Photographs from 1930-1954
This photographic print was made by the Borough Surveyor's department in about 1930. It shows Dockerills Ironmongers on the northern side of Edward Street, Brighton. The Salvation Army Citadel is visible on the left of the photograph.
Reproduced courtesy of Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton & Hove
This photographic print was made by the Borough Surveyor's department in June 1951. It shows Edward Street, Brighton, looking east toward Dorset Gardens.
Reproduced courtesy of Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton & Hove
This photographic print was made by the Borough Surveyor's department in October 1954. It shows the corner of Edward Street and John Street, Brighton. Three buses canbe seen in a car park on the left of the photograph. In 1965 the police station opened on this site. The building was designed by Percy Billington, the Borough Surveyor.
Reproduced courtesy of Royal Pavilion, Libraries & Museums, Brighton & Hove
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When the Police Station was designed, Percy Billington was the Chief Architect. The Borough Surveyor was Dennis Howe.
My grand parents’ and parent’s secondhand furniture shops were formerly on the cleared site in the 1930s.
The addresses were of the two shops were 15 & 16 Edward Street. Grandfather was Frances Clifton Hay and died in 1935 soon after the compulsory purchase order. I am told that long after the two shops were demolished, builders rediscovered one of the cellars containing a load of WW1 equipment that grandfather bought as a job lot.
Wish I had a picture showing the shops when they were there.
My dad, George Sullivan (born in Brighton 1918), worked for the scrap metal firm Freemans just off Edward Street when I was young in the 1950s. He used to be a lorry driver, and came from the Queen’s Park area. His mother was Mary Sullivan, born in Brighton in 1895. I am looking for more information about the Sullivans in Brighton.
I was a member Brighton Boys Club way back in the early 1950s. Had some great times there with my cousin Peter Lewery and a mutual friend John Markwick. But I think the best times were with the cricket team playing various schools and colleges around Sussex. I can only recall a few names from the team. John Barnard (spin bowler); Dapper Thwaites (wicket keeper) and Dennis Crump is there anyone else out there who remembers?
Just adding to my letter of 18/12/10.I was a few years awry with my memory. I think it was mid to late forties. I also think that John Barnard went on to play for Sussex.
This site is brilliant, it has bought back a lot of memoirs of when I was growing up and hopefully will have contact with old friends and neighbours. Kathy Catt [nee Cornford]
I was born in William Street, number ten (Newman family), just to the left of Freeman’s scrap metal. In John Street there used to be a waste paper company, us kids would collect old paper and cardboard and sell it to the man in the yard for pennies. The place was full of rats which the man used to catch in traps and drown them in a big tub.
I worked as an Office Clerk at Virgo Engineers on Edward St. in the early fifties. Across the street was Virgo Builders Merchants. Anyone know if any of the Virgo family descendants are still in the Brighton area?
I lived in Edward St over my dad’s car part shop from about 1947/1959. The shop was green, across from us Chapel St. Jean Guidi. Remember me?
Hi Sylvia: I have posted a picture of Virgo’s ironmongers in Edward Street at this address:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/70607220@N04/15474826923/
The photograph was taken because my mother Lorna Ward worked at Virgo’s as a typist/clerk in about 1944.
Duffy; didn’t the paper company used to be called George Richardson’s. I remember in the 1950s taking cardboard and rags there for pennies as you say. We as kids used to collect loads of cardboard from the gasworks at the end of Boundary Road behind St. Marks school. They were glad to get rid of it. It was mainly corrugated cardboard. At that time there was a paper scrapyard in Arundel Road just by T.Rees Morgan the chemist and adjacent to Wilsons Laundry so we only had to literally walk across the road for our pocket money. At some time this yard full of paper caught fire. After that they built garages on the site I think. So we kids still got the paper from the gasworks but then had to trudge the tied up bundle of cardboard along Eastern Road to Richardsons, sometimes with a four nag in tow. A lot of hard work for a few pence to buy sweets. Still fond memories from that time.
Gordon Hewitt posted a comment (elsewhere on this website) on Boxing Day about the bottom photo: “Where you have a picture of Edward St and John St is actually William St and Henry St. John St is the next street up. You can see Kingswood Flats through Henry St. I lived in John St two doors away from Kent’s shop at the top end of John St until 1956.” I tend to agree with him. If you took a photo from the same spot today, standing in Edward Street, you would be looking straight at the Law Courts. William Street is on the left and Henry Street, which disappeared when the Law Courts and Police Station were built, is on the right. John Street is out of shot up the hill to the right. You cannot see the Police Station from this point, as the Law Courts obstruct that view.
I used to live in Henry Street, No 25, which was badly damaged courtesy of Hitler’s bombs. My twin brother and I, plus other family members moved across the road, Carlton Hill, to Milner Flats when the house was finally demolished. We used to play in the area during the 50’s, often’ making war’ with William Street kids, like Micky Rolf, et al. I remember quite vividly the characters living in the vicinity, like Mr. Kemp and his sweet shop, the Corders and the pub on the corner and the smell of beer caught in the breeze created by a door opening and closing as we sat outside the pub with a penny biscuit and lemonade.
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