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Broadstairs is a town in Kent, England. Between Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs is one of the seaside resorts on the Isle of Thanet.

The town lies above a harbour, historically known for smuggling. More recently, Charles Dickens was a frequent visitor and the house he stayed in which he wrote David Copperfield and part of Bleak House can be visited.

Reference to the Culmer family is found in the pages of a Thanet history book, suitably named ‘Mockett’s Journal’ (1836) after its author, a Yeoman, and St. Peter’s most famous Churchwarden, John Mockett (1775~1848). The Culmers were an important force in the history of the town. Mention is made by Mockett of the will of a Richard Culmer, who was, in 1434, a carpenter. Shortly thereafter in 1440 an archway was built by George Culmer, across a track leading down to the sea, where the first wooden pier or jetty was built in 1460. A more enduring structure was to replace this in 1538.

The Culmers nestled their boatyard on these protected sands. It was in 1538 that the road leading onto the seafront, known as Harbour Street, was cut out from the rough chalk ground Broadstairs is built upon. This was accomplished by the local shipwright, George Culmer. Going further still to defend the town, he also built the ‘York Gate’ in 1540, this being a portal that still spans Harbour Street, and which then held two heavy wooden doors that could be closed in times of threat from beyond the sea. By 1795, ‘York Gate’ was in need of some repair on account of worries over the French Revolutionary Wars, the subsequent renovation was undertaken by Lord Hanniker in the same year as the first Lightship was placed on the Goodwin Sands.

A brief outline of the history of Broadstairs Pier is given in Broadstairs, past and present, in which mention of a storm is made that occurred in 1767 during which Culmer’s work was all but destroyed. At this time it was of considerable importance to the fishing trade with catches as far afield as Yarmouth, Hastings, Folkestone, Dover and Torbay and elsewhere being landed. It had become indispensable to the point that the Corporation’s of Yarmouth, Dover, Hythe and Canterbury with assistance from the East India Company and Trinity House subscribed to its restoration with a payment of £2000/~ in 1774.

History in brief:

1): The chalk cliffs of Thanet’s coast have always afforded it some protection against the ravages of the sea, and further, the numerous coves and bays along its length have in addition provided ideal locations for the basis of what became the established settlements we know today. Originally these small settlements saw the development of fishing and farming communities. The local inhabitants used natural paths about the cliffs for access to the sea, but where needed they would dig out their own steps and ‘gates’ to the shoreline.

On the occasion of the landing at Thanet, of Major John Percy, on June 21, 1815 with the captured French Eagle Standard taken at Waterloo, a tunnel stairway from the beach to the fields on the clifftops above, was excavated, and christened ‘Waterloo Stairs’ to commemorate the event. Broadstairs being the first town in England to learn of this now historic victory.

2): With the closure of the Culmer~White boatyard at Broadstairs in 1824 boatbuilding operations were transferred sometime between 1830/40 to the Isle of White where the firm of J. Samuel White became established. In addition to the larger Ships contracted, White’s were beginning to develop ships' onboard lifeboats, an ever increasing market demand for which was to result as a consequence of the much increased passenger liner service’s then offered by developing shipping magnates, and around 1843 Lamb and White’s Patent Lifeboat was invented.

This new design was sold specifically to the ‘P&O’ Line, (Pacific & Oriental) who wisely prided themselves in their interest for the safety of their ever growing passenger carrying operations. From this design it was a simple matter of slight adjustments to the needs of shore based Lifeboats and a solution to the dangers of increasing Coast~wise shipping was also presented.

According to one contemporary account, during a storm in 1836, some 400 ships were riding out at anchor, in the comparatively sheltered waters between Deal and the Goodwin Sands, otherwise known as ‘the Downs’.

It has been suggested that news of the loss of the Irish Packet ‘Royal Adelaide’ with 250 lives, on the tong of the sands off Margate on April 6, 1850 prompted old Thomas White to present one of his lifeboats to his home town of Broadstairs that summer.

3): As recited in the ballad written to celebrate the occasion, the then unnamed Lifeboat which had only recently (July 1850) been presented to Broadstairs by the Shipwright Thomas White, saw its first use on March 6, 1851. On this occasion, the brig ‘Mary White’ became trapped upon the Goodwin Sands during a very severe gale blowing from the north.

In 1841, forty four mariners were recorded as resident, then in Broadstairs, nine of these being specified as fishermen, and of course the residual boat building activity that remained after the Culmer~White yard closed was of necessity still continued, although there were only four Shipwrights recorded in the Census, Solomon Holbourn and Joseph Jarman amongst them. Others may have been elsewhere on census day.

‘Steamer Point’, as the pier head at Broadstairs was then known, would have been fairly busy with shipping movements, with consignments of coal and other produce traded thereabouts. There were also the regular visits of the steam packet from Ramsgate.

The Steamboats had begun to take over from the Hoys and sailing packets around 1814 and like all ‘new fangled devices’ were accepted readily by some and despised by others. However the sailing Hoys might take anything up to 72 hours to reach Margate from London, whereas the new Steam ships were capable of making at least nine voyages in this time! Mixed feelings must have been strongly expressed by the Thanet boatmen in general, as the unrivaled speed of the steam packet was outmaneuvering all other classes of vessel, and brought a new prosperity to Thanet.

‘Ramsgate (The Kent Coast at its best) Pictorially Presented’ a ‘guide book’ of the 1930’s, on its section on Broadstairs describes the town as: ‘a very conservative place which, for example, has enjoyed a sequence - not revival - of nigger minstrelsy (which) is outstanding in these days. (concluding) Tradition and progress is a judicious mixture at Broadstairs.’ A.H.Simison, a photographic chemist of St. Lawrence, Ramsgate, the publisher of this photo tour of Thanet describes Broadstairs as having developed ‘always with a consistent policy of retaining those characteristics for which it has for so long been renowned.’

Although their were numerous holiday makers staying in all three of the Thanet towns during the Victorian era, their was to be no railway link until 1863. This though, could not have been so bad for William Sackett and John Derby who operated as the Bradstowe Coachmasters. Nearby Whitstable had begun its railway service as early as 1830, one of the first in England, with its pioneering Stephenson’s Engine ‘The Invicta’ and by 1851 the basic local rail network had been put in place. This largely comprised the London to South Coast route with a coastal link from Chichester to Ramsgate, the cross country service between London and Dover and the mid Kent route linking Redhill, Tonbridge and Ashford, with a new terminal at Waterloo having been opened in 1848. It was not until 1860 that the Victoria Station was completed, followed by Charing Cross and Cannon Street.

The Shrine of our Ladye of Bradstowe is another important topic in the town's history.