Settlement in Sussex 1840-1940

To recap, I've been looking at some old academic studies (across various disciplines) which use Eastbourne, or its surroundings, as their subject matter.  

Last time, I finished off a look at a study of the development of Sussex's coastal resorts from the middle of the nineteenth century to halfway through the last.  We learnt about the significance of industrialisation and its effect on people's spending power and leisure time.  We saw how pre-existing settlements along the Sussex coast grew to meet the market for Londoners seeking holidays or taking up residence.  

Now I'm going to have a look at a study exploring the impact of transport changes - specifically, the arrival of the railway, followed by the car and bus - on the size and organisation of Sussex towns.   

The article is titled "Settlement in Sussex - 1840-1940", and was written by W H Parker.  It was published in the journal of the Geographical Association in March 1950.  The paper itself was read out at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Brighton a couple of years earlier. 

The dates we need to keep in mind are 1840 or thereabouts, when the first railway is put down in the county, and then some fifty years later in 1890 when the network there is more or less complete.  The car appears first in 1895, with the bus ten years later.  But railway is dominant until the end of the first world war, and there is no general use of either cars or buses until the 1920s.  The final date to mark is the electrification of the railway in 1930, which speeds up journeys, particularly into London.

We'll look first at the situation just before the railway appears.  Then look at what happens when it does start to roll out.  Then we'll look at the impact of the car and bus.  Finally, we'll touch on faster trains enabled by electrification.  

So just before the railway, we find that newly wealthy families have already started to settle in Sussex.  Those with more leisure time than previously are seeking diversion through visits to the coast.  And former labourers - no longer working in the open air, but in factories or stuffy offices - feel the need periodically for holidays in the fresh air by the seaside.

As for Sussex towns, Brighton is busy and fashionable by this time, as is Hastings.  Towns like Bognor, Worthing, Seaford and Eastbourne have felt the effects of this growing visitor interest, but they remain small, stagnant and seasonable - probably as a result of their poor roads.  Sussex's ports no longer play the prominent role they once did.  Rye remains the biggest, with Shoreham, Littlehampton and Newhaven all carrying on some business.  Like the coastal towns, they have stopped growing.

In contrast, the inland parishes are getting bigger.  The ancient boroughs of Lewes and Chichester have solid populations.  Smaller market towns such as East Grinstead, Arundel, Petworth and Horsham remain busy as market towns for local farm and artisan produce.

So then the railways arrive.  

First the towns.  On the coast, they begin to grow.  Brighton spreads into Hove to its west, and Preston to its north.  Likewise, Hastings absorbs St.Leonards.  Eastbourne, Worthing, Bexhill and Bognor all get bigger.  The ports likewise become small towns. 

The increased population of these towns becomes more concentrated. Workers need to live within walking distance of their work.  They move in from the rural parishes around the towns.  Given much of the work is personal or domestic - working for other people living nearby - this compounds the concentrating effect.  Slums result.

The railway station becomes the heart of the population.  It becomes the source of most necessities of life as well as being a point of arrival and departure for journeys.  This means that people need to live near it.  And new settlements don't expand out from the station, but rather from the next station along the line.  The original town and the new settlement expanding from the next railway station eventually meet.  A bit like Eastbourne and Hampden Park. Or Brighton and Hove.

The railway has a further impact on the inhabitants of inland Sussex.  Rail-connected market towns now distribute imported produce, rather than goods sourced locally.  Unemployment and depopulation of the rural parishes follows.  The population is then replaced - to a certain degree, and only in certain railway connected places - by people moving to the countryside to take residence in villas.

Railway stations create new settlements, in addition to boosting existing ones.  They can't be built on hilly downland or forest ridge.  So new towns may appear around a station in a valley - perhaps down from the existing ridge settlement.  Heathfield is an example of this.  

And the company building the London to Brighton line deliberately places stations between villages, so it can serve more than one place - and settlements duly grow around them.  So Three Bridges comes about, between Crawley and Worth.  As does Haywards Heath between Cuckfield and Lindfield, Hassocks between Hurst and Keymer.  

 

But despite the growth of the towns, there is no new development in other locations along the coast - for the obvious reason that people can't easily get to them.  In fact, the population of non-urban coastal parishes falls.  Whole lengths of the Sussex coast remain in a natural state.

This is the position with the railway well-established.  Then the car arrives.  

An obvious point first.  Roads don't have stations.  Their impact is felt continuously along their course.  And they reach all settlements. Every town will have road access.  Also road is unaffected by the limitations of physical geography.  A road can climb a hill.

So immediately roads begin to reverse the previous concentrating effect of the railway.  Houses are now dispersed across land bought cheap as a result of the agricultural depression.  Buyers could set their houses among extensive grounds.  Towns are cleared of slums.

The empty spaces between towns along the coast are now developed, as the car makes them accessible.  The natural coast begins to disappear.  Ridge top sites become popular again, as do some of the villages whose rural labour occupants left for the town during the railway period.  

The final element in this story is the electrification of the railway.  It boosts places like Haywards Heath.  The town is still a railway station settlement, with residents commuting to Brighton and London.  But the car permits houses to sprawl across the countryside.  Other Sussex towns become London commuter dormitories.

Bringing this all together then, what have we learnt?

• Before the railway, we have some prosperous people beginning to visit or settle in coastal Sussex.  But most of the county is dominated by agriculture and market towns, hampered by poor roads.  There are a few ports.  

• The railway comes and the coastal towns expand as places of tourism and residence.  The population concentrates around railway stations and slums result.  Livelihoods of rural labour in inland Sussex are destroyed, with the countryside  vacated, replaced in some railway towns by commuting villa residents.  

• The car comes and disperses the town population, cheap agricultural land is developed for more spacious housing, and existing towns expand.

• The town of Eastbourne is benefiting from all these changes.

This sets us up well for our future investigations.