Publications
Fishermen of Hastings: 200 years of the Hastings fishing community, by Steve Peak, published 1985 (160 pp., Newsbooks, ISBN-10: 0951070606 & ISBN-13: 9780951070604) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/502772] & Old Hastings Prervation Society & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries
Abstract:The only full history of one of Britain's oldest fishing communities. This book not only gives the history of the community but the people and boats. A very useful book for researching and for interest.
George Woods: Photographs from the 1890's , edited by Irene Rhoden and Steve Peak, published 1 October 1987 (64 pp., Hastings: Midnight Press, ISBN-10: 1853600008 & ISBN-13: 9781853600005) accessible at: British Library & East Sussex Libraries
Old Town Walk: Guided Tour Around Hastings Old Town, by Steve Peak, published 2004 (28 pp., Old Hastings Presrvation Society) accessible at: East Sussex Libraries
The Hastings Papers: A History of the Hastings and St Leonards Newspapers , by Steve Peak, published 2007 (105 pp., Hastings: SpeaksBooks) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/501543] & British Library & East Sussex Libraries
Peerless Piers. The story of the Hastings and St Leonards Piers, by Steve Peak, published 2011 (54 pp., Hastings: SpeaksBooks) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/501545] & East Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Peerless Piers tells how and why Hastings Pier was built in 1872, and was to prove so successful that a rival pier was constructed in St Leonards nearly two decades later.
Hastings Pier began a new era in the history of British piers, being the first to have a grand entertainments pavilion as part of its design. When Earl Granville opened the pier in August 1872, he described it as being "a peerless pier - a pier without a peer!" It was a winner for over a century, attracting many visitors to the town, but the nearby St Leonards Pier, which started life 19 years later, was to be a financial failure. It suffered a serious fire in 1944, was never re-opened, and its remains were cleared away in 1953.
Hastings Pier began a long slow decline in the early 1980s, culminating in the major blaze in 2010 that wrecked much of it. But the Heritage Lottery Fund has provisionally awarded a major restoration grant that could create another 'peerless pier'.
The book tells the story right up-to-date, describing how St Leonards and Hastings once had piers within a mile of each other, but nearly became pierless in 2010.
Hastings Pier began a new era in the history of British piers, being the first to have a grand entertainments pavilion as part of its design. When Earl Granville opened the pier in August 1872, he described it as being "a peerless pier - a pier without a peer!" It was a winner for over a century, attracting many visitors to the town, but the nearby St Leonards Pier, which started life 19 years later, was to be a financial failure. It suffered a serious fire in 1944, was never re-opened, and its remains were cleared away in 1953.
Hastings Pier began a long slow decline in the early 1980s, culminating in the major blaze in 2010 that wrecked much of it. But the Heritage Lottery Fund has provisionally awarded a major restoration grant that could create another 'peerless pier'.
The book tells the story right up-to-date, describing how St Leonards and Hastings once had piers within a mile of each other, but nearly became pierless in 2010.
Mugsborough Revisited: Author Robert Tressell and the setting of his famous book, 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists', by Steve Peak, published 1 January 2011 (54 pp., Hastings: SpeaksBooks) accessible at: The Keep [LIB/501550] & East Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Mugsborough was the setting for Britain's most influential working class novel, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, by Robert Tressell. He describes how ordinary people were forced to lead lives of poverty, exploitation and misery in a typical provincial English town in the early 1900s.
The book was first published in 1914, and was so moving and horrifying that it helped shape the welfare state set up after the Second World War and inspired much militancy in the Labour movement through to the 1990s.
But Mugsborough was not a fictional town. It was the depression-hit seaside resort of Hastings and St Leonards in East Sussex, as seen though the eyes of an Irish-born painter and decorator who moved to the town by chance in 1901/02. He worked for many local builders over the next eight years, and recorded the destitution and hardship that he and his workmates suffered. In 1910 he finished the manuscript of his story and tried to emigrate to Canada, but he died of tuberculosis on the way, at Liverpool on 3 February 1911.
Mugsborough Revisited chronicles in detail the life of Robert Tressell, and explains how his novel was in many ways a factual record of real places, people and events in a deprived and badly-run town.
The book was first published in 1914, and was so moving and horrifying that it helped shape the welfare state set up after the Second World War and inspired much militancy in the Labour movement through to the 1990s.
But Mugsborough was not a fictional town. It was the depression-hit seaside resort of Hastings and St Leonards in East Sussex, as seen though the eyes of an Irish-born painter and decorator who moved to the town by chance in 1901/02. He worked for many local builders over the next eight years, and recorded the destitution and hardship that he and his workmates suffered. In 1910 he finished the manuscript of his story and tried to emigrate to Canada, but he died of tuberculosis on the way, at Liverpool on 3 February 1911.
Mugsborough Revisited chronicles in detail the life of Robert Tressell, and explains how his novel was in many ways a factual record of real places, people and events in a deprived and badly-run town.
A Pier Without Peer: The History of Hastings Pier, by Steve Peak, published 30 December 2016 (208 pp., Primo, ISBN-10: 099353273X & ISBN-13: 9780993532733) accessible at: East Sussex Libraries
Abstract:Tracing the iconic life of Hastings Pier, from its Victorian heyday to its resurrection as a much-loved landmark in 2016. Lavish full-colour hardback book telling the remarkable story of Hastings Pier. Hundreds of beautiful photographs and illustrations presented together for the first time in large format. Features a Roll of Honour containing the names of all those whose contributed to the Pier's re-birth. Published in Partnership with The Hastings Pier Charity.