Sir Harry Preston (1860-1936)

John Harry Preston was born in Cheltenham on February 19, 1860, the son of John Preston, a solicitor’s clerk.

Sir Harry Preston

He began his career as a teacher in London but later became a clerk in an East Indian merchant’s office. It was then that he developed a keen interest in boxing and at the age of eighteen, joined the West End Boxing Club. When, in 1884, the Amateur Boxing Association instituted a Bantam Weight competition, he was the first to enter and made it through to the semi-final, only to lose by a narrow margin. He was also a member of the West London Rowing Club and won several prizes for swimming at the St. James’s Club.

He married Ellen Boore, daughter of a boot manufacturer, in London in December 1885 and their daughter, Ethel, was born the following year. After his father’s death he gave up serious boxing and turned his attention to the hotel trade. By 1891 had taken over the running of the Central Hotel in Bournemouth.

Arriving in Brighton in 1901 he took over the dilapidated Royal York Hotel in the Old Steine. The town at the time was perceived by some as not being the famous resort it had once been and a move was made to reinvent it as a:

‘Blackpool show fair with swings and roundabouts and an Eiffel Tower’.

Sir Harry Preston’s Brighton hotels, c. 1911

Harry was opposed to this view, saying the ‘best people’ could be encouraged to return and gave an interview to the Daily Mail in order to promote his cause.

In his early days in Brighton, he was approached by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) and asked to arrange a race at Brighton, but the club insisted that it must take place on tarmac. The Corporation was against the proposal initially but finally agreed to lay the tarmac along Madeira Drive. The  first speed trials took place during the ‘Motor Week’ from 19 to 22 July, 1905.

Harry was not only a sportsman on land but also in the air and on the water. A photograph in his autobiography, Leaves from My Unwritten Diary shows him as a passenger in a water-plane (a sea-plane). The pilot was Andre Beaumont who had won the Daily Mail Circuit of Britain Race in August 1913. Harry also hosted a banquet at the Royal Albion Hotel to celebrate the arrival of Oscar Morrison, who flew his plane from Brookwood to Brighton in sixty five minutes.

Sir Harry Preston’s motor yacht, ‘My Lady Molly’

Harry was a keen sailor and owned a motor yacht called ‘My Lady Molly’. Both the yacht and Harry nearly came to grief in 1911 when, during a voyage from Erith to Cowes, the vessel ran into a storm. Not only was the yacht swamped with water but the engine caught fire. It was eventually driven ashore at Shoreham.

He redecorated the Royal York and in about 1906 took over the Royal Albion. In 1910 he carried out large scale alterations creating a roof garden which overlooked the Palace Pier.

Ellen died in 1913 and a year later he married Edith Collings, who was listed on the 1911 census as ‘Hotel manageress’ at the Royal Albion Hotel.

Sir Harry Preston at his cottage, from The Ideal Home, November 1922. Image courtesy of Philippa Lewis.

Harry was a great supporter of charities in Brighton. He became president and life governor of the Royal Sussex County Hospital, for which he raised ten of thousands of pounds, and further funds were raised for the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Sick Children and the Lady Chichester Hospital in Hove. He frequently borrowed the Brighton Hippodrome for Sunday celebrity shows in aid of the hospitals.

One of his most famous associates was Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII and ultimately the Duke of Windsor). He first approached the Prince in 1920 to enquire if he would become patron of the boxing tournament he was planning to hold in Brighton to raise funds for the Royal Sussex County Hospital and the Royal Alexandra Hospital. The Prince’s brother, the Duke of York (later King George VI), also agreed to be a patron.

Boxing Tournament, The Dome, 1920

The match took place at The Dome and Harry himself took part, fighting Tom Ringer, featherweight champion of 1908. The souvenir programme for that event can be seen at the Brighton History Centre.  Further boxing matches took place at the Dome over the following years and included such famous fighters as Jack Dempsey (world heavyweight champion from 1919 to 1926).

Popular as Harry was, author Beverley Nicholls was not so complimentary:

‘Sir Harry was not quite a gentleman …. was tiny with a bright mauve complexion, and had the curious habit of drenching himself in a variety of expensive toilet water’

With regard to Harry’s relationship with the Prince of Wales, Nicholls commented :

‘Both were very tiny and very rich… and they were both, if one may be forgiven for mentioning it, rather common’

This comment was made many years after Harry’s death. However, his reputation had been somewhat tarnished by his involvement in the 1926 General Strike. Strikers had gathered at the tram depot in Lewes Road, anticipating that volunteers were on their way to operate the trams. A large crowd gathered and around 11am, several hundred police and special constables arrived on the scene. One of the mounted special constables was ‘sergeant’ Harry Preston. It was reported that the police charged the crowd, which included women and children, and according to Adrian Wookey (‘Impact of the General Strike on Brighton’), eye witnesses ‘all tell of indiscriminate police brutality’.

It has been suggested that following the ‘Battle of Lewes Road’, as it became known, Harry lost some of his popularity.

The high point of Harry’s life came in July 1933 when he was knighted for his services to charitable causes. In 1934, his wife, Edith, was presented at Court and Nancy, their daughter, followed suit in 1935.

Sir Harry died in August 1936 after several weeks of illness.  Tragically, a week later, his great friend, Captain Chandler (a former heavyweight boxer), died following complications which arose after he had given Harry a blood transfusion.

Sir Harry Preston’s funeral was attended by hundreds of people, too many to be accommodated in the parish church of St. Peter’s. London Road was lined with onlookers watching the cortege as it made its way from the church to Cuckfield, and two large motor coaches and eight cars were needed to take the huge numbers of floral tributes. Amongst them were wreaths from the theatre impresario, C B Cochran and the comedian and singer, George Robey.

The Brighton Herald reported :

‘ The passing of Sir Harry marks the closing of a chapter in the history of Brighton…. Brighton has lost her greatest ambassador, and the realm of sport one of its greatest figures.’

Paul Jordan, Senior History Centre Officer

Professor Zeidler, ‘Man of Laughter’

Professor Zeidler on Madeira Drive

‘Professor’ Charles Zeidler died in Brighton in June 1937. Known as the ‘man of laughter’, he had entertained the public in Brighton for twenty years. He stood outside ‘Laughterland’, the hall of mirrors, on Brighton’s Palace Pier and laughed. He would laugh as people went in and as they came out.

Born in Hastings in 1873 to German parents, the family had moved to Camelford Street, Brighton by 1881. Ten years later, he was listed as a ‘ventriloquist’ sharing lodgings in Portsmouth with a Herbert Clark, described as ‘pianist – this man is half developed’.

He married Amy Kirby, a well known music hall singer, in Doncaster in 1892 and by 1911, he and Amy and his four children had moved to Grosvenor Street, Brighton. He was again listed as a ventriloquist.

According to the Brighton Gazette in 1937, he was once the youngest conjuror in the world, performing at the age of twelve in London. He played at the Brighton Hippodrome, Brighton Alhambra and the Grand Theatre. Persons of note were said to have witnessed his laugh including the Duke of Kent, Earl Haig, and the Bishop of Birmingham. So famous was he that in 1936 he was featured on the radio show, In Town Tonight and told the country how he made his living by laughing.

Palace Pier programme, 1920s

He once boasted how he had put on seven stone by laughing, describing his occupation as a ‘healthy one’. But as the Gazette reported:

‘it was probably his weight which was a contributory cause to his death .…. He died from degeneration of the heart’.

Paul Jordan, Senior History Centre Officer

Personality of the Month – Dorothy Stringer (1894-1977)

On 19 December 1968, Dorothy Stringer was granted Freedom of the Borough of Brighton. She was only the second woman to have been honoured in this way but, given her record of service to the town, it must have come as no surprise. Best known for her contribution to education, Stringer was a former Mayor, Alderman and senior council member who was awarded an OBE in 1960. In 1969, when she was in her mid-seventies, she still served on countless committees.

Stringer was born in 1894 into a Brighton family that was active in public life. Her father Joseph was an Alderman, her mother Emma was a member of the Board of Guardians and her cousin, Herbert Galliers, was Mayor of Brighton in 1929. She joined the Council’s Education Committee in 1923 and served on it for an incredible 50 years. During this time, she became the committee’s first female chair and, in 1955, a new secondary school was named after her.

As a young woman, Stringer was a talented singer and pianist, and a member of St Bartholomew’s Church Choir. During the First World War, she is said to have taken part in performances put on to entertain wounded soldiers who were being cared for in Brighton’s military hospitals, including the Royal Pavilion.

She was first elected to Brighton Council in 1933 and was made the town’s Mayor in 1952. Two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings, invitations and other ephemera documenting her mayoral year are held at Brighton History Centre, and these show just how involved she was in the life of the town. From the opening of local businesses to visits to schools, sporting events, conferences and exhibitions, Dorothy Stringer seems to have been an ever-present figure.

Going to balls, banquets and concerts may have been part of the job but, evidently, Stringer also concerned herself with the welfare of vulnerable people, including children and the elderly. At the Mayoral Banquet, which was held at the Royal Pavilion, she made this clear,  promising to, ‘join in the laughter and joy of children and of youth, give a little happiness to the old folk, have courage when the need arises and try to make the right decisions.’

She also paid tribute to the women of Brighton, those who had served in the war, and those who were at home, ‘doing noble work’. At the end of her year of office, fellow councillor Stanley Deason had this to say:  ‘If you have done nothing else, you have made it plain that a woman of ability and integrity can take her place with men and do what they do, and you have done it magnificently. You have performed a service to women, the council and the town.’

Dorothy Stringer continued her work until 1974. She died in 1977 and is buried in Brighton’s Extra Mural Cemetery.

Kate Elms, Brighton History Centre