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.

A C Smith

Arthur Conan Doyle played under this pseudonym for the amateur pre-runner of Portsmouth Football Club when he lived in the town in the 1880s.

HMS Victory

A 104 tonne first rate ship of the line commissioned in 1778, HMS Victory was already 27 years old and a veteran of three campaigns by the time she achieved fame and renown as the flagship of Vice Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. When retired from the frontline service in 1812, she was saved from disposal by the then First Naval Lord Thomas Hardy, once Flag Captain to Nelson and the ship’s most famous commanding officer. HMS Victory remained at moorings in Portsmouth Harbour for the next 110 years. It was during her time as the Royal Navy’s Telegraphy and Signal School between 1889 and 1906 that she was rammed by HMS Neptune, which was under tow heading to the breakers. By the 1920s Victory had fallen into a poor state of repair and a national appeal was launched to save her. She was moved to dry dock inside Portsmouth Dockyard in 1922 and subsequently restored to her 1805 fighting condition.

The Oldest House in Portsmouth

Wymering Manor is the oldest house in Portsmouth. Sadly, it is in a run down state and recent attempts to sell by the city council have failed. Currently it is mostly used by ghost and other paranormal activity hunters. The site has been occupied since Roman times although the first recorded occupant of Wymering Manor was William Mauduit. He probably came across with the invasion of 1066 from his home in Normandy and was involved in local research for the great survey of 1086 – known as the Domesday book. He held other manors in Hampshire and married a local Portchester girl named Hawyse in 1069 with whom he had three children. Most of the house dates from the sixteenth century, although it incorporates both original Roman and Saxon building materials. To find out more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wymering_Manor http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=552596722&sk=wall

The first dry dock

The first known dry dock in Europe was built in 1495 in Portsmouth on the order of Henry VII. The first ship to use these new facilities was the 600-ton Sovereign, which was worked on for 8 months. Getting her out of the dock proved tricky. Twenty men worked for a month ‘breking up of the dokke hede at every tide both day and night’ presumably removing the tons of material sealing the entrance. It can be argued that the decision to choose this location for the dry dock sealed Portsmouth’s fate as Britain’s premier port.

St James Hospital

This hospital was opened in 1879 as a lunatic asylum. Its very extensive grounds were cultivated until 1965 by patients who were thus allowed to contribute to their keep. It was one of the largest institutions of it type in the south of England and remains the only one still in use for its original purpose. The many changes in name through the decades reflect society’s view of mental illness: The Borough of Portsmouth Lunatic Asylum; Portsmouth Borough Mental Hospital; St James’ Hospital for Nervous and Mental Diseases and St James’ Psychiatric Hospital. Portsmouth City Records Office hold an extensive archival collection for this and the other hospitals in Portsmouth.

This Side Idolatry

This well researched but controversial novel based on the life of Charles Dickens was published in 1928. It was not altogether complimentary. Portsmouth City Council, proud of its links with with the author, promptly banned it from its public libraries. This book was billed as the ‘most discussed book of the century’ but Portsmouth residents were forced to buy their own copies to read. Portsmouth City library has an enviable collection regarding Dickens. However their catalogue shows that they still don’t possess a copy of this book.

Visit of a King

King George V visited Portsmouth on 15 July 1935 to review the fleet in celebration of his 25 years on the throne. Unusually he disembarked from a train at Cosham station and, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and Dukes of York and Kent, travelled to Portsmouth Dockyard by car. He was cheered along the way by thick crowds. Incidentally the ships at this jubilee review stretched for an amazing 27 miles.

Brighton Mary and Curzon Howe Road

The spotlight was on the Portsmouth authorities when a prostitute known as Brighton Mary was murdered in the inappropriately named Blossom Alley. Vivid descriptions of this poor woman’s wretched lifestyle hit both national and local headlines and galvanised the council into action. Slum clearance removed the dark, dangerous alleyways and in 1910 the first council housing in Portsmouth was opened in Curzon Howe Road, Portsea. The accommodation was of a high standard consisting of three bedrooms (one for the parents and one for children of each sex), a large front room, kitchen, scullery and bath. They had the luxury of hot water and an outside lavatory. These houses have stood the test of time, surviving the blitz, and can still be seen near the entrance to the dockyard. Portsmouth Record Office holds the original plans to these houses. http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=portsmouth+records+office&aq=0&aqi=g1g-v2&aql=&oq=portsmouth+records+off

Temperance

Being predominately a naval and garrison town, Portsmouth had an usually high number of drinking establishments. Consequently, the Portsmouth Temperance League regularly petitioned the licensing sessions citing examples of children as young as seven being served alcohol. In an exhibition held in 1911 they had some convincing statistics. They estimated the drink bill for Portsmouth in 1911 was £826,323 which would have paid for the Town Hall (£140,000), South Parade Pier (£70,000) and all the council schools and Technical Institute including equipment (£568,000). They also highlight that very little of this would go back into the local economy as wages unlike some of the other local industries.

Portsmouth Grammar School

Portsmouth Grammar School opened in 1750 in Penny Street, Portsmouth by William Smith, a philanthropic Mayor of Portsmouth. Although initially successful, by the mid nineteenth century it had declined and was refounded in 1873 with a new building at the top of the High Street being opened in 1879. This is now the Lower School. The school has subsequently flourished, taking over Clarence Barracks in 1926 and further buildings adjacent to the site in Museum Road in the 2000s. It is Portsmouth’s oldest school.