Hastings history: Celebrating the role of women in the history of our town

He writes: An exciting all-day event to celebrate International Women’s Day is taking place this Sunday 12th in the Stade Hall. Just along Rock-a-Nore Road from the hall is the Fishermen’s Museum, where there is a big display of Victorian photos, many of which show women and girls living, working and having fun in Hastings nearly 140 years ago.

The pictures were all taken by local man George Woods between about 1891 and 1897, when he had a private income that allowed him to devote much of his life to taking well over 2,500 glass plate negatives of Hastings and the surrounding countryside. I have reproduced many of them on my website www.hastingshistory.net/images.

One of the pictures on display shows three women counting a large quantity of herrings landed from Hastings fishing boats. Herrings were sold by number, not by weight, so the women are counting them as they put them into baskets. It was a messy job they had to concentrate on, making sure they had the right number in each basket.

Another three women are having a rest while sitting on a horse capstan opposite Breeds Place. They are flower sellers, probably from outside Hastings, and the woman on the right is holding a baby.

Fisherman Tom Willis is sitting outside his net shop in Rock-a-Nore Road, and with him are probably his wife and daughter. The poster is advertising the Hastings Rowing Club’s annual regatta on 8 August 1894.

The Fishermen’s Museum sells copies of the George Woods photos it has on display. The Museum is open every day from 11.00-4.00; admission is free but donations are welcome.

Several famous women have lived in Hastings. One of the best known is Catherine Cookson, author of many popular working class novels. She was born in South Shields in 1906, where she had a deprived life. She moved to Hastings in 1929, taking a job in Hastings Workhouse as the laundry manager. In 1940 she married Hastings Grammar School teacher Tom Cookson, but she had three miscarriages during the war. Her resulting depression prompted her to begin writing the novels, helped by Tom, for which she became famous. She died in 1998.

Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, born in Bristol in 1821, was a British physician who was the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, in 1849, and who in 1859 became the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the UK. She moved to Rock House in Exmouth Place in Hastings Old Town in 1879, where she played a lively role in local politics. She died there in 1910.

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