Mr Hastings - creating a biography

October 2016 Damn. The publication and launch of the long awaited Collier Letters edited by Dr Richard Saville is scheduled for the middle of October when I’ll be in France.   I’ve been waiting for the publication of this volume from the Sussex Record Society for almost two years – ever since I first started thinking about writing a biography of Collier. I first came across ‘Mister Hastings’ while researching my book ‘The Smuggling Life of Gabriel Tomkins’.   Collier was Surveyor of the Kent Customs Service from the 1730’s and thus actually employed Tomkins – a former smuggler – as Keeper of the Dartford Customs House. The thing about Collier is that he was a voluminous correspondent, leaving behind some 3000 letters written between around 1714 and his death in 1760.   I’d spent several hours in the Hastings Library looking through the letters for mentions of Tomkins or the Hawkhurst Gang of smugglers with whom Tomkins rode after he was kicked out of the ...

November 2016 Back from France, and there’s a package in the post from the Sussex Record Society.   Yes, it’s The Letters of John Collier of Hastings 1731-1746 edited by Richard Saville. Since deciding to write a biography of Collier I’d done a bit of research on-line and got a rough idea of his life.   Born in Eastbourne to an Innkeeper in 1685, John Collier had done incredibly well for himself.   By the time he was 20 he had apparently qualified as a lawyer and had moved to Hastings to take up his first job at clerk to the town council.   Being a Cinque Port, Hastings council was known as a Corporation and the councillors as Jurats.   Collier was soon elected a Jurat and became Mayor for the first time in 1719.   He was involved with the Corporation as Clerk or Mayor for the rest of his life, but also carried on a legal practice in London, also buying and holding a sinecure as Usher and Cryer of the court of King's Bench .   He became ...

December 2016 There’s a message on my answerphone from a Heather Warne about my Collier queries.   Would I like to call her back? It seems that the Collier archive of more than 3000 letters (a number of which Charles Lane Sayer published in 1906 and some 600 of which have recently been annotated and published by Dr Richard Saville) were comprehensively catalogued by Heather Matthews as she was then, as her dissertation for an Archive Diploma in 1966. A Google search reveals:   ‘ Heather Warne came to Sussex in 1965 to take up her first job as an archivist at East Sussex Record Office. Since raising her family, she has worked on various archive contracts elsewhere in Sussex and in London and Surrey. Her current post is as (part time) archivist at Arundel Castle where she specialises in cataloguing and making available the extensive mediaeval records that are held there.’ But there are no contact details. So I fire off emails to the ESRO and to Arundel C...

19 January 2017 From: Kent Barker Sent: 19 January 2017 17:53 To: The Keep Subject: Attention Christopher Whittick Dear Mr Whittick Mrs Heather Warne (archivist at Arundel Castle and council member of the Sussex Record Society) suggested I should contact you. I’m currently in the early stages of doing the research for a biography of John Collier of Hastings. In due course I would be grateful to study the Sayer Collection which you hold, but at this stage I am just trying to make sense of the sheer scale of the material available. My starting point is Dr Richard Saville’s recent volume on the Letters of John Collier and I have sourced a copy of Volume 2 of Charles Lane Sayer’s works to purchase.  However finding a copy of volume 1 that I can either buy, borrow to study at home or photograph at an institution so I can study it later has, so far, eluded me. In the meantime I am keen to obtain a copy of Mrs Warne’s catalogue from her 1966 Archive Di...

21 January 2017 My dog, Myrtle, and I drive to East Hoathly near Hailsham in Sussex.   Eventually we locate a small second-hand shop - Clara’s Books   - next to the pub and, buried away in the back is, I guess, Clara herself. She’s surrounded by piles of dusty volumes and the one she retrieves for me is small and fat and green and very expensive. Having read most of the Collier Letters published last year by Richard Saville, I realise I have to get hold of the two 1906 volumes edited by Charles Lane Sayer.   But they’re rare as Hen’s teeth - and twice as expensive. Various libraries have them, but for reference only. No one will lend them out.   And I really need to have them at home to study at leisure and refer to again and again whenever I need to. The international second hand book site, Abe Books, has shown me both volumes for sale in California for an eye-watering £600 but, amazingly, volume 2 is available from a seller in East Hoat...

Email Correspondence with a kindly Californian gentleman 22 January 2017 Dear Mr Hoffman I am a writer and historian in the UK, doing research for a biography of John Collier of Hastings. You have a two volume collection of his letters, edited by Charles Lane Sayer, for sale on Abe books. Since I already own volume 2, and do not have any sort of budget for research, sadly I can’t afford to purchase them from you. However I am a bit desperate to be able to study the letters in volume 1.  They are around in reference libraries in the UK,  but are not available for loan and are all some distance from my home. So, I was just wondering if there might be any possibility of scanning the book you have?  I know it would be a big task, but thought you might know some likely teenagers who could undertake the job for pocket-money? I would, of course, pay their costs as well as you a fee for you for doing this,  and the advantage to you is that you woul...

 Continuation of email conversation with Kindly Californian Gentleman - From: "Kent Barker" To: Frank Hoffman Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 9:42:11 AM Subject: Re: Letters of John Collier That’s very kind.  Thanks.  Yes, perhaps a teenager in Orange County was not my best thought.  Any chance of a willing Mexican - before the Trump Wall goes up? I have good memories of your side of LA.  I spent a year in Pasadena (well Eagle Rock really) as a 20 year, old hanging round the Occidental college girls and working nights cleaning out cinemas (the nearest I  ever got to working in Hollywood) before an entire Mexican family agreed to do the janitor’s job for the same wage I was getting! Best Kent ----- Original Message ----- From: Frank Hoffman To: "Kent Barker" Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 10:04:05 AM Subject: Re: Letters of John Collier Yes, that's about right. Ah, Pasadena . . . haven't been there in some years n...

20 March 2017   Email to Secretary, Eastbourne Local History Society Hello Mrs Copping I wonder if I might beg you for some help and advice. I am researching a biography of John Collier 1685-1760, solicitor,  Mayor of Hastings, agent to the Pelhams and Duke of Newcastle etc. He was born in Eastbourne, son of Peter Collier and Sarah (nee Cheapman) who kept the Lamb Inn in the High Street. Apart from his parentage, the first record we have of him is when he was appointed Hastings Town Clerk in 1706. It would seem likely that he was schooled in Eastbourne, and very probably apprenticed (articled?) to a solicitor in the town. So I was wondering what, if any, records might exist about schools or local lawyers from 1690 to 1705? Is anything known about the history of the Lamb? Are there any early pictures of it? Has anyone done any research on the Collier family in Eastbourne? John’s grandfather (Peter’s father) was Richard, a Thatcher whose will w...