Hastings’ Heritage is marked by the famous and the infamous and a new guide to plaques, commemorative tablets and public memorials has been published by the Council with the help of local historian Edward Preston, to help you find out more.
Although the Norman Conquest put Hastings on the map, its development as a seaside resort and spa in the early 19th Century, the building of St Leonards-on-Sea and the clean, healthy air and mild climate all combined to attract people of note from all walks of life.
Charles Dickens 1812 - 1870. In later years, Dickens undertook four tours, giving public readings from his own works. During the second of these tours he came to Hastings and performed at the Music Hall - which is now Yates Wine Lodge - in 1861. Hastings features in many of his writings. Plaque at Yates’s Wine Lodge, Robertson Street.
Lewis Carroll 1832 - 1898. Carroll’s aunts lived at 2 Wellington Square, Hastings and he often stayed there during his student days. During his summer vacation from Oxford he would visit his aunts in Hastings and consult a Doctor Hunt, who treated him for a stammering disorder. Plaque at 2 Wellington Square.
Queen Adelaide 1792 - 1849. Queen Adelaide married the Duke of Clarence in 1818 who later became King William IV. When the Kind died in 1837 she came to St Leonards - the new fashionable resort seaside resort - and stayed at 23 Grand Parade. The house was later renamed Adelaide House. Plaque at 23, Grand Parade, St Leonards.
Catherine Cookson 1906 - 1998. In 1930 as Catherine McMullen, she came to Hastings and took a position as laundry manageress at the Workhouse, which later that year became the Municipal Hospital. Between 1931 and 1933 she leased part of West Hill House, Exmouth Place. She married local school master Tom Cookson at St Mary Star of the Sea Church in the High Street. She bought The Hurst 114 Hoads Wood Road and ran this as a lodging house for deprived people suffering from tuberculosis, epilepsy and other disorders. From 1954 - 1976 the Cooksons lived in Loreto in St Helen’s Park Road. Plaque at West Hill House, 2 Exmouth Place.
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon 1827 - 1890. She was born at Whatlington and brought up in Hastings. Bodichon was a 19th Century advocate of women’s rights, painter and founder of Girton College, Cambridge. Plaque at 9 Pelham Crescent.
Councillor John Humphries, Cabinet Member responsible for Community Participation, said:
Hastings & St Leonards history is full of very well known people - many of whom had high praise for the town. Hastings can boast of many famous inhabitants including the first female doctor, the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and of course the inventor of television John Logie Baird who was inspired to attempt to transmit pictures after walking along the clifftops.
There are 71 plaques, commemorative tablets and public memorials around the town. A leaflet with information on all of them is available from Hastings Information Centre, Queens Square for just 25p.
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This page last updated: 12/07/2001