A statue of the Prince of Wales, by Rossi, seven feet high, on an ornamented pedestal, eleven feet high, was, in 1802, placed in front of the Royal Crescent. His Royal Highness was represented as dressed in his regimental uniform, with his arm extended towards the sea. The statue, which was made of plaster, cost upwards of £300. In November, 1807, some person broke off the fingers of the extended left hand. Eventually the other arm with a portion of his mantle was knocked away, and in that condition the mutilated figure was allowed to remain several years, till becoming more and more unsightly from parties continually adding to its disfigurement, it was removed.
Two incidents of a most melancholy character, in connexion with the Royal Crescent, claim a record. The first was the death of a workman, named Leggatt. He was engaged in forming the words “Royal Crescent” on the tablet which surmounts the centre house, and had finished the S, when, on stepping back to observe its agreement with the other letters, he over-balanced himself, and, falling upon the iron railings below, he was unfortunately killed. The other event was the death of a soldier, named Charles Millegan, of the Second Battalion of the Coldstream Guards, which occurred on Christmas night, 1835, he having accidentally fallen down the Cliff from the Crescent wall. A stone to his memory, erected by the privates of his battalion, in the north burial ground of St. Nicholas Church, has the following inscription as a tribute of respect by his comrades:—
Oft may the tear his green sod steep,
And sacred be the Soldier’s sleep
Till time shall cease to run.
And ne’er beside his lonely grave
May Briton’s pass and fail to crave
A blessing on the fallen brave,
For such was Millegan.
The first section of the town Sea-Wall, that between Ship street and Mahomed’s—now Brill’s Baths,—was constructed in 1825. Then followed the execution of the difficult enterprise, the union of the east and west sea-drives and promenade, by the formation of the Junction Road round Brill’s Swimming Bath, and thence across the outlet of the Pool Valley, and southing the Albion Hotel. To effect this great undertaking, the sea had to be repelled, hence recourse was had to the erection of a series of large groynes, and the facing of the wall, which is of concrete—a due admixture of grey lime and shingle,—with piles and planking; and this proceeding resulted in the sea being forced against the cliffs beyond the Chain Pier, storm after storm making such inroads that in some places the Marine Parade was not of sufficient width for a vehicle to pass. The proprietors of houses along the Marine Parade, in consequence, became alarmed for their property. The Commissioners therefore, took immediate steps to prevent the incursions of the ocean, and numerous groynes, which were erected between the Chain Pier and the Black-Rock groyne, having in some measure answered the purpose of keeping back the raging water, a plan was attempted to be carried out of forming a battering or leaning wall of flint as a facing to the cliff, which was widened and filled in as the wall progressed. The scheme, however, proved a fallacy; as the amazing mass of unsettled earth with which it was backed up, having become saturated with heavy rains, forced out the foot of the wall, the whole of which slid out into the sea, or on the beach.
A concrete wall of amazing substance, was then substituted with the greatest success, at a cost of £100,000, under contracts, by Mr. William Lambert, an extensive builder of the town. In many parts, the wall—which is in some places sixty feet high,—is twenty-three feet thick at its base, and batters—inclines—on an average, four inches to the foot on the face. More recently, other portions of the sea-front of the town have been extended in width, by the same process, to admit of the increased road traffic, so that Brighton may now boast of an uninterrupted sea-drive and promenade of more than three miles’ extent.
The other public structures erected by the Commissioners are the Market and the Town Hall. The former is a lofty and commodious building, standing principally on the site of the Old Workhouse and Town Hall. It is T shaped, with the transverse head towards the east, opposite the Town Hall, a building which occupies the space whereon, till the erection of the new structure, the Market formerly stood. The corner stone of the Town Hall was laid in April, 1830, by Thomas Read Kemp, Esq., the contractor for the building being Mr. Doubleday, whose tender was £12,491 1s. 7d. The cost, however, of the building, from the various hewings, hackings, and cuttings, which it has undergone, has exceeded, at a moderate calculation, £60,000. It is after the plan of Mr. Thomas Cooper, but it is minus a most important wing. This defect arose from the Commissioners omitting to purchase land for the south portion, the owner of the property refusing to sell after the building had pretty far advanced. The consequence is that the approaches to the upper rooms of the southern portion are wanting, and hence much inconvenience is experienced.
The Town Hall is used for town meetings, public assemblies, the Council meetings, and the general purposes of the Borough. In it are offices for the Town Clerk—C. Sharood, Esq.,—and his staff, for the Collectors of the Municipal and Parish Rates, and for the Borough Surveyor—Mr. Philip Lockwood,—and his staff. The Magistrates’ Court, which occupies the southern basement, is likewise used for the Borough Quarter Sessions, the Recorder being John Locke, Esq., Q.C., and M.P. for Southwark. The police-force originally established on the 15th of April, 1830, under Chief-Officer Pilbeam,—the Police Station then being in Steine Lane,—has at present Mr. George White for the Chief-Constable, he having succeeded Mr. Chase on the 21st of December, 1853, his predecessor,—who succeeded Mr. Pilbeam,—Mr. Henry Solomon, having been murdered by John Lawrence, on the 13th of March, 1844. The Superintendents are Mr. Owen Crowhurst and Mr. Isaiah Barnden; and the Inspector of Flys, &c., is Mr. James Terry. The force consists of 80 men,—inspectors, sergeants, and privates,—who occupy the south-west portion of the basement, immediately contiguous to the Magistrates’ Court, the dungeons for the uncommitted and, perhaps, innocent, being in the most remote portion of the underground vaults at the north-east of the building.
Prior to the establishment of the Police-force the care of the town was entrusted to a few Watchmen of the antique school, by night, and a Beadle in cocked-hat and general suit of his order, by day, assisted by the Town Crier of similar mien and garb. The Watchmen had succeeded the Patrol, a species of self-guardianship which the inhabitants imposed upon themselves in rotation, under the supervision of the High Constable and his Headboroughs. During the Winter months it was also customary for a bell-man to perambulate nightly most of the old streets of the town, and hourly proclaim the time and weather. The stocks in the Market place, and the parish pound at the back of the Old Church were then in vogue.
A portion of the principal room on the basement, to form the County Court, is temporarily taken off by means of a partition, in two sections which swing back on hinges to the side walls. The Court is held every alternate Friday, William Furner, Esq., being the Judge. The only residents of the building are Friend Paine—the Hall-Keeper,—and his wife. Paine, at one time, was in himself the fire brigade of Brighton. Eight men, whose peculiarity of costume for the office consisted in wearing white hats, had previously been engaged to work the engines in the event of any fires; but none occurring, the white-hatted force was dispensed with, and eventually such an arrangement was made by the Town Council with the Brighton, Hove, and Preston Constant Service Water Company, that the fire-hose being fitted to plugs and standards in connexion with the water-mains, the service of the fire-engines was dispensed with, the position of the reservoir of the Company, on the Race Hill, giving a pressure sufficiently strong to force the water over the highest edifices in the town. In 1825, a Sussex County and General Fire and Life Assurance Company was projected, with Mr. Barnard Gregory as Managing Director. The office of this Company was on the premises in North Street now well known as Folthorp’s Royal Library, where, in front of the house, a fire-engine, fire-escape, and other appropriate apparatus, were prominently displayed. Firemen, bedight in the antique fittings of their order in London, with silver-plated badge on their arms, bearing the Brighton Arms,—two dolphins,—surmounted with SVX, and encircled with “Brighthelmston in sigilvm,” and “Sussex County and General Fire and Life Assurance Company,” perpetually showed themselves about the premises which had been previously used as the Mess House of the officers of regiments from time to time stationed at the Infantry Barracks, Church Street. The career of the Company was very brief, and the exploits of the firemen were confined to one fire only, namely, that at Major Russell’s mansion, Portland Place, September 12th, 1825, known in Brighton,—where the great rage for building had then just set in,—as the year of the panic. Kemp Town at that period, and for some few years afterwards, was a town of carcasses, many of the houses being not only floorless and windowless, but roofless.
In this district, but in the parish of Rottingdean,—to avoid the Brighton coal dues,—the Brighton Old Gas Light and Coke Company erected their works in 1818–19, much to the dissatisfaction of the inhabitants, who petitioned Parliament on the 6th of May, 1818, against the introduction of gas into the town. Some considerable time elapsed before it was much used for in-door lighting, persons, in general, having a fear of explosions. For illuminating it was first used on the 12th of August, 1819, when, to oblige the Company, Mr. Stone, shoemaker to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, gave them permission to fit up, at their own expense, over his shop in East Street, at the corner of Steine Lane, a design—the Prince of Wales’ Feathers,—in gas, the effect of which excited the wonder and admiration of the whole town, and completely reconciled the inhabitants to the use of gas.