be found along the length of Sittingbourne High Street.

The population of Chatham grew from around 5,000 in 1700 to over 10,000 in 1801, then expanded to more than 37,000 in 1901. This phenomenal growth was due to the expansion of the dockyard and the barracks for the soldiers were built at Brompton. Nearby Rochester grew in parallel but was more genteel. Tunbridge Wells boomed, with the fashionable clientele taking the waters for their health. Coastal towns grew with the new holiday industry. Gravesend, then Margate, Ramsgate, Folkestone and Herne Bay all developed their attractions to cater for the visitor.

Chatham Dockyard

Ashford became a depot for the railway in 1847, with a locomotive works that employed an influx of new workers many from Northumberland and Durham. A new village was built to house them, named Alfred's Town, but later known as New Town. The company houses of 1847 were built around a green, with public baths, an inn and a general store. They were back-to-backs, divided into flats. In 1860 more houses were built, with a school and a Mechanics Institute. Known locally as New Town, it was expanded again to accommodate workers transferred from Chatham in 1913.

Kent Trains and Railways

A rival company, the London, Chatham and Dover (known colloquially as the London Smash-em and Turnover due to the alleged frequency of accidents) took over the East Kent lines between Strood, Margate and Dover via Faversham in 1861.

'Light railways' were first developed in the 1860s as a way of bringing cheap transport to rural areas. Government support for these rural lines came with the Light Railways Act of 1896. Colonel Stephens and others took up this opportunity to build and manage numerous lines across the country.

Stephens was engineer to three light railways in Kent; the Sheppey Light Railway, the East Kent Railway, and the Kent and East Sussex Railway. He was also engineer for the long-awaited line through Cranbrook, which finally got a station on the branch line to Hawkurst in 1892.

The Railway Company purchased the bankrupt Folkestone Harbour and extended the railway line from London through Ashford to Folkestone in June 1843. The Company also introduced a steamer service from Folkestone to Boulogne. A journey from London to Paris could be completed in twelve hours. Folkestone became one of the premier seaside resorts in the country. The arrival of the steamer from France was a great social event. The Leas were developed as the fashionable part of town. The Metropole hotel opened in 1897 with 250 elegant rooms for guests.

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