Monday 13 July 2015

Victorian photograph of Ramsgate from the East Pier

Anyone want to hazard a guess to the date of this Victorian photograph of Ramsgate, it should expand if you click on it. 

5 comments:

  1. You are a prolific artist and photographer.
    Thus, I cannot help wondering why you use, as a header photo,the main area of Ramsgate dereliction. I guess it is making a political point but, it is surely equally off-putting to potential visitors? Maybe even more so? But then, there does seem to be an Island-wide culture of negativity about life, so perhaps your picture really is accurate after all.

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  2. Point taken Col, I have changed the picture, it’s all the diodes down my left side.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Michael

    I'll take a punt on the photo; no later than about 1895 and probably about 1880 - I think the dome roofed building is the original custom house that was demolished at the end of the 19c and stood on the car park across the road from the current old custom house...

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  5. Echo The Harbour Masters House and Committee rooms weremdemolished in 1890, so it has to be before then.

    From Wikipedia:

    “The first Ramsgate tug, built of wood and measuring 90 tons (91 t), with a 50 horsepower (37 kW) engine, was built at South Shields by Woodhouse in 1843, and named the Samson.[2]

    The Samson and her successors—Aide, a wooden paddle steamer of 112 gross tons (114 t) built at Blackwall[3] on the Thames and in use by 1855,[4] Vulcan, an iron steam paddle tug of 140 tons (142 t), also built at Blackwall and delivered to Ramsgate in 1858, and Fabia, which was in service in World War II[5]—participated in many rescues alongside the local lifeboatmen, receiving several rewards from the RNLI and grateful foreign governments. Another Ramsgate tug was Sun Swale.[6]

    In January 1881 the Ramsgate tugs Vulcan and Aide participated with the lifeboat Bradford in the rescue of the Indian Chief, in response to which the Ramsgate harbour-master, Captain Braine, wrote the commendation, "Of all the meritorious services performed by the Ramsgate Tug and Life-boat, I consider this one of the best. The decision the coxswain and crew arrived at to remain till daylight, which was in effect to continue for fourteen hours cruising about with the sea continually breaking over them in a heavy gale and tremendous sea, proves, I consider, their gallantry and determination to do their duty."[7]”

    So it’s now down to identifying the tug or perhaps some of the other buildings.

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Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.