Brighton & Hove

The Victorians built clocktowers in great numbers, even after they were no longer strictly necessary.  Historian and author Kevin Newman has investigated these interesting obsolete buildings.  He will present an exploration of these intriguing buildings, a celebration of their architecture, and an insight into their locations, their role in popular culture and their history.  Did clocktowers have purposes other than being used to tell the time, and what exactly they tell us about our ancestors?  Do these Victorian follies have any role in today’s society?

Paul Green will present some real murder cases from the 18th and 19th centuries, which actually happened in Sussex.  Who knows, some of our late ancestors may well have been familiar with them!

photo: Kemp Street, Brighton where Mancini, the trunk murderer, lodged with a corpse!.  © David James Green

Tonight’s talk will help you find out about military ancestors.

Family legends say an ancestor fought in a war.  But which war, and what can I discover about him?  And where do I have to go to get this information?  Will I understand it; and is it free? 

A few basics are briefly covered for any beginners into mainly, military history research. And then, the most useful and easily located military records are examined.  Although primarily covering the various surviving documents for service personnel and other relevant information of the First World War, it also touches on other conflicts.

Sharp pencils and a notebook are recommended for this talk.

photo credit: David James Green ©

Lewes has had many gaols in its history, including, of course, today’s HM Prison Lewes.  Archivist, researcher and editor Chris Whittick’s talk will take us through the fascinating history of these institutions.  May be some of your Sussex ancestors were incarcerated there …

picture from Illustrated London News, 14 October 1854

We take shopping for granted nowadays, using our local shops (if we still have them) and going to the supermarket.  We can even order on-line and have a home delivery at our convenience.  How different was it for our ancestors – would we recognise a medieval shopfront in our own High Street and how many have survived?  And what about shop signs and shop names – how have they changed?  Do you have shopkeeping ancestors?  Who really said that the English are a ’nation of shopkeepers’?  Dr Jane Pennington will present an interesting history.

photo: St James’s Street, Brighton (from collection of David James Green)

Brighton and Hove is a treasure trove of women’s history - some of the first women doctors to practise in the country moved here to set up landmark hospitals, the first British woman to swim the Channel was born here, Britain’s first female cabinet minister worked in a shop in Hove, the first Suffragette to die for the cause worked here, the first and possibly only woman to have a blue plaque outside her home for services to witchcraft lived in Brighton.  In her talk, Louise will profile some of the fearless and fabulous women associated with Brighton and Hove.

picture credit: Martha Gunn (Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove)

Rene and Allan Marriott will show our county of Sussex through the eyes of early photographers from original 19th Century slides all shown using original Victorian magic lanterns.  It will be a treat to see these images of the past.

The Locomotive and Carriage Works was Brighton’s biggest employer for 100 years or so and made a significant contribution to railway history.  Guy Hall will present a history of the Works and give a profile of notable locomotives built there and the engineers who designed them. 

photograph: Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove

Work as genealogist is rarely dull.  Matthew Homewood’s research over the past twenty years has revealed an incredibly diverse collection of life stories, from mining communities in Wales to circus entertainers in Russia.

Matthew Homewood will provide an informative and entertaining talk, revealing the fascinating documents he has discovered and some of the more unusual and amazing family stories he has uncovered.

In East Sussex Record Office at The Keep is an account book recording the payments of the poor rate for the parish of Brighthelmstone.  But rather than being an uninteresting item in the archives, it can tell us much about Georgian Brighton and be a help to those researching their Brighton ancestry.  Over 400 surnames appear in the book, arranged by the streets of Brighton.

David Green’s talk will illustrate how archive items such as this book can bring the past to life and assist in investigating our ancestry.

Picture: Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove