Southend-on-Sea

Wikipedia contributors · CC BY-SA · EN · 04/10/2026

Southend-on-Sea , commonly referred to as Southend , is a coastal city and unitary authority area in south-eastern Essex, England. It lies on the north side of the Thames Estuary, 40 mi east of central London. It is bordered to the north by Rochford and to the west by Castle Point. The city is one of the most densely populated places in the country outside of London. It is home to the longest pleasure pier in the world, Southend Pier, while London Southend Airport is located to the north of the city centre.

Southend-on-Sea originally consisted of a few fishermen's huts and a farm at the southern end of the village of Prittlewell. In the 1790s, the first buildings around what was to become the High Street of Southend were completed. In the 19th century Southend's status as a seaside resort grew after a visit from the Princess of Wales, Caroline of Brunswick, and the construction of both the pier and railway, allowing easier access from London. From the 1960s onwards, the city declined as a holiday destination. After the 1960s, much of the city centre was developed for commerce and retail, and many original structures were lost to redevelopment. As part of its reinvention, Southend became the home of the Access credit card, due to it having one of the UK's first electronic telephone exchanges. An annual seafront airshow, which started in 1986 and featured a flypast by Concorde, used to take place each May until 2012.

Southend was granted city status in January 2022 in memorial to the Conservative Member of Parliament for Southend West, Sir David Amess, who was murdered in October 2021. On 1 March 2022, the letters patent were presented to Southend Borough Council by Charles, Prince of Wales.

History

Early history

Southend was first recorded in 1309 as Stratende, a small piece of land in the Manor of Milton (now known as Westcliff-on-Sea), within the Parish of Prittlewell. Its next recorded mention was in a will from 1408, where the area south of Prittlewell was called Sowthende. In March 1665, the English naval ship, London blew up while moored just off South-end on its way to fight in the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The hamlet of South-end consisting of a few fishermen's huts and Thames Farm farmhouse stayed this way until the mid-18th century. In 1758 a large house was built, which by 1764 had become the Ship Inn. Oystermen cottages were built in 1767, and a year later the settlement was recorded in the parish records for taxation purposes for the first time. By 1772 records show a salt works and a lime kiln. A visitor to the settlement in 1780 said "not anything in the place worth notice", but a year later the first bathing machine was brought to the hamlet. By 1785, the Chelmsford Chronicle was reporting subscriptions to build a hotel, and plans to make South-end,

The planned hotel was not built, but the Chronicle reported in 1787 that "Southend is likely to become a place of fashionable resort, and that there are a greater number of genteel families there this season than was ever known before". By the end of the decade, the number of bathing machines had increased and the hamlet was recorded as containing the Ship Inn and 25 houses and cottages; reported visitors included Lord Cholmondley. The coach service from London to Rochford was extended to Southend for the summer season of 1790. The main occupations were in agriculture, fishing, boat repairing and working the barges to London and back.

The start and fail of New South-End

In 1790, the local lord of the Manor of both Prittlewell and Milton (now Westcliff-on-Sea) and landowner Daniel Scratton set aside 35-acres of land at the top of the cliffs to the west of South-end. The development was called New South-End, and the original settlement was renamed Old South-end. A road was cut through the development, which would later become the High Street. The Chelmsford Chronicle wrote at the time,

By January 1792, the first house in Grove Terrace was completed, a hotel had been roofed and 60 dwellings had been started on. By the summer, the Duke of York and the Duke of Clarence public houses had opened. However, by September that year The Times was reporting that the resort was likely to attract the lower and middle classes, not the wealthy clientele that it was being aimed at. One of the initial developers started to sell his interests. By December 1792, the Duke of York was advertised for sale. Development continued with The Grand Hotel, (now known as The Royal Hotel) opened on 1 July 1793, and most of Grove Terrace was available to let. Later that year, New South-End was listed for the first time in the parish annual rate, and by the summer of 1794 the Terrace, Grove Terrace, the Mews and Library had been completed. In February 1795 however, one of the main developers was declared bankrupt and ownership of The Grand Hotel was assigned. A similar fate awaited another developer and much of New-Southend remained open land. In contrast, Old South-end doubled in size during the same period; the Ship Inn and the Anchor and Hope Inn had been built as well as five shops and the Caroline baths. A large house was built by Abraham Vandervord in 1792 in Old South-end which would later become the Minerva public house.

Growth of the town

Due to the bad transportation links between Southend and London, there was not rapid development during the Georgian Era as there was in Brighton. Margate, although further away from London than Southend, offered cheaper boat and stagecoach fares and had more to offer the visitor. Development was piecemeal in the early 19th century, with a theatre being built in Old South-end by Thomas Trotter in 1804. Southend was, however, mentioned in Jane Austen's novel Emma of 1815. The resort first received royal patronage in 1801 when Princess Charlotte of Wales visited to sea bathe on the order of her physician. Her mother, Princess Caroline of Brunswick stayed at 7-9 The Terrace during 1803 and Lady Hamilton held a ball in the hotel assembly room in honour of Lord Nelson in 1805. The visit of Princess Caroline boosted Southend's popularity with tourists.

Travellers would often arrive by sailing boat or later by Thames steamer, which presented problems as boats could only dock during high tide. The Southend coast consists of mudflats that extend far from the shore, with a high tide depth that seldom exceeds 5.5 m. Large boats were unable to port near to the beach and no boats could approach at low tide. Many potential visitors would travel beyond Southend on to Margate or other resorts with better docking facilities. Due to this, local dignitaries led by the former Lord Mayor of the City of London Sir William Heygate, campaigned in the early 1820s to gain permission from Parliament to build a pier. On 7 May 1829, the House of Lords passed the bill and the Southend Pier Act 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. xlix) received royal assent on 14 May 1829. By July, Lord Mayor of London, Sir William Thompson laid the foundation stone and the first section of the pier opened a year later. Southend remained a quiet health resort, as the pier did not extend far enough out and visitors had issues disembarking.

In June 1852, after several attempts at building a railway to Southend, royal assent was given to the London, Tilbury and Southend Extension Railway Act 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c. lxxxiv) authorising the building of the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. The line reached Southend in 1856. It had been planned to terminate opposite the pier; however, residents in The Royal Terrace opposed this and the station was built further back.

In 1859, the Grove Field area was leased to Sir Morton Peto, and with a consortium which included Thomas Brassey, the contractors for the railway construction, hired architects Banks & Barry to design Clifftown. The first houses were made available for sale in 1871, with even the smaller properties offering a glimpse of the sea. Eventually the development would include the Clifftown Congregational Church, the Nelson Road shopping parade and Prittlewell Square, Southend's first park.

The arrival of the railway did not at first greatly increase visitor numbers, and Southend remained a quiet resort rather than a noisy fashionable seaside town. Benjamin Disraeli visited regularly between 1833 and 1884, Prince Arthur visited in 1868, while the Empress of France, Eugénie and her son, Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial also came to the town. A Local Board of Health was created in 1866 to serve Southend's growing population, and the large steam powered Middleton brewery was opened by Henry Luker & Co in 1869. Southend's development as a resort however seemed to stall, until the Bank Holidays Act 1871 made holidays available to more of the population. The growth in visitor numbers saw the local Board purchase the pier in 1873 and construct Marine Parade in 1878, while the cliffs west of the pier were transformed into tree lined walkways during 1886. In 1889, the Great Eastern Railway opened its station at and a new iron-built replacement for the pier opened.

The town was incorporated as a borough called Southend-on-Sea in 1892; the official name prior to that had just been Southend. During 1892, the famous Southend department store Keddies opened its doors for the first time. Between 1871 and 1901 the town's population grew 100 fold from 2,800 to 29,000. Marine Park & Gardens opened during 1894 and was redeveloped into The Kursaal amusement park in 1901. The Metropole Hotel on Pier Hill also opened in 1901 (later renamed the Palace Hotel), and in the same year the town first received both electric street lighting and trams, and an electric staircase by Jesse W. Reno had been installed on the site of the current Cliff lift.

To celebrate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, a statue of her pointing out to sea was placed at the top of Pier Hill, which the locals amusingly remarked appeared to point towards the gents toilets. The statue was moved to its current position on Clifftown Parade in 1962. In 1903, it was reported that around one million people had paid admission to use the pier, while 250,000 passengers had alighted from pleasure steamboats. Further facilities were built for the growing visitor numbers, including extending the esplanade to Chalkwell in 1903 and adding the wedding cake bandstand at the top of the cliffs, opposite Prittlewell Square in 1909; it was one of six bandstands that stood in Southend. In 1907, following a campaign by the Westcliff Tradesman Association who wanted to rename the town, the Borough of Southend-on-Sea and Westcliff-on-Sea, local businessman and philanthropist, R. A. Jones put forward a plan to rename the town, Thamesmouth.

In 1909, an indoor roller-skating rink was opened in Warrior Square. The population of Southend had grown to 62,723 by 1911, the fastest rate of population growth in England and Wales since the previous census in 1901. In 1914, the town gained county borough status, and the Corporation formed the first police force.

Southend during World War I

Shortly after the declaration of war, the British government began the internment of German citizens and several thousand were held on three ships, the Royal Edward, the Saxonia and the Ivernia which were moored off the pier until May 1915. The War Office selected a piece of land north of the town in 1914 for a new aerodrome, with Squadron no. 37 of the Royal Flying Corps moving in a year later. Many soldiers passed through Southend en route to the Western Front. The pier was frequently used to reach troop ships, with the Admiralty stationing a war signal station at the pierhead, and Southchurch Park was taken over as an army training ground. During the war, the public could still walk the length of the pier. As the war drew on, Southend also became an evacuation point for casualties and several hotels were converted to hospitals, including the Metropole into the Queen Mary Naval Hospital. Arthur Maitland Keddie, from the Keddies department store organised day trips for wounded soldiers from the Queen Mary Naval Hospital to Thundersley and Runwell. The town was first bombed by German Zeppelins on 10 May 1915 with the death of one woman, while a second attack happened on 26 May again with one death. Another bombing raid by Gothas took place in 1917 with a further 33 deaths. When peace was confirmed in 1919, official celebrations were organised by the town. A large Naval review off the Southend shore took place, with a twenty-one gun salute being fired on Peace Day on 23 July. The town organised a carnival, fetes and a firework display.

Source and attribution

Adapted from “Southend-on-Sea” by English Wikipedia contributors. Main paragraphs and sections are retained; tables, reference markers and technical markup are omitted. This is an encyclopedic adaptation, not a personal review. Original revision and contributor history ↗. Text is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗. Check current visitor access, tickets and transport with the relevant operator.