Swedish sea fight

On 1 May 1647 there was a sea fight off Portsmouth involving 5 Swedish ships.

Loathsome Portsmouth

'that loathsome place subject to ague and the infection of so many poor sailors'

The view of Secretary Cope, one of the Commissioners of The Admiralty, writing in May 1628.

Repeated sacking

In 1338 a French fleet led by Nicholas Béhuchet arrived in Portsmouth Harbour flying English flags before anyone realised that they were a hostile force. The French burned down most of the buildings in the town; only the local church and Domus Dei survived. The population was subjected to rape and slaughter. As a result of this, King Edward III gave the remaining townsfolk exemption from national taxes so that they could afford to rebuild the town. Only ten years after this devastation, the town for the first time was struck by the plague known as the Black Death. In order to prevent the regrowth of Portsmouth as a threat, the French again sacked the city in 1369, 1377 and 1380. This directly resulted in the first permanent fortifications in Portsmouth, the Round Tower at the harbour mouth.

R J Winnicott Limited

This local building company is well into its second century. It was started in 1904 by Robert John Winnicott who was only 21. Initially taking advantage of the building boom in Portsmouth in the early years of the 20th century the company flourished by buying land, building houses and selling some on but also keeping others as investments. As the decades passed, they moved into contract work and opened up several hardware shops in south east Hampshire. The houses they built were in Copnor, Eastney and Cosham. In Copnor they are known to have built houses in Wallington, Copythorn, Westbourne, Cosham, Powerscourt, Tokio, Mayhall, Seafield and Highgate Roads. These were built with bricks from the nearby Portsmouth Brickworks in Burrfield Road. http://www.winnicott.co.uk/history.html

Playing with rats

An unusual local pastime was outlawed in October 1704 with the following appearing in the Portsmouth court records: 'that the anointing of Ratts with Turpentine and putting fire to them is of Dangerous consequence especially in this Towne where there are magazeens of Powder and tends to the setting the dwelling houses of the Inhabitants on fire' The past is indeed a different country.

Pigs

Pig keeping was a major pastime for our ancestors and nowhere more so than in Portsmouth. However people were not particular where they either kept or butchered their animals leading to endless complaints being laid before the local courts. This presentment made against a Thomas Yonge in 1629 is typical: 'killing, scalldinge and dressinge of Hogges in the highe streete pumpe and in consequence a paine is set to all inhabitance of this towne that they doe not scalled any porker in any of the streets belonging to this towne...' Can you imagine someone killing and butchering a pig in the main water supply.

Snippet from the present

There are currently 75,000 military and commercial ship movements a year in Portsmouth harbour. 60% of the surface Fleet of the Royal Navy – almost 50 ships – are based here. The Naval Base has three miles of waterfront, 62 acres of basins,15 working dry docks and currently employs 17,000 people.

Hovercrafts

Since its establishment in 1965, Hovertravel has carried over 26 million passengers between Portsmouth and Ryde on the Isle of Wight. It is the world's longest running and the only remaining commercial hovercraft operator in Europe.

Oil

In 1936 the D’Arcy Exploration Company began an attempt to find oil under Portsdown Hill. It was unsuccessful and they gave up in February 1938. Oil has however recently been discovered however in nearby Leigh Park.

Clarence Brickwood Kingsbury

A local unsung hero is Clarence Kingsbury who won two gold medals for cycling at the 1908 Olympics. When he returned to Portsmouth, 15,000 people had gathered to cheer him in Town Hall (now Guildhall) Square and a concert was held in his honour. Portsmouth City Museum holds some memorabilia of Kingsbury’s cycling career including his gold medals.