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Edward VII

Please note that this text is an extract from a reference work written in 1990.  As a result, some of the content may not reflect recent research, changes and events.

The young Prince Edward first visited Brighton with his parents, Victoria and Albert, in 1842, aged less than one year. Edward came to the town many more times as Prince of Wales, and after he had succeeded his mother on 22 January 1901 at the age of fifty-nine, he convalesced in Brighton on several occasions in an attempt to improve his health; he suffered from bronchitis. He stayed with his daughter, Princess Louise, at her house, 1 Lewes Crescent, for a week in February 1908 and was afforded exclusive use of the Kemp Town enclosures. He was also a friend of the Sassoon family, and often stayed with Arthur Sassoon at 8 King’s Gardens, Hove.

The return of the sovereign to Brighton after some sixty years helped to re-establish Brighton’s fashionable reputation and winter society season, and brought about a general revival in the town’s fortunes. In 1908, in honour of the King, the corporation renamed the Kemp Town ward (and also tried, unsuccessfully, to rename the whole area) ‘King’s Cliff’, and also appended that title to Marine Parade. The Peace Statue on the Hove boundary is also a memorial to King Edward VII (see “King’s Road”), while Hove renamed its coast road ‘Kingsway’.

Any numerical cross-references in the text above refer to resources in the Sources and Bibliography section of the Encyclopaedia of Brighton by Tim Carder.

The following resource(s) is quoted as a general source for the information above: {3,48,115,261}

The bench on the right was Edward VII's favourite seat
From a private collection

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