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236 HISTORY OF EAST GRINSTEAD. |
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drainage very largely extended; owners of some half-dozen private roads compelled to place them in such a state of repair as to make them fit to be taken over by the public authority; street watering adopted and the collection of house refuse inaugurated. As a mark of their appreciation of his conduct of business the members of the Board, before they went out of office, entertained their Chairman at a complimentary banquet on December 5th, 1894.
The first Urban Council election, at which plurality of voting was for the first time missing, took place on December 17th, 1894, and the good work done by the Local Board has been well continued by the existing authority. The Rev. C. W. Payne Crawford was continued in the chair, and occupied the post until he retired from public work in April, 1897. Mr. Evelyn A. Head, who had for years been an active worker in the cause of local government and solicitor to the original promoters of the Local Board, then got a deserved reward in being elected to the chair. The office has since been held by Mr. T. J. P. Hartigan, Mr. W. Milburn (Brockhurst), Mr. R. Chignell (Stoneleigh), Mr. C. H. Everard (Newlands) and Mr. J. Rice. The last-named was the first representative of the trading community to attain the honour and thereby become an ex-officio Justice of the Peace for the county.
STREET WATERING.
The plan of watering the streets during the summer months was first adopted in East Grinstead in 1863, when the heat was very oppressive, and the dust so bad that tradesmen were quite unable to have shop doors or windows open. It was thought that a supply of water might be obtained from a disused well, situated partly under the house then occupied by Mr. Bailye, in the Middle Row. This well, in former years, had a pump fitted to it, and was used by Lord De la Warr's tenants in the High Street, but it got very much out of repair and neglected, and as no subscriptions were forthcoming for its restoration it was closed about the year 1840. The |
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