Boom and Bust

King Street, in Ramsgate, had grocers, butchers and bakers at one end as well as warehouses, stables, builders’ yards and drying grounds but the other end was largely residential. It consisted of detached houses, terraces and courts of small, tightly-packed cottages where occupants lived in overcrowded and insanitary conditions.

My ancestors lived in Newcastle Hill, opposite Packers Lane - named for the family who built around 40 cottages there. In 1867, most were reported to be ‘in a very filthy state’. They supported themselves by hawking fish. Sprat or young herrings were sold in the winter, from the beginning of November for about ten weeks, and when shellfish were in season women and children sold whelks, mussels, cockles and periwinkles in great quantities.

Ramsgate's informal economy provided only seasonal work for the hawkers, itinerant musicians and others who served tourists. As a result, the population succumbed to poverty, poor sanitation and ill-health. In 1849, a soup kitchen supplied 400 families with bread and soup four times weekly and a Ragged School was established off King Street, serving the courts and side streets behind where poverty was particularly acute. It was intended for the most destitute youngsters who were excluded from Sunday School due to their unkempt appearance or challenging behaviour.

The character Bill Swain in my story is based on a real William who was a Fish Hawker, like his father, at the age of 17 in Newcastle Hill. When William's father died in 1853 he started a a marine dealer’s business, collecting whatever old marine parts and general scrap metal he could find. In 1861 he was lodging with his young family at the Peal & Cobden public house at 72 King Street and by 1868 he and his teenage wife, who dealt in wardrobes, were selling second hand goods from a shop at 66 King Street. A shopkeeper who bought and sold scrap metals and parts and lived frugally on a poor street could accumulate cash and this appears to be what he did, because he and his wife came from nothing.

The three or four-storeyed terraced houses typical of King Street could be used as lodging houses, private residences or combination of the two. Ramsgate tradespeople engaged in property speculation as the resort grew - it was a risky, hand-to-mouth business, but it seems that the real William played the game and won. He put in an application to alter and rebuild shops in King Street in November 1871 and a newspaper article looking back at the history of the area explains that he made his money by converting stables into housing - he had been selling horses and carriages alongside his secondhand businesses since 1866 and continued selling donkeys, horses, ponies and cobs from 66 King Street until 1877.