Chapter 6: Victorian Occupants

In the directories for 1905-7 Gibb is replaced as occupant by ‘The Misses Daeth’, of whom I otherwise know nothing, but in the directories for 1908-10 the name appears of John Bowley, described as ‘F.S.I., architect, civil engineer and surveyor’. Bowley (1864-1938) is a more significant figure who merits an entry in Wikipedia. Educated at University College Nottingham and Nottingham School of Art, he was articled to architects in Derby and Loughborough until 1889, when he set up his own practice in Beeston. He moved to Hastings in 1896, when he became architect to Hastings Council. Previously he had lived at 29 Old London Road and he subsequently moved to Eastbourne, where he was surveyor to the Compton Estate from 1911 to 1927.

There is no entry for the house in the directory for 1912 (and it fails to appear in the returns for the 1911 census), but in Kelly’s and Parsons’ directories for 1914 and the following years the occupiers are given as ‘Hayhurst, Misses’, and the property is described as a ‘school for girls’ (there was also a James Paris living there, who continues till 1917; then a ‘Mrs Linter’ from 1919 to 1921). Meanwhile the owner of the property, John Weatherseed, had died on 6 April 1915, bequeathing the house to his son, J.H. Weatherseed of 15 Bohemia Road, St Leonards. He sold it on 15 February 1921 to its then occupier, Elizabeth Goudie Hayhurst, for £500. More will be said about Miss Hayhurst and her origins in chapter 8, but how she obtained the money to buy the house is unclear. Perhaps her father helped out: when he died in 1923, his estate was valued at over £6,000. Miss Hayhurst and her school then appear in all directories up to 1940, so it is to this episode in the history of the house that we must turn, after dealing with Victorian alterations to the fabric.