Articles: Deal

Edward Ardizzone

April 2, 2022Artists, Books, DealGolden Street, Kingsdown, Little Timkathryn

The artist Edward Ardizzone had a prolific 50-year career, during which he was a war artist, teacher, printmaker and muralist as well as an illustrator of nearly 200 books.
With little formal training, he attended evening classes at the Westminster School of Art under Walter Bayes and Bernard Meninsky. He was later appointed tutor in etching at the Royal College of Art in 1943 and was awarded a CBE.

In 1930, his brother David rented a house in Kingsdown, near Deal, Kent, which Ardizzone used as inspiration for the home of Tim’s parents in the Little Tim books, the first of which was Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain. Published in 1935, it was a runaway success on both sides of the Atlantic.

As well as being inspired by Deal’s beaches and sea, he painted a picture of pub-goers in the Saracen’s Head, which is now on display at the Beaney Museum in Canterbury. In the mid-1970’s, Ardizzone bought 4 Golden Street, Deal, now marked by a commemorative plaque on the exterior. He died, aged 79, in Rodmersham Green, Kent.

Do you remember Edward Ardizzone when he visited Deal? We’d love to hear any recollections…

Find out more about Ardizzone

Fisherman, deep-sea mariner, boatman, smuggler and pilot

March 30, 2022Deal, Shipwreck, SmugglingCinque Ports, Duke of Wellington, Luggerkathryn

WH Stanton took on virtually any seafaring job available…

Deal native William Henry Stanton (1803-1878) first went to sea at the age of 11.

By the time he passed his examination as a Cinque Ports pilot around the age of 30, he had been a fisherman, deep-sea mariner, boatman, smuggler and pilot. We know much of this story from his autobiography, written during the winter of 1860-61, now in Deal Museum. It is an intriguing if curious volume, containing episodes from his life, interspersed with observations, songs, poetry, even the occasional illustration.

In 1826, after a series of overseas voyages to India and South America:

‘He left of foreign voyages entirely and stuck to the boating business for some years and bought the sixth part of a set of boats. The largest of these was called the Ox, a second class boat call’d the Fox, together with a galley, a punt and materials of all descriptions for working at wrecks on the Goodwin.’

The Ox was a Deal lugger built in 1807, registered to Thomas Cottle. This section of the autobiography contains many colourful accounts of shipwreck and salvage over a period of about 15 years. From these stories we can see that several large Deal vessels were often in action together. On New Year’s eve 1830, the Dart and Stour luggers worked with the Ox to rescue the crew and salvage the cargo of the Alexander of Hamburg. There are many references to the hazards of life as a boatman, the poor rewards for salvage, and the wear and damage to boats often up to 20 years old.

Perhaps this lack of reward tempted William to try smuggling. Goods (tea, silks and satin ribbon) were brought from Calais in a French boat. After several successful runs, the vessel was seized by the coast blockade soon after landing, with William escaping arrest. He was tempted again three years later, when he was asked to recover spirits sunk in the anchorage off Deal. He was captured but was able to persuade the magistrates that he was innocent, claiming he had been fishing for smelt.

By early 1832, the conditions of Deal boatmen and their dependents became so desperate that a petition requesting relief was made to both Trinity House and the House of Commons. William was prominent in pleading the case, which resulted in a House of Commons enquiry into the local conduct of pilotage. The boatmen argued that allowing them to bring vessels into the Downs and to be paid the same fees as pilots would resolve many of their problems. The enquiry recommended in favour of the boatmen.

Encouraged by this outcome, William applied for a pilot’s examination. After a direct appeal to the Duke of Wellington, then Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, he succeeded and was admitted in 1835. He remained a pilot until his retirement about 30 years later.

A boat of many names

March 30, 2022Beach, Deal, WalmerBoat repairkathryn

She’s a clinker-built beach boat, easily identified by the presence of the ruffle hole in her keel. She was hauled (ruffled) up the beach by a chain reeved through the ruffle hole. According to David Skardon in his eighth presentation of a personal history of Deal (2020), this is her story:

(left) Fair Chance in her working days, her final resting place in the Museum

Originally the Fair Chance was a Kingsdown boat and berthed on its beach. During a severe storm, she was picked up by the wind, thrown onto a shed and badly damaged. After repair by a local carpenter (“not neat’” Dave says), she was given the name Who’d A Thought It, then bought by Deal boatman Tommy Upton who changed it again to Minni Ha Ha.

Bob Able, another Deal boatman and local boat builder bought the boat and renamed her the Ursula. During the 1950s she came to grief in the groynes through engine failure and was damaged a second time. Bob Able was going to burn her but subsequently sold the boat to Jim Skardon, Dave’s father.

Jim bought her for £5 in a derelict state, loaded her onto a trailer and took her to his farm, Court Marsh, in Albert Road near the old potteries, quite close to the current site of Hutchings Timber merchants. There the boat was rebuilt and renamed Fair Chance.

Dave operated the Fair Chance for commercial fishing and angling parties. She was rigged with a jib, mizzen, standing lug sail and used for trawling down the bay. “She turned a good deal of speed and power under sail”, Dave says. She was sold to a miner at a 1968 auction from her plot opposite the Timeball Tower.

Few boats are left working from Deal beach. The Fair Chance is a tenuous link with another time. With no records of how she arrived, she now rests in Deal Museum courtyard.

The King of Italy’s gratitude

March 28, 2022Deal, ShipwreckCertificate, Italian, Lifeboat, Medalkathryn

What was a certificate written in Italian, awarded to local man Mathew Hoile, doing in the Museum collection? Once translated, it revealed the story of an amazing rescue that took place in 1916. Whilst the First World War raged across Europe, merchant vessels had to brave the dangers of the seas and enemy action to get goods home. Deal & Walmer’s lifeboats worked throughout both world wars. The storm that started on Friday 17th November 1916 was the worst for years. The sea was so rough that the Kingsdown boat failed to launch. It called on the North Deal boat, The Charles Dibden, which headed out to the Goodwin Sands at 10pm on the night of the 19th to aid the Italian steamer Val Salice, en route from Sunderland to Italy with a cargo of coal. Despite the huge swells and the difficulty of evacuating 30 crew, none of whom could speak English, the lifeboat was kept steady in the appalling conditions and all crew were saved, although sadly not the ship itself. It wasn’t until 3am on the Monday morning that the lifeboat made it back to shore.

The war’s aftermath meant it was eight years before the Italian Government was able to show its gratitude for this amazing rescue. On 24th August 1924 they sent Captain Raineri-Biscia, the Italian Naval Attaché, to Deal. On behalf of the King of Italy, the Captain presented all 15 members of the crew with a certificate and a medal in a ceremony at the Town Hall.

The Cox at the time of the rescue had by then retired but was at the ceremony to collect his medal. So was the new Cox, William Hoile Jnr, brother of the holder of the certificate.

The Museum doesn’t have the medal that accompanied the certificate, but they were described at the time:

‘The medals are of bronze, inscribed with the name of the recipient, with the further inscription Al Valore di Marina Mars del Nord, 19th Novembre 1916. On the reverse is the Italian cross surrounded by a wreath of laurel leaves.’

We wonder if anyone in Deal still has one of these medals?

Recollections of Deal: the tiny book

February 20, 2022Beach, Books, Deal, Visits, WalmerDeal Castle, Deal Pier, Middle Deal, Recollections of Deal, Souvenir, St. Saviour's Church, Victorian, Walmer, Walmer Castle, Walmer Churchkathryn

Blink and you’d miss it, but hidden in one of the cabinets in the Local History Gallery is a tiny book in a bad way.
Recollections of Deal measures just 6cm x 5cm (2.3 inches x 1.9 inches), holds 17 images and was published in 1889 as part of a series of illustrated guides to tourist spots around the country. The images were originally published larger, but reducing their size and binding them in this way made the book the perfect souvenir for Victorian visitors.