Friday, 25 July 2014

the Parade Margate



Thanks again Ray!

12-13 The Parade Margate




Watching the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, much was made of a city that had constantly managed to 'reinvent' itself as the Clyde first embraced steam; to become a major shipping centre and now has embraced commerce. This is a story of a shop and a family that did the same. The blog celebrates the lives of Jerome and his extended families and this building is the bricks that formed one of them. 12 and 13 the Parade, Margate, home of four generations of Thomas Dunn. This is the story of a shop that also 'reinvents' itself.

The blog has written about Thomas Dunn and his time on SS Atlantic before. His Granddad, another Thomas Dunn, had left his family (including HIS Granddad Thomas Dunn) moved from his family in the Glaven Valley, North Norfolk to London where he married Elizabeth Brothers in London on 7th March 1819 at St. Anne's, Westminster and the family (including son Thomas Robert) moved on to Margate by 1830. Thomas is selling his shoes from the Coach Office in Duke Street Margate, perhaps trying to get the less 'well heeled' passengers to buy. The days of the coach were numbered.

Margate was a day trip by 'hoy' from London, although the last couple of miles of, effectively, open sea were hard. The new steam 'packets' (called that because they carried the mail 'packets'), made the journey by sea quicker and easier.

By the 1820’s many London workers were taking the Margate Steamer for a Sunday day trip. It is no surprise that Thomas is the ultimate signatory to a notice of 15th August 1829 requesting that a meeting be called to discuss setting up a steampacket company. He moves to a shop on the corner of the Parade. It is in site of the new pier, next to the Royal York Hotel and the site of the first medicinal 'baths' in Margate; a well known recreation for the gentry; just the type of person who would want good quality boots - he must have hoped.

Thomas becomes the Company secretary of this brand new steam packet company and, though the 1832 Pigot & Co. Directory shows Dunn, T. Boot & Shoe Maker at the Parade, still also selling his shoes and boots from the coach station, he is also selling tickets for the new steampacket service from the shop (or perhaps Elizabeth is selling them, since he also still deals with the coach passengers),

In 1809 Marine Parade in Margate, on the sea front was widened and until 1878 most visitors to the town would arrive via paddle steamers through the Jetty. The Parade area was thus the focal point of the town, with the Lower High Street shops, the main access point to the sea front sharing in its popularity as the transport centre for the horse brakes, trams and local buses meeting the steam packets from London.

Thomas was occupying the corner site facing the jetty of the main access point for visitors to the town and was thus on the most ‘visible’ site of the town. In later years the shop would feature heavily in Margate postcards.

He had not been running his shop at the Parade for long when a man of note in Margate, described in the newspapers of the time as a man of “ardent exertions, public spirited ... a leading public character, desirous of advancing the general good, or as a kind and sincere relation, and most staunch and upright friend”, died. The funeral of the late lamented Dr. Jarvis, of Margate, took place at St. John's, Margate, on the 26th of March 1833.

Jacksons Oxford Journal noted that “The procession was attended by all the authorities of the town, and every family of respectability in the place, the shopkeepers and tradesmen closing their windows on that occasion. The wealth and prosperity to which the town of Margate has arrived is mainly to be attributed” to him. It was not the last time that Thomas would ‘close up’ for such a well attended funeral. Dr Jarvis's portrait still hangs in the Old Town Hall, Margate.

The Kentish Gazette of Friday 5 April 1833 reports that- John Holliday, charged with stealing at Margate, a quantity of Shoes, the property of Thomas Dunn is transported for seven years and on Tuesday 08 April 1834 the same paper reports that Henry Cobb, for stealing three pair of shoes, the property of Thomas Dunn. is given "two months' imprisonment and hard labor". Perhaps it is not surprising that the list of the Constables for Margate's new Police Force in 1836 includes Thomas. The cells and the Court, forming part of the Town Hall building, are just around the corner.

Thomas's business is expanding and the local papers show an auction by Mr I Marsh on June 15th, 1837, at Dunn's Coach Office, Marine Parade, a variety of unredeemed pledges. Acting as a debt collector in other cases, by 1843 the papers report that particulars of the sale of the broken up timbers of the oak-built ship " Burhampooter " 550 tons burden "may be known of Mr. Dunn, Parade, Margate"

Indeed, the marriage cert of son Thomas Robert shows him as coal merchant. As an officer of the steamship company, who purchased much coal, Thomas was getting his 'percentage' from various places. By 1849, not only was son Thomas Robert unemployed for over a year (he had returned to London and even tried selling brooms from door to door, but the steampacket company was wound up. Thomas Robert then died; under thirty, leaving three young children including first born Thomas.

Father, now grandfather, Thomas bounced back. Particulars of the sale could be obtained from the Parade and he became agent for other companies. By now he was also sub-bailiff for Margate and the 1850 House of Commons papers shows fees paid to him of over £20 (a tidy sum). His other son George opened a successful butchers shop round the corner. It was a small shop and his wife's Mother and sister are staying at the Parade with the Dunn's. Grandson Thomas would also stay there on leave from his job as a boy sailor and the premises was obviously crowded.

As well as the court duties, the shop was now agency for the General Steam Navigation Company and, as a pillar of the community and one of the few able to vote in elections, Thomas was often appointed foreman of 'a respectable jury' for the inquest into a suicide (Kentish Gazette 1862). Another article of 1861 reports that "from the evidence of PC. Solly, who had the prisoner in charge, it appeared that while passing Mr. Dunn's, he threw his stick with great violence against the window (of Dunn's - the Parade) and broke it.. It was not the last broken window. On Saturday 27 December 1862 the Dover Express headlined The Gale of Saturday and Sunday - "The force of wind was very great. Two large squares of glass in the window of Mr. Dunn, agent to the General Steam Navigation Company, on the Parade, were blown in". We will return to those windows!

Throughout we have been referring to 12/13 the Parade. Thomas was, actually, the occupant of, what was then, 4 Marine Parade - though the Papers had called it "the Parade" for many years. On 14th February 1868 the Margate Council Committee decided that Marine Parade be renamed The Parade (from the telegraph station) and the houses renumbered. Number 4 Marine Parade formally becomes number 12 the Parade.

Grandson ‘Thomas Dunn Jr’ (as the papers refer to him), soon tires of Liverpool after the SS Atlantic disaster and moves with his family to Margate, first to Dane Hill Row and then to within yards of Granddad at 14 Marine Terrace. Thomas senior is now over 80 and hands over the agency to his grandson who moves into the Parade. By now the expanding family has also taken over the next door premises, number 13

In December 1878 Thomas junior is promoted, unanimously from second to first lieutenant by the Margate Borough Fire Brigade; an honorary unpaid office. He is a Burgess of the Town (a person with municipal authority/privileges/a vote). He speaks at the first general meeting of The Beaconsfield (Conservative) Working Mens Association in 1880 and becomes its secretary.

He is also making himself well known in the town, some would say infamous. In October 1881 Thomas junior was writing to fellow Burgesses questioning the Mayors use of funds and suggesting that he and an Alderman wish to censure him as Borough Officer and ‘shut him up’. He particularly questions £200 paid to the Mayor "for reception of the Yeomanry")

This does not stop the Watch Committee unanimously voting him as Collector of Taxes for Margate. The controversy has not ended though, since Thomas attempts to collect the taxes ‘by the book’ and the April 1887 papers record that he puts up a placard threatening non payers with distress warrants. A crowded meeting at the Town Hall where “all of whom condemned the action of Mr. Dunn for having without any apparent cause, endeavoured to depart from the practice of former years, which was that the taxes should be paid at commencement of the season.” Fortunately it seems that no one pushed his windows in.

It is difficult not to believe that, faced with crashing waves in the middle of the night and the water flooding in on his home and business, that Thomas’s mind did not flash back more than twenty five years to the sounds of the SS Atlantic as his friends drowned and the stewardess was washed from his arms to her death.

In 1887 Thomas, like his granddad before him, is appointed chairman of a coroners jury (for a suicide). In 1890 Thomas is Agent for the Dominion Line and is at 12 (and 13) the Parade, now the focal point in many Margate postcards. The property is in a prime position and the Whitstable and Herne Bay papers report a Margate occasion with a firework display “witnessed by an enormous crowd of several thousand people... Mr. Dunn's restaurant was illuminated with Chinese lanterns and vessels in the harbour were similarly decorated.” There are now eleven members of the family and three others at the property – including a housekeeper and an attendant. He is also running it as a lodging house and seeking a licensing extension “for ... those of his lodgers who were obliged to sleep out of the house.” It must have been crowded.

Te Liverpool Mercury of Tuesday 30 November 1897 noted that “the front of the lower part of the-town is almost completely under water” and a Dalziel telegram spoke of “tons of water which have overflowed the Marine Drive and Parade”. £50,000+ of damage was caused and as the storm continued Margate lifeboat capsized killing nine. The memorial parade in 1897 for the dead lifeboatmen sees crowds of hundred and a grainy postcard shows family (?) watching from the door and one from the first floor bay window.

His ‘problems with the locals’ and the Mayor seem to be behind him. He has just been re-elected to the Executive Committee of his local Conservative Working Mens Club (and is about to visit his old wooden ship with them). He is still a Queens Collector of Taxes and after 16 years as Agent for the General Steam Navigation Company has ’passed down’ his grandfather’s agency to yet another generation – to his eldest, Walter. His son Thomas (a fourth generation at the Parade.has also ‘gone to sea’.

Saturday 07 January 1899 Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald - a horse drawing a trolley belonging to Mr. Pettman, jibbed and commenced kicking while being driven across Parade. Getting one leg over a shaft, it was frightened and bolted, and, turning into Dukes Street it ran into Mr. Dunn's window, doing considerable damage. Those windows again!

That week, on a trip to see a daughter in London he has a serious stroke. He dies “On the 11th Jan, at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Turner, New North Road, Islington”. His eldest son Walter, now agent, is present Paralysis was given as the cause of death “after a long illness”

Thomas had gone from ‘being’ a servant (a ships steward) to employing them; seen by many Victorians as the mark of attaining middle class status. Thomas, like his grandfather, is buried in Margate cemetery - Plot 5536, Section XIV. In 1905 spouse Annie is buried in the plot with him. The ashes of his son Thomas and his wife were interred there in the 1950’s.

For now, Annie was running the restaurant. Daughter Minnie, after the early death of her new husband farmer John Stokes comes back as assistant Manageress. Finally, though, the shop is sold after the death of Annie and the family leave Margate.

Son Walter had taken over a steampacket agency which had originally been entered into by great granddad at a time when it was the ‘new and fast’ method of transport. Now its day is ‘done’, his death certificate shows him as an omnibus conductor in London.

His Father Thomas Junior had also been in at the start of a new revolution as Petty Officer on on of the first transatlantic Steamships. Margate’s days as a steamship destination had all but gone and that part of Margate is now almost a beautiful backwater.

The (enlarged) property had become a shoe shop, sub bailiff’s office, pawn and property redemption office, tea room, lodging house, restaurant, and later a post office and telegraph office. When it was the subject of an article in Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine it was a shop selling ‘nick nacks’. Now it has returned to the function under which it appeared in many Kent papers for many years.

Another descendant of Thomas Dunn junior now confirms 2/13 the Parade is, again, a little cafe. She writes: “So we are sitting here having a refreshing drink looking across at the sea front ... according to the lady who served us there is a relative of ours in her 90s who has been in here and tells them all about how it used to be. The furthest pane of glass is an original pane and the rest all came in a bad storm it's a lovely little cafe called Huckleberrys.

I feel very privileged that I am sitting in the room of our ancestors it's quite an emotional feeling to think they walked on the same floor and maybe had the same views. I don't think it's as big as I expected but I can imagine it was very grand in its day.”


More on Thomas Dunn 

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