Famous
Residents & Visitors
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Romford's (1805-6) the earliest of Pocket Guides to the area, is
eloquent . . .Sandgate can claim at least an equal degree of
admiration to any watering place in England.
In 1816, W. Tiffen invites the
invalid to 'shun the rank city' and seek the purer air of this
peaceful shore. But Sandgate's very 'smallness' breeds a genteel
informality and Thomas Purday's elegant Library and Reading Room
(c.1800) becomes the hub of social life. At all times, Sandgate has
a quality which endears it to writers, artists and 'eccentrics'
among others. The list below is not exhaustive but perhaps gives a
flavour of the interest that Sandgate inspired.
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1789 |
Philip Thicknesse
(1729-92) polemist and 'private eye' known as Dr. Viper is perhaps the
first eccentric to settle in Sandgate towards the end of his querulous
life. |
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1790 |
Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) foremost tragic actress of the day,
returns from a visit to France where her daughters are at school.
After a rough crossing to Dover, she makes haste to Sandgate. She
writes . .it is the most agreeable seaplace, excepting those
on the Devonshire coast, I ever saw. . . .At present the place
cannot contain above twenty or thirty strangers, I should think. I
have bathed four times, and I believe I shall persevere on. Sir Lucas
Pepys says my disease is entirely nervous. |
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1794 |
Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) novelist passes through pristine
Sandgate: the white, new village straggling along the beach on each
side of the wide road, wide free and pleasant . . |
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1804 |
Lt.Gen.John Moore
writes. . .My situation here becomes daily more irksome, and
I am almost reduced to wish for peace. I am tired of confinement,
without the occupation of war |
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1806 |
John 4th Earl of
Darnley (1767-1831) - is an active promoter of Catholic
Emancipation and Electoral Reform. He purchases an extensive tract of
hillside just north of the Post-road and builds Belle Vue, his marine
village (rebuilt 1852 as Enbrook House) In 1830, HRH Prince
Leopold (soon to be King of the Belgians) pays him a visit |
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1812 |
William Wilberforce MP (1756-1833) has just resigned his
Yorkshire seat after 32 years in parliament, before becoming Member
for the pocket borough of Bramber. He brings his wife Barbara and five
children in search of quiet to restore his health, and time for
reading, writing and the enjoyment of nature. |
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1813 |
MME. D'Arblay
(Fanny Burney) in September, after ten years seclusion, finally
escapes from France. On a visit to her brother Charles and family in
Sandgate, she is introduced to
William Wilberforce coming out of Folkestone Church. |
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1832 |
Mary Shelley (1797-1851) Author of Frankenstein etc. takes up
lodgings to avoid the cholera epidemic now menacing London. |
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1852 |
The Duke of Wellington
(1769-1852) takes the train to Folkestone and sets out on
foot to visit his old friend, John Wilson Croker (politician
and essayist) |
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1874 |
Empress Eugenie visits General Hankey at Cliff House |
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1893 |
Prince and Princess
Louis of Battenberg with their children are staying at the
Undercliffe. They have won golden opinions from the inhabitants of
Sandgate with whom they mingle quite freely. |
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1898-1910 |
H.G. Wells
(1866-1946) visiting New Romney as a sick man, chances upon
Sandgate. Late in 1898, he rents Beach Cottage on Granville Parade. In
March 1899, Wells takes a 3 year lease on Arnold House (20 Castle
Road) while, as a man far ahead of his times, he commissions C.F.A
Voysey to design Spade House on one off the finest sites in Sandgate.
Renewed in health and spirit, Wells raises a family and produces 17
novels, and other stories and studies during his 12 year stay.
They include Kipps, Ann Veronica and The Sea Lady, a fantasy on
Sandgate's fish-tailed temptress.
If Sandgate is good for Wells ,
so Wells is good for Sandgate. England's literary lights are at his
door - George Gissing, Arnold Bennett, Anthony Hope,
Sir James Barrie,
G.K. Chesterton, A.E.W. Mason,
John Galsworthy, Hilaire Belloc - and Fabians such as
Hubert Bland, the Webbs, Graham Wallas and
Bernard Shaw. |
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1908 |
Jocelyn Brooke, born in 1908 on the south coast and lived in
Sandgate, is known for his many books - The Military Orchid (1948)
provided the opportunity to buy himself out of the Army. He then
settled down to write, publishing some fifteen titles between 1948 and
1955. Partly though recollection, partly by fictional narrative,
Jocelyn Brooke explores, in The Military Orchid, his two worlds - the
one bound by his own experience and the other a magical and , as yet
unknown landscape which lies beyond the 'frontier'. A sensitive
and intelligent child, Brooke perceived himself as an outcast from
society, but introspection proved fruitful and enabled him to recreate
this lyrical and witty portrait of his own past and also evoke that
tradition of Englishness which is now lost for ever. Brooke died in
1966. |
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1918 |
Professor Dame Sheila Sherlock (1918-2001) worlds leading
liver specialist and considered Sandgate's first FRS. Born in Dublin
Sheila grew up in No. 7 Devonshire Terrace, attending the Country
School for Girls in Folkestone, before a scholarship took her to
Edinburgh Medical School, and the start of a brilliant career and
phenomenal output - written, clinical, research and teaching.
Describing herself as an unrepentant career woman Sheila,
indefatigable, demanding, warm-hearted, had a tough uphill path in the
medical world. In 1959 she was the first woman to hold the Chair of a
Dept. at the Royal Free Hospital which pioneered medical education for
women in Britain. The Education Centre there, is named in her honour.
Ancient Renown Cottage (later burnt
down) in Wilberforce Road, close to the bottling plant in the
disused Methodist Chapel (1816) provided a weekend retreat for
Shelia and husband Gerry James, a distinguished physician. Always
loyal to Sandgate, Shelia readily agreed to become a patron of the
Sandgate Heritage Trust set up in 1983/4 to save the Old Fire
Station for the Community. |
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1924 |
Harrie Jacques (Josephine Edwina Jacques) (1924-1980) better
known by the stage name Hattie Jacques, was a comedy actress.
Hattie Jacques, born in Sandgate and lived in Sandgate High
Street, best remembered for her numerous appearances in
Hancock's Half Hour and the
Carry On films, and for her long-running TV partnership with
Eric Sykes. She was married to the actor,
John Le Mesurier. |
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Content for Sandgate-Kent Local History
pages is mostly taken from 'Rise and Progress of a Village" -
by Linda Réne-Martin
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