Broadstairs is a town in Kent, England. It is one of the seaside resorts on the Isle of Thanet.
The town lies above a harbour, historically known for smuggling. More recently, Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor and the house he stayed in while he wrote David Copperfield and part of Bleak House can be visited.
Reference to the Culmer family is found in the pages of a Thanet history book, suitably named ‘Mockett’s Journal’ (1836) after its author, a Yeoman, and St. Peter’s most famous Churchwarden, John Mockett (1775~1848).
Mention is made by Mockett to the will of a Richard Culmer, who was in 1434, a Carpenter. Shortly thereafter in 1440 an archway was built by George Culmer, across a track leading down to the sea, where the first wooden pier or jetty was built in 1460, a more enduring structure was to replace this later in 1538.
The Culmer’s nestled their boatyard on its protected sands. It was in 1538 that the road leading onto the seafront, known as Harbour Street was cut out from the rough chalk ground Broadstairs is built upon. This was accomplished by the local Shipwright George Culmer. Going further still to defend the town he also built the ‘York Gate’ in 1540, this being a portal that still spans Harbour Street to this day, and which then held two heavy wooden doors that could be closed in times of threat from beyond the sea.
By 1795 ‘York Gate’ was in need of some repair on account of worries over the French Revolutionary Wars, the subsequent renovation was undertaken by Lord Hanniker in the same year as the first Lightship was placed on the Goodwin Sands.
History in brief:
1): The chalk cliffs of Thanet’s coast have always afforded it some protection against the ravages of the sea, and further, the numerous coves and bays along its length have in addition provided ideal locations for the basis of what became the established settlements we know today. Originally these small settlements saw the development of fishing and farming communities. The local inhabitants used natural paths about the cliffs for access to the sea, but where needed they would dig out their own steps and ‘gates’ to the shoreline.
On the occasion of the landing at Thanet, of Major John Percy, on 21st June in 1815 with the captured French Eagle Standard taken at Waterloo, a tunnel stairway from the beach to the fields on the clifftops above, was excavated, and christened ‘Waterloo Stairs’ to commemorate the event. Broadstairs being the first town in England to learn of this now historic victory.
2): With the closure of the Culmer~White boatyard at Broadstairs in 1824 boatbuilding operations were transferred sometime between 1830/40 to the Isle of White where the firm of J. Samuel White became established. In addition to the larger Ships contracted, White’s were beginning to develop Ship’s onboard Lifeboats, an ever increasing market demand for which was to result as a consequence of the much increased passenger liner service’s then offered by developing shipping magnates, and around 1843 Lamb and White’s Patent Lifeboat was invented.
This new design was sold specifically to the ‘P&O’ Line, (Pacific & Oriental) who wisely prided themselves in their interest for the safety of their ever growing passenger carrying operations. From this design it was a simple matter of slight adjustments to the needs of shore based Lifeboats and a solution to the dangers of increasing Coast~wise shipping was also presented.
It can be seen from one account of the time that during a storm in 1836, some 400 ships were riding out at anchor, in the comparatively sheltered waters between Deal and the Goodwin Sands, otherwise known as ‘the Downs’.
It has been suggested that news of the loss of the Irish Packet ‘Royal Adelaide’ with 250 lives, on the tong of the sands off Margate on 6th of April, 1850 prompted old Thomas White to present one of his Lifeboats to his home town of Broardstairs that summer.
3): As recited in the ballad written to celebrate the occasion, the then unnamed Lifeboat which had only recently (July 1850) been presented to Broadstairs by the Shipwright Thomas White, saw its first use on March the Sixth, 1851.
On this occasion, the brig ‘Mary White’ became trapped upon the Goodwin Sands during a very severe gale blowing from the north. In response to the sight of the ship in distress the Harbour Master, Coxswain^ Solomon Holbourn, mustered a crew for the Lifeboat.
The new vessel was launched into the surf, from its horse drawn wagon- trailer as was the method of the times. It was a bitterly cold morning as the crew struggled against the high winds, hailstones, sleet and snow, to reach the stricken ship, after a while they were able to get close and cast a line to the ‘Mary White’ and succeeded in getting seven of the ten crewmen aboard, to the relative safety of the Lifeboat.
The Harbour Master and another of the Lifeboat crew, George Castle, were on the ‘Mary White’ with the ships Captain and the two others remaining of her crew, when the rope snapped and the Lifeboat broke away from the wreck, which was rapidly going to pieces, soon to be devoured by the ‘Shippe Swallower’ (Goodwin Sands).