No selling of the silver

For 1838 the following is recorded in the City of Portsmouth Corporation records: ‘The Town Council made a wise decision for which future generations will bless them. They decided, unlike many other of the new Corporations, not to sell the Civic Plate which had been presented during the three preceding centuries, and so the City Corporation today possesses a very fine collection of historic plate.’ This far sighted decision, at a time of great hardship in Portsmouth, enabled the wonderful collection of civic plate to be placed in the safe keeping of the current for the future generation of Portsmouth residents. The Municipal Reform Act of 1835, which replaced the old system of civic government by new corporations with greater powers and responsibilities, had a profound effect on the way local life was governed.

A visit by Dickens

In 1838 when Charles Dickens was undertaking research for Nicholas Nickleby, he visited Portsmouth. Of this visit, it was said: ‘He succeeded in finding suitable lodging for Vincent Crummles at Balph the pilots, in St Thomas’s Street for Miss Snevellicci at a tailor’s in Lombard Street; while Nickleby and his companion were quartered at a tobacconist’s on the Common Hard, which he describes as a ‘dirty street leading down to the dockyard’. Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812 and was a returning visitor throughout his life.

The old Town Hall

The original town hall was built in the middle of the High St, Portsmouth close to St Thomas Church, in c1738. This was rather damningly described in 1748: ‘It is supported by Stone Arches; The superstructure Brick; containing one (it ought to be spacious) Room, and a Council-Chamber; but both ill contrived and excessively small. The Outside … is indeed noble and uniform; one end being ornamented by a handsome Portico, and the other a Venetian Window. Indeed the whole Building may be well compared to the Members of the Borough, in their scarlet and Furs; a pompous External, but very small dirty and irregular within.’ This building became an obstruction to traffic and was replaced by a new Town Hall, again in the High Street, built in the Doric style during the late 1830s.