16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES

In June 1514, the fishing village (then known as Brighthelmstone) was burnt to the ground by the French as part of a war which began as a result of the Treaty of Westminster (1511). Subsequently in 1545 the residents of the town petitioned the monarch for defensive cannon. Their petition featured an illustrated map showing the French raid, a copy of which can be seen in Hove Museum.

This map is the earliest known picture of Brighton. It shows a site laid out in a rectangular shape about a quarter of a mile square. The lower town of houses on the foreshore can be seen with a series of sloping ways rising eastwards up the cliff. Middle Street came into existence during the 16th century and West Street, North Street and East Street were fully developed by the 16th century. However the interior between Middle Street and East Street remained undeveloped and was known as the Hempshares.

After his defeat at the Battle of Worcester, Charles II escaped to France through Brighton and finally Shoreham-by-Sea. This event is remembered annually by the Royal Escape yacht race, now organised by Sussex Yacht Club.

EARLY 18TH CENTURY DECLINE

By the 1640s Brighthelmstone had a population of over 4,000 and was the largest settlement in Sussex. Its economy was dominated by the fishing industry.

However this period of relative prosperity was followed by a slow decline into the 18th century due to a fall in the demand for fish and sea erosion. The Great Storm of 1703 caused considerable damage to the town. Daniel Defoe reported that the storm:

Stript a great many houses, turn'd up the lead of the church, overthrew two wind-mills, and laid them flat on the ground, the town in general (at the approach of daylight) looking as though it had been bombarded — Daniel Defoe, The Storm

A second storm in 1705 destroyed the lower town and covered the wreckage of the houses with shingle. The fortifications of the west cliff were destroyed in 1748.  Proposed sea defences at a cost of £8,000 were described by Defoe as "more than the whole town was worth".  By the mid-18th century the population had fallen to 2,000.

In 1720, antiquary John Warburton, travelling along the south coast, reported:

I arrived at Bright-hems tead, a large, ill-built, irregular market town, mostly inhabited by sea-faring men, who choose their residence here, as being situated on the main, and convenient for their going on shore, on their passing and re-passing in the coasting trade. The town is likely to share the same fate with the last [Hove], the sea having washed away the half of it; whole streets being now deserted, and the beach almost covered with walls of houses being almost entire, the lime or cement being strong enough, when thrown down, to resist the violence of the waves. The church is situated on the downs, at a furlong distance from the town ; it is large, but nothing about it worthy of remark, or in the town; there not being any person of fortune in the town but one Masters (or Morley?) a gentleman of good birth.

HEALTH RESORT AND ROYAL PATRONAGE IN THE LATE 18TH CENTURY

During the 1730-60s, several doctors including Dr Richard Russell of Lewes began to prescribe the medicinal use of seawater at Brighthelmstone for his patients. He wrote a tract advocating the drinking of seawater and sea bathing in 1750. In 1753 he erected a large house on the southern side of the Steine for his own and patients' accommodation.

After Dr Russell's death in 1759, his house was let to seasonal visitors including the brother of George III the Duke of Cumberland in 1771. On 7 September 1783 the Prince of Wales, later the Prince Regent, visited his uncle, whose taste for gaming and high life matched his own. The Prince's subsequent patronage of the town for the next forty years was central to the rapid growth of the town and the transition of the fishing village of Brighthelmston to the modern town of Brighton. Rex Whistler's famous cheeky satire The Prince Regent Awakens the Spirit of Brighton is on view at the Brighton Pavilion.

Marlborough House on the Old Steine was built by Robert Adam in 1765 and purchased shortly afterwards by the fourth duke. By 1780, development of the Georgian terraces that characterise the classic Brighton streetscape had started, and the town quickly became the fashionable resort of Brighton. The growth of the town was further encouraged when, in 1786, the young Prince of Wales, later the Prince Regent and George IV, rented a farmhouse to make a public demonstration of his new-found fiscal sobriety. He spent much of his leisure time in the town, where he set up a discreet establishment for his mistress Mrs Fitzherbert and constructed the exotic Royal Pavilion, which is the town's best-known landmark.

One of many tributes to the growing resort came from the travelling entertainer and poet Elizabeth Beverley, who contributed to the Brighton Herald on 15 August 1818 a poem that begins, "Hail, favour'd spot, divine retreat!/Sweet refuge from Sol's scorching heat.../Who from the village, rose thy state/To be a town superb and great..."

The Kemp Town estate (at the heart of the Kemptown district) was constructed between 1823 and 1855, and is a good example of Regency architecture.

NINETEENTH CENTURY AND PRE-WAR PERIOD

Brighton's popularity with the rich, famous, and royal continued in the 19th century, and saw the building of a number of imposing seafront hotels, including the Bedford Hotel of 1829, the Grand Hotel of 1864, and the Metropole Hotel of 1890.

Brighton came to be of importance to the railway industry after the building of the Brighton railway works in 1840. This brought Brighton within the reach of day-trippers from London, who flocked to peep at Queen Victoria, whose growing family were constrained for space in the Royal Pavilion; in 1845 she purchased the land for Osborne House in the Isle of Wight and left Brighton permanently. In 1850 the Pavilion was sold to the Corporation of Brighton.

In 1859 the municipal Brighton School of Art was founded, which became part of Brighton Polytechnic as the Faculty of Art and Design and is now the Faculty of Arts and Architecture of the University of Brighton.

In the latter half of the 19th century a large number of churches were built in Brighton. This was in large part due to the efforts of Reverend Arthur Douglas Wagner, a prominent figure in the Anglo-Catholic movement of the time. He is thought to have spent his entire fortune on building a number of churches including St. Bartholomew's — an imposing red brick building, built to the size and proportions of the biblical ark. Other notable Victorian churches in Brighton include the Parish Church of St. Michael and All Angels, which has stained glass windows by the pre-Raphaelites, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Ford Madox Brown and Philip Webb.

FIRST WORLD WAR

Between 1 December 1914 and 15 February 1916 the Royal Pavilion was used as a military hospital for Indian soldiers with a total of 724 beds. It admitted a total of 4,306 patients. From 20 April 1916 until 21 July 1919, the Pavilion was designated the Pavilion General Hospital (for limbless men) and admitted 6,085 patients. The 2nd Eastern General Hospital occupied the boys' grammar school, elementary schools and the workhouse. Brighton was the location of the Third Australian Hospital and also the first hospital in Britain for shell shock cases. During the war 233 London, Brighton and South Coast Railway ambulance trains carried 30,070 patients to Brighton.  In June 1916 the sound of the guns firing at the Battle of the Somme were heard on the Brighton College playing field during cricket.

The Brighton War Memorial in Old Steine was unveiled by Earl Beatty on 7 October 1922 bearing the names of 2,597 men and 3 women of the town who died in military service.

The Chattri is a memorial to the Indian soldiers who died at the Royal Pavilion hospital. It is situated on the Downs to the north of Patcham on the outskirts of the town. It is an octagonal monument built on the place of cremation and was unveiled by the Prince of Wales on 1 February 1921.

Post-WWII

In many ways, Brighton's post-war growth has been a continuation of the "fashionable Brighton" which drew the Georgian upper classes. The growth in mass tourism stimulated numerous Brighton businesses to serve visitors. Pubs and restaurants are abundant. An important post-war development was the 1961 founding of the University of Sussex, designed by Sir Basil Spence. The University acquired a strong academic reputation, and a certain reputation for radicalism. Brighton, with its vibrant cultural scene, is hard to imagine without the thousands of students from Sussex and Brighton Polytechnic, which was given the name University of Brighton in 1992, but with its early roots in the Victorian-era Brighton School of Art.