In 1903 Mrs Meiklejon opened a school for blind children at 48 Kenilworth Road. She was born Mary Jane Noonan in Ireland in about 1858, and was elder sister to Robert Noonan (1870-1911), who as Robert Tressell lived in the area from late 1901 on his return from South Africa, and wrote the famous The […]
Monthly Archives: February 2026
Henry Edward Lewis was an entertainer who continuously toured the British Isles from 1850 until his death in 1857, lecturing and practising before paying audiences ‘mesmerism’ or ‘magnetism’ (both terms used for what we would call hypnotism) on local subjects. He also lectured on the subject of phrenology, the then popular art of deriving information […]
The talk will begin at 3pm sharp on Sunday 29th March, 2026, at Crown House, Marina, Hastings, Saint Leonards-on-sea TN38. Members free, non-members £5 entry. Doors open 2.30pm. No reservations. Clocks spring forward by 1 hour, early on Sunday 29th at 1am. ‘The history of West Hill Road in St Leonards’, an illustrated talk by Ian Crick. […]
[Guest post by Helena Wojtczak, a local historian and researcher dedicated to uncovering the hidden histories of women, http://www.hastingspress.co.uk] In a terraced house in St Leonards, a letter was once found that changed art history. But the women who lived in that house were busy changing much more than that. The MacMunn sisters were a […]
26 May 1848, Hastings & St Leonards News: NATIONAL SCHOOLS. – The spacious and handsome National Schools, lately erected at St Leonards, were opened yesterday, on which occasion the school-children were regaled with tea and buns, in the Assembly Rooms. A large number of the clergy and gentry were present, and assisted in the proceedings […]