Robert Goff & the destruction of Brighton’s first pier

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history, Pier, Royal Pavilion, Storm, West Pier

On 4 December 1896 a storm destroyed the first of Brighton’s piers, the Chain Pier. It had been built in 1823, the same year the finishing touches were added to John Nash’s transformation of the Royal Pavilion into an Oriental-looking fantasy palace.

Destruction of the Old Chain Pier, Brighton, 1896

This etching by Hove-based artist Robert Charles Goff (1837-1922) records the destruction of Brighton’s first pier in that great storm of 4 December 1896.

Goff’s etchings and paintings earned him an international reputation during his lifetime. A fervent traveller, he found subjects for his art in Italy, Egypt, Japan, Holland and Switzerland, but he had a special connection with England’s south coast. He spent a total of 33 years in Hove and Brighton, whose seafronts inspired some of his best and most popular works.

This is one of Goff’s larger plates. It has a narrative comment etched onto one corner of the plate, noting the fate of Brighton’s earliest pier. Goff must have gone to the scene during the great storm, or soon after. The wind is still strong and there are large dramatic rain clouds in the west, plunging Brighton’s skyline into darkness. Dozens of curious people brave the wind and rain to look at the remains of the pier. The picture is also noteworthy for showing all three Brighton piers together. The Palace Pier (now Brighton Pier) is under construction, while rain is falling on the West Pier in the distance.

Water was a major theme in Goff’s work. He painted and etched views of the sea, shorelines and waterways in every phase of his career, wherever he worked and lived. In another etching Goff depicts waves crashing precariously around the end of the West Pier. The artist appears to have sketched this scene in strong wind and rain, standing very close to the edge of the water. The art critic Frederick Wedmore praised the work in 1911, commenting that there is ‘no better wave-drawing than Goff’s in The South Cone’.

The South Cone, before 1895

Within a few weeks of its destruction the Brighton writer John George Bishop paid tribute to the Chain Pier with the publication of a booklet commemorating  the building. A few months later he published a larger and lavishly decorated and illustrated book: The Brighton Chain Pier: In Memoriam. Its history from 1823 to 1896, with a biographical notice of Sir Samuel Brown, its designer and constructor, and an appendix. Several of the photographs in the book are the work of Brighton and Hove photographers Ebenezer Pannell and Thomas Donovan.

The Brighton Chain Pier: In Memoriam. Its history from 1823 to 1896, with a biographical notice of Sir Samuel Brown, its designer and constructor, and an appendix.

A digital copy of this book is available via the Internet Archive. 

Alexandra Loske, Guide and Researcher at the Royal Pavilion

Brighton’s Beaches and Bathing Pools

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Aquarium, Bank Holiday, Beach, Brighton Beach, Brighton Rock, Brighton Swimming Club, Christmas, City by the Sea, Dr Richard Russell, Kemp Town, Martha Gunn, Punch and Judy, Swimming, The Grand, The Prince of Wales, West Pier

Stylish, flamboyant and fun, Brighton has evolved over hundreds of years from a tiny fishing community into a vibrant, modern ‘city by the sea’. Today, Brighton is identified with many things – its festival, universities and fine Regency architecture among them – but its status as a fashionable seaside resort, along with its fascinating history, is perhaps its greatest attraction.

Brighton, pre 1869, HA920862

Early visitors to Brighton were motivated not by leisure or pleasure but by their health and wellbeing. Seawater cures were popular by the mid 18th century and Brighton’s proximity to London made it a good alternative to spa towns such as Bath. Lewes-based Dr Richard Russell moved his practice to Brighton in the 1750s, famously recommending that his patients not only swim in the sea, but also drink the salty water. Other physicians offered similar advice, prompting an influx of wealthy visitors to the town.

A Dip in the Sea

Public bathing was highly regulated, of course, and bathing machines were a familiar sight on Brighton’s beaches in the 18th and 19th centuries. These enclosed wooden carts were wheeled right into the sea so that bathers, having changed in private, could step into the water without exposing themselves in any way. Some swimmers employed a ‘dipper’ or ‘bather’ to help them into the water and provide further invigoration by plunging them up and down. Separate beaches were established for men and women and, in line with this segregation, male ‘bathers’ assisted men while female ‘dippers’ – of whom the most famous was Martha Gunn – attended to women.

Bathing carts, c1875, HA920345

Seawater swimming baths were also popular with Brighton’s aristocracy, since they provided the therapeutic benefits of the sea along with greater seclusion and protection from the elements. Few people swam for the sheer fun of it in the Georgian era; the healing powers of the water were the driving force.

Fashionable Society and the New Daytrippers

The Prince of Wales first visited Brighton in 1783 and was instantly seduced by its charms. The royal connection enhanced the town’s reputation as a sophisticated resort, despite the raffish behaviour of the prince’s circle of friends. Life in fashionable society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries was all about seeing and being seen, and this led to the creation of elegant public spaces and promenades in which to take the sea air. The 1820s in Brighton saw the development of Kemp Town’s imposing crescents, the construction of the Chain Pier and the opening of seafront carriage drives such as King’s Road, all to meet the needs of wealthy tourists.

Brighton beach and Chain Pier, c 1890, HA920305

However, it wasn’t just the rich who made their way to this part of the coast. The arrival of the railway linking London to Brighton in the mid 19th century brought an entirely different class of visitor. Thanks to the shortened journey time and affordable fares, working people were able to enjoy a day at the beach for the first time. Families packed into third-class carriages and descended on the town in their thousands, eager to enjoy the sights and sounds of the seaside. Punch and Judy shows, acrobatic displays and ice-cream stalls, not to mention paddling and picnicking on the pebbles, were all things that appealed to the new daytrippers.

The beau monde, on the other hand, were less enthusiastic about rubbing shoulders with the lower classes, so the fashionable ‘season’ shifted to the cooler months. Luxury hotels, including The Grand, were built on the seafront to accommodate guests searching for winter sunshine, while the newly opened West Pier allowed them to take the sea air.

Changes Through the 20th Century

By the mid 19th century, swimming had become a popular pastime. Brighton Swimming Club, founded in 1860, provided ‘aquatic entertainment’, ranging from swimming races and water polo matches to diving displays, all of which could be viewed from the pier. Many of the club’s traditions have survived, including the annual Christmas morning swim, which has been taking place for more than 100 years.

The end of the Victorian era coincided with a gradual relaxation of the more formal codes of behaviour. Mixed bathing was finally sanctioned in Brighton in 1901, giving greater freedom for couples and families to enjoy a day at the beach together. Swimwear became less restrictive – and a whole lot more stylish – while the 19th century obsession with retaining a pale complexion became a thing of the past. Instead, holidaymakers sunned themselves on the terraces of the Aquarium and the Palace Pier, at the outdoor pool at Black Rock, and the Art Deco lido at Saltdean. Beauty pageants, such as the Bathing Belle competition, reflected the carnival atmosphere of the period, while photographs taken during the 1920s and 1930s capture the sense of fun and frivolity. In contrast, Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock, which was published in 1938, depicted a darker side to life.

Thinking of you at Brighton, 1920s, HA920359

Brighton’s beaches were closed during the war and, in the years that followed, the effects of rationing and of financial hardship were clearly felt by the town and its inhabitants. An air of optimism returned in the 1950s, as people flocked to the piers and beaches once more – in 1957, 95,000 people were reported to have visited the Palace Pier during the August Bank Holiday weekend. This was the age of helter skelters and slot machines, rock shops and paddle steamers. The introduction of the Promettes – chic, uniformed young women who were employed to answer questions and provide assistance to weekend visitors – was one of the more memorable initiatives of the 1950s. Described in one local paper as ‘walking information bureaux with sex appeal’, they added a touch of glamour to the promenade.

But the holiday industry was changing and, in the 1960s and 1970s, the English seaside faced competition from package deals to the Mediterranean. Coastal resorts were forced to reinvent themselves in order to survive, and Brighton was no exception. Key developments that have come to define the town include the establishment of Sussex University in the early 1960s, the annual Brighton Festival, which first took place in 1967, and the Marina, a controversial idea that came to fruition in the 1970s. Since then, Brighton – along with Hove – has been awarded city status and, while much has changed, much has remained the same. People are drawn by its unique character, and there is still a sense, as you step off the train and head down the hill to the beach, that this is a place where anything might happen.

Kate Elms, Brighton History Centre

Chain Pier

Tags

Aquarium, Camera Obscura, Daddy Long Legs, Dieppe, Newhaven, Palace Pier, Pier, Royal Pavilion, The Chain Pier, Volk's, West Pier

The Chain Pier was 350 yards long and thirteen feet wide. It was basically a bridge between the cliff wall and four towers.

The old Chain Pier, Brighton, HA927614

The towers were made of huge slabs of cast iron. They were held out of the water, 250 feet apart, by clumps of Norway Fir piles driven ten feet into the sea bed.

Eight wrought iron chains were fixed fifty feet into the cliff and then were strung through the top of each tower. The links of the chains were ten feet long. At the other end they were sunk into solid rock on the sea floor.

Wooden platforms were hung from these chains using 362 suspension rods. These made the bridges. The pier head, in the shape of a ‘T’, was built on 150 piles and paved with Purbeck stone. The ornaments and chains were painted in green and black. The towers are thought to have been stone coloured.

Constructing the Pier 

The Need for a Pier

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Brighton needed a landing stage. It did not have a natural harbour.  Passengers, cargo, horses and carriages had to board the cross-channel packets by boat or raft.

Chain Pier by William Earp, 19th Century

When the Chain Pier was built during 1822-1823, it provided an easy embarkation platform which quickly became a tourist attraction. A boat’s departure was signalled by firing a 6lb cannon and the raising of a blue and white flag. Steam packets, introduced in the 1820s, could cross to Dieppe in seven to nine hours. The writer William Hazlitt said: ‘People wonder at a steamboat, the invention of man, managed by man, that makes its liquid path like an iron railway through the sea.’

Brighton became the busiest cross-channel port with several packets daily. However, the difficulty of landing in bad weather made Newhaven‘s sheltered port more attractive. After 1847, when the railway went to Newhaven, few ships sailed from Brighton.

Building the Pier

In July 1822, the Directors of the Brighton Suspension Pier Company formally approved Capt Samuel Brown’s designs for building the Pier and the road leading to it for £28,000. At least £22,000 had already been raised through the sale of shares for £100 each.

Building began on 18 September 1822 at the start of the most ‘stormy and perilous season.’.

Working conditions were dangerous. ‘Frequently in the darkest and most tempestuous nights these men were required to go off by ropes to the scaffolding erected around the piles.’ One man died falling from a temporary bridge and at least three others were seriously injured. By June 1823 it was reported that, ‘a suspension bridge has been erected to the extremity of the Chain Pier, so that the whole is now accessible’.

The works were a constant source of interest to visitors. In July 1823 the company introduced a viewing charge of 6d. and ‘requested that visitors will not divert the attention of the workmen from their duty’.

The Chain Pier opened on 25 November 1823 with a procession of local worthies, music, a lunch and fireworks. For the less select company in the town, Mr Bush of Church Street gave away three hogs-heads of beer.

Life on the Pier 

Although two landing piers had been built before Brighton’s, neither had provoked such popular admiration. Guidebooks described it as ‘a curious specimen of modern ingenuity and scientific art’.

Queen Victoria Landing at Brighton by Richard Henry Nibbs, 1843 (Chain Pier on right)

Footman William Taylor, who visited in 1837, described it as ‘a kind of bridge projecting into the sea a quarter of a mile. It’s a great curiosity as it’s hung on chains’. One young visitor said it had ‘every advantage of a sail in one of the pleasure boats without the danger of being sick’ and ‘next to bathing, … most beneficial to our health’.

Even at the end of its life it retained its romance: ‘the old sun-dial with its familiar inscription, the curious old roofed wooden seats, the ragged floor … the huge suspension chains stretching way into the cliff … all are curious, and unlike anything else we know of in a seaside pier’.

A Present from Brighton

The base of each tower housed a shop. They sold confectionery, refreshments, jewellery, prints, books and souvenirs such as Tunbridge Ware or polished stones from the beach. In the third tower, artist John Gapp cut silhouettes of visitors using only scissors. He advertised ‘the most wonderful likenesses in which the expression and peculiarity of character are brought into action in a very superior style’.

At the start of the century, only wealthy people could afford to go on holiday. After the railway came to Brighton in 1841, working people began to spend a day or week at the seaside. Souvenirs showed that you were rich enough to travel and were a reminder of your trip. They varied from a 1d. needlecase or picture book to expensive china or Bohemia ware. Early souvenirs might have been a print stuck to a knick-knack but they were later mass produced. The Chain Pier and the Royal Pavilion provided the most popular views.

Entertainment on the Pier

The Chain Pier was a novel experience for residents and visitors. Some wondered at its huge chains and towers. Others thrilled at being able to walk over the sea. At one high tide ‘there were thirty or forty persons at the outer head, who were completely covered, the sea breaking over the towers’.

At the height of its popularity in the 1820s and 1830s, as many as 4000 people went on the pier in one day. A high admission charge of 2d limited the number and type of visitor. They were entertained by regimental bands and, later on, all sorts of side shows.

Suspended underneath the pier head were seawater baths for men and women. They were more private than the beach where it was said that a respectable woman would be ‘insulted, and her feelings outraged by the grossest acts of indecency’.

Massive firework displays were staged on special occasions by the pyrotechnist, Mr Jones. There was a camera obscura which caused the footman, William Tayler, great amusement; it was ‘machinery, fixed in a house, by which they can bring the shadow of everything for miles around in at a hole of the house, onto a table. So that if a person was committing a theft half a mile away and thinking no one was looking at him, any person mite see him if they was in this Camera Obscura’.

Deconstruction 

Battles Against the Elements

Photographic print of the Chain Pier, before and after the storm, 1896, HA902111

The Chain Pier withstood its first major battle against the sea in November 1824. Water surged over the towers but only damaged some of the ornamental ironwork and tore away a ‘dolphin’ (one of the buoys which prevented ships being blown on to the pier).

Disaster struck in 1833 when the third bridge, whipped by the wind, flew apart. Subscriptions were raised for its repair but just three years later, the same bridge was again destroyed. This time donations were harder to raise.

John George Bishop, author of A Peep into the Past, a late nineteenth century history of Brighton, recalls the dramatic visit of a whirlwind in 1848 which happily left the Pier unscathed. It was a ‘very black cloud, of a conical shape, and like a large cistern suspended in the air, with the water pouring from it’.

Pier in Decline

The Chain Pier’s decline began in the 1860s. The Victorian family visitor was more attracted to the novelty of Eugenius Birch’s West Pier (1866), with its band and side-shows, and the Aquarium (1871).

In 1891 the Palace Pier was granted planning permission on the condition that the Chain Pier would be demolished.

Neglect and delay weakened the pier and it was declared unsafe in October 1896.

On 4 December 1896 a ‘terrific storm of wind, with some rain’ blew all day. At about 10.30pm, ‘suddenly, amid the roaring waves and the howling of the wind, the pier shivered convulsively from end to end; and in a few moments the entire structure had collapsed. Nothing remained standing but the vestiges of the first piles of timbers’. An eye witness, Mr F.W. Wilson, said that ‘The light at the pier-head remained until the last’.

The next morning, all that remained was the broken first tower and some jagged piles jutting out of the sea. The chains had sunk right down onto the beach and sea bed.

Memento

The huge timbers of the Chain Pier smashed Magnus Volk’s  seagoing railway, the ‘Daddy Longlegs‘, and damaged the Palace Pier, which was then being built.

The wreckage that was strewn across the beaches was sold off at auction, mainly for firewood, but many local residents managed to carry away some small reminder of the pier. Railings were made into pokers and wood into picture frames, carved into knick-knacks or kept as they were, perhaps painted with a view of the fondly remembered Chain Pier.

This text was previously published on the Royal Pavilion and Museums’ main website.