Brightlingsea.
Has the distinction of being the only connection with the Cinque Ports outside of Kent and Sussex. A Limb of Sandwich, the town does not appear in any of the early existing documents of the Ports nor in the Domesday survey of the Ports in 1229. However, it is known that Brightlingsea asked for and obtained a charter of confirmation in 1442, a part of which reads: Be it remembered that on the 24th. day of July in the 20th year {1442} of the reign of King Henry VI of England after the Conquest at the Brodhull it was agreed that all the Residents and Inhabitants of the town of Brightlingsea in the County of Essex, which town from ancient times has been a member of the Cinque Ports and that the town of Sandwich make them a record of the same under the seal of office of mayorality there...
There are two approaches to Brightlingsea, one by road and one by sea. The town is ten miles south-east of Colchester, the oldest recorded town in England, eleven miles north-west of Clacton and twenty-two miles south-west of Harwich - the gate to the continent of Europe. From the sea Brightlingsea is found on the north bank of a little creek which runs eastward from the River Colne. From 1866 the town was served well by trains until 1964 when the branch line from Wivenhoe was closed.
Brightlingsea's principal industry during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and perhaps into relative recent times, was undoubtedly oyster dredging. But the severe winter of 1962/63 almost killed off this livelihood - the death knell being sounded with the closure of the Colne Oyster Fishery in May,1963. And with its going Brightlingsea's identity as an oyster-town was lost. Stowboating for sprats also occupied the maritime fraternity and the little fish provided employment ashore for both men and Women.
Brightlingsea began her long and successful connection with yachting in the 1840's. Many sailors crewed the racing and cruising yachts in the summer months and went fishing, scalloping and oyster-dredging at other times. The smacksmen, used to handling the cutter-rigged smacks, took naturally to fore-and-aft rigged yachts. They also had a wide knowledge of the Thames estuary, the Channel and nearby waters. The creeks made good mud berths for laying-up the yachts and there were shipyards with skilled men for building and repairs. Brightlingsea became a naval base during World War One, and the shipyards were busy with Admiralty work, as they were again in World War Two.
Farming, mainly grain production, but with livestock on the reclaimed marshes, remained a substantial livelihood in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it was a boom in fishing that gave Brightlingsea its precarious added prosperity. Brightlingsea men still go to sea today, in the Royal and Merchant navies, also Customs and pilot services. And the much reduced local fishing and oyster enterprises provide employment for a hardy few.
An annual ceremony which is unique to Brightlingsea is Mayor-making on the first Monday following St. Andrew's Day each December when new inhabitants are also recognised and proclaimed Freemen. Residence in Brightlingsea for a year and a day is the new inhabitant's only necessary qualification and those of Brightlingsea birth, or 'who had the good sense to have married a Brightlingsea woman' are given their Freedom without payment. 'Foreigners' are fined eleven pence for the privilege. The Mayor-Deputy is chosen by the Freemen from three reputable inhabitants and, on being elected, now serves the town as its social head and as the Mayor of Sandwich's representative locally for the ensuing twelve months. In times past, with his six Assistants, who are also elected each year with him, the Deputy was responsible for the citizens' conduct, the Assistants particularly swearing to aid him in seeing that disorderly and unruly persons are punished and reformed 'that good order and good quiet may be ratified and established'. The Manor Court from earliest times managed the affairs of the town and later the Deputy and Assistants, with a certain amount of supervision by Sandwich, helped more especially in affairs outside the Court's scope. When these jurisdictions declined, the Vestry managed local affairs until the Local Government Act of 1888. Under that Act a Parish Council was formed and this lasted until an Urban District Council took over, with wider powers, nine years later. The present Town Council was born out of the reorganisation of local government on 1 April, 1974, which did away with the old Urban District Council and transferred almost all power to a new Tendring District Council in which Brightlingsea has but four votes out of a total of sixty. Effectively the new legislation took away all meaning of the word 'local' from local government. Notwithstanding the dilution of their powers the local town councillors exercised their prerogative of annually electing a Town Mayor from among their number instead of the traditional chairman. Thus Brightlingsea is in the unique position of having two Mayors. But, happily, the town has been able to accept this, seeing one as the civic head and the other as the social head.
The present Parish Church of All Saints, 'the mariners' church on the hill', has stood at the entrance to the town for some seven hundred years. Earlier buildings on the site are thought to date back to the coming of Christianity to Essex in 653. In 1969 the condition of the fabric had deteriorated to the point where it seemed likely that the church would be made redundant and closed. However, a body of 'Friends' was formed in the town to shoulder the responsibility of raising the funds needed to restore and maintain the church. As a result of their efforts interest in the church has been aroused and so far the necessary funds have been found.
Brightlingsea - February, 1983
A.L. Wakeling
This introduction of Brightlingsea was written by my dear friend Alf Wakeling, who is the Community Council of Essex Recorder for Brightlingsea under that Council's local history recorder scheme, this Introduction was taken from his book "Brightlingsea in old picture postcards". Alf has also written a few other books 2 of which I have "Brightlingsea - Echoes of the past" and "The Liberty of Brightlingsea"
A lot of the data I have would not have been possible without the help of Alf and his knowledge of Brightlingsea.