Hastings Quakers

“Hastings” means, literally, the sons or dependents of “Haest”, and the town seems to have been founded by a chieftain of this name, or by his followers. It seems to have been a more-or-less self-governing enclave within what was then the Saxon kingdom of Sussex, during the “dark ages” of Britain. This has suggested to some scholars that Haest and his followers were probably not Saxons like their neighbours, but may have been perhaps a Danish or Jutish people.

The town is best known because of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Duke William of Normandy invaded Sussex and, having seized and pretty much destroyed the fishing village of Hastings, quickly erected a make-shift wooden fort out of prefabricated parts that he had brought with him from Normandy. The English King Harold and his army were in the north of England at this time, and William being unopposed started laying waste to the country around, possibly to provoke Harold into a premature attack. If so, the tactic succeeded. After a forced march of several hundred miles, Harold’s army confronted the Normans at the Battle of Hastings on 14th October, and lost. Harold himself was killed along with his two brothers. Although pockets of resistance to the invaders remained, effectively it was over. On Christmas day 1066 William was crowned king of England.

The effects on England of the Norman conquest were cataclysmic. Unlike other famous battles such as Agincourt or Waterloo - which though spectacular did not really have any long lasting effects - the Battle of Hastings really did alter the whole course of our history. It is fascinating to speculate what would have happened if Harold had won: it was after all no easy victory for the Normans, and the result could well have gone the other way. The Normans stamped the sign of their victory upon the town of Hastings in the form of the stone castle, replacing their original wooden one, whose ruins can still be seen and visited on the West Hill today.

The actual site of the battle was traditionally thought to be located some eight miles inland from Hastings, on the hill where the Normans built an Abbey to celebrate their victory, around which grew the town now called Battle. However this theory has been called into question. A local historian John Grehan has made out a case for suggesting that the battle actually took place a mile away from the Abbey at Caldbec Hill, on the other side of Battle town, while another investigator Nicholas Austin has put forward an even more radical proposal, suggesting that the battle took place just outside Hastings itself, near the present day village of Crowhurst. The jury is still out on this controversy, but it does seem odd that no relics of the battle, or of the many soldiers who were killed, have ever been found on the slopes of Battle Abbey.

Hastings flourished during the Middle Ages as one of the leading members of the Cinque Ports confederation – a group of towns along the south-east coast that were granted special privileges by the King in return for providing and manning ships when needed – usually for fighting against the French. Of course its location on the south coast made it an easy target for French raiders. After King Edward III started the “hundred years war” the French attacked and burnt the town twice, once in 1339 and again in 1377 (thanks a bunch, Edward!) However after the silting up of Hastings harbour, and the conquest of Normandy by France, Hastings was of little further use as a port. The town returned to being a modest fishing community with a lively sideline in smuggling, until the fashion for sea bathing at coastal resorts gave Hastings a new lease of life in the 18th century.

One side-effect of this was the planning and building of a new town just to the west of Hastings by the architect James Burton. It was called St. Leonards-on-sea, and included some impressive features such as the Maze Hill Gardens and Warrior Square. As both towns continued to grow however they filled up the space between them, and merged effectively into one – although even today there are still noticeable differences in the “feel” of the two communities.

The writer Sheila Kaye-Smith was actually born in St. Leonards, and her novel “Tamarisk Town” published in 1919 is set in a thinly-disguised Hastings under the name of “Marlingate” and describes how the town was transformed from a somewhat moribund fishing community into a fashionable seaside resort. 

This was not the first time that Hastings had appeared under a pseudonym in a work of fiction. There is a fascinating “snapshot” of Hastings in the early years of the 20th century in the pages of “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists” by Robert Tressell, the pen-name of a decorator and sign-writer called Robert Noonan who lived and worked here for a while. Under the name of “Mugsborough” the Hastings of the Edwardian era is described from the viewpoint of the depressed and chronically hard-up workers in the decorating trade that Noonan knew so well, in the days before there was any such thing as “unfair dismissal” or social security.

One of Robert Noonan’s contemporaries in Hastings was the celebrated French Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who lived here from 1908 to 1912. His experience of Hastings was very different from Noonan’s however! Teilhard spent his time here studying theology and in 1911 was ordained into the Catholic priesthood. Shortly afterwards Teilhard – a keen proponent of Darwinism – became involved in the notorious “Piltdown Man” fraud, although it has never been proved that Teilhard himself knew about the deception. Teilhard’s ordination into the priesthood took place in the Catholic church of St Mary Star of the Sea, which you will find at the northern end of the High Street in the Old Town. This church has its own interesting story: it had been built in the mid 19th century from funds provided by the once-fashionable poet Coventry Patmore as a memorial to his deceased wife. It was at this church too that the writer Catherine Cookson, who lived and worked in Hastings from 1930 until 1976, was married in 1940 to local maths teacher Thomas, who is fondly remembered by generations of former pupils of Hastings Grammar School.

Hastings had another brief moment in the spotlight of history in 1923 when at the age of 35 the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird came to stay on medical advice, hoping that the sea air would be good for his health, which was always poor. Having tried and failed to earn a living at assorted ventures which included making insulated socks in Glasgow and jam in Trinidad, it was in Hastings that he made the breakthrough that would immortalise his name: the invention of television, which he developed in his hired laboratory rooms in Queens Arcade, and was  first demonstrated to a group of journalists in his bedroom in Linton Crescent.

At about the same time, one of Hastings most famous sons was making a name for himself on the other side of the world. Archibald Belaney was born in Hastings in 1888 – making him the same age as Baird, as it happens – and was educated at Hastings Grammar School. His greatest wish was to live the life of an American Indian – and as soon as he was old enough, he ran away to Canada and became one!

Having experienced at first hand the beauty and grandeur of the Canadian wilderness, he was one of the first to realise the implications of the destruction of the forests for commercial gain and the insidious spread of roads and cities everywhere, and he became in effect one of the earliest “conservationists”. Using the pen-name “Grey Owl” he wrote passionately in defence of the wilderness and its creatures. His true identity only became public knowledge after his early death in 1938. It is well worth reading about his extraordinary life and adventures in his own words, in the books “Pilgrims of the Wild” and “Tales of an Empty Cabin”. Richard Attenborough’s film “Grey Owl”, starring Pierce Brosnan in the title role, tells a small part of his fascinating story. 

John Logie Baird on the other hand survived until 1946. During the final two years of his life he chose to live in the neighbouring town of Bexhill where he died. About the same time, the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley chose to spend his final years in Hastings, where he lived for three years in a boarding house until his death in 1947. Crowley was actually an accomplished mountaineer and chess player, but chose to devote his life to drugs and black magic. The national press dubbed him “the wickedest man in the world” and when he died the local Council refused to allow his remains to be buried in the town! 

The popular childrens' writer Malcolm Saville was born in Hastings in 1901 and also died here in 1982. He is particularly remembered for his series of books about the members of the “Lone Pine Club” which introduced generations of young readers to the beauty of the Shropshire landscape in the west of England, but some books in the series were also set in the nearby ancient and picturesque town of Rye.

The science fiction and fantasy writer Christopher Priest lived in Hastings for some 20 years and Hastings features briefly in his 1995 novel “The Prestige” which was later made into a film by Christopher Nolan. His wife Nina Allen who is also a writer, set part of her 2014 novel “The Race” in the town and readers will recognise many of the streets and local features referred to in the story. Another fantasy writer Tanith Lee lived in the Hollington area of St. Leonards-on-sea until her death in 2015. She remains the only female writer to date to have won the British Fantasy Award. Another fantasy writer now living in Hastings is American-born Leigh Kennedy, whose output though relatively small is quite unique and well worth tracking down.

The White Rock Theatre which stands opposite the pier, originally called the “White Rock Pavilion” dates from 1927 and owing to its superb acoustics it was used as a recording studio by Decca for several years, and attracted many famous classical artists during the 1930s including the pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninov and conductors such as Thomas Becham and Adrian Boult.

Two important folk musicians were also born in Hastings in the 1930s: sisters Dorothy and Shirley Collins, whose ground-breaking 1969 album “Anthems in Eden” remains a landmark in English folk music. Shirley Collins still lives in Sussex, though Dolly sadly passed away in 1995. In the 1970s the blues singer and guitarist John Martyn lived in Hastings, and it was here that he created what is probably his best known album, “Solid Air”. In addition two top-flight folk fiddlers, Peter Knight (of “Steeleye Span”) and Barry Dransfield both lived in Hastings for many years. Peter Knight still tours with his band “Gigspanner” which includes Hastings musician Roger Flack while Barry Dransfield’s output from his Hastings years includes tributes to the local fishermen in the songs “Haul Away” and the ever-popular session favourite “I once was a fisherman”.

The town is also home to saxophonist Wesley Magoogan, who played with everybody who was anybody on the pop scene until an unfortunate accident injured his hand so that he could no longer perform. However you can hear him at his best doing his celebrated saxophone break in Hazel O’Connor’s song “Will You”. A native Hastings musician who still lives in the town is Steve Kinch, who has been the regular bass player with Manfred Mann’s Earthband since 1985.