What I did not expect was an insight into the energy economy of the town before the arrival of the railways. There are several pictures of beached collier brigs. After 1840 most Brighton and Hove's coal supply was came from the harbour at Shoreham by rail, but before that a lot of it was landed on the beach and taken to buyers in the town by horse and cart.
The collier brigs were two masted vessels of 100 - 300 tons with a length of between 70 and 90 feet and a small crew, maybe 6 - 10 men. They mostly worked out of the Tyne taking a cargo of coal outward and returning home in ballast. Some vessels also carried passengers between the North and London, before the railways this might have been preferable to several days in a coach travelling along rutted roads, at least in fine weather. Navigational equipment was probably the master's experience and a compass.
At coastal towns like Brighton and Hove which did not have port facilities, the brig was run on to the beach and the cargo unloaded into horse drawn carts using local labour. When the vessel was empty she was re-floated on the rising tide. The price realised for the cargo would have depended on the season, the weather and before 1815 the trade could be disrupted by French privateers, this threat may have been used to hike the price.
Coal landed on the beach within the parish boundaries was subject to coal tax. This explains the location of the Brighton Gas works (1819) just beyond the eastern parish boundary at Black Rock and the Hove Gas works (1825) which is at the extreme west of the town. These works were located to avoid the coal tax. Coal tax was abolished around 1870 and was not a factor in the location of electricity generating plant. From 1820 to 1880 gas was used for street lighting and in the posher town houses. After the establishment of electric light companies in Brighton and Hove, gas lighting was displaced, initially by arc lamps, then by incandescent bulbs.
At the turn of the century the demand for coal in Brighton and Hove had greatly expanded. In 1928 there were four railway goods yards, each of which acted as a base for coal merchants, some of these operated nationally, others were local family businesses. Going west to east, the goods yards were located at Sackville/New Town Road (Hove), Holland Road (Hove), Cheapside (Brighton) and Kemp Town (Brighton). With the exception of Cheapside which is close to the main Brighton station, these yards are now industrial estates doing amongst other things, serving the local building trade.
By the 1880s, the railway's coal distribution network was evolving at the same time as the market for coal for electricity generation emerging. Brighton's first power stations were close to North Road and supplied from the Cheapside yard. Hove's was at Holland road where it may have had it's own siding for coal deliveries. At the end of the 19th century, the demand for electricity was growing and city centre locations for industrial plant was neither desirable or practical. Brighton built a new power station at Shoreham harbour, close to the gas works which had already located, both the gas and electricity works were now supplied directly from the sea by steam engined colliers.
Industry attracts fewer artists and poets than traditional landscapes, seascapes and portraits, but there is one reference in John Masefield's "Cargoes" which is relevant. I suspect generations of English teachers have hoped to inspire a love of words and rhythm with this, the last verse is:
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.
I've always been troubled by the "salt caked smoke stack", maybe I'm too literal, but the verse does invoke the rhythm of a reciprocating steam engine.
Footnote
I wrote this quickly from memory without checking the facts, please feel free to offer corrections.
