George Teesdale, 1871 -1960, coachman, groom and coach painter was, according to records, the last man in Worthing to drive a coach with horses in the town. A sight that would have been commonplace just a few decades before. Argentine Frewin, 1835-1939, of Heene Road, the cemetery’s oldest resident, describes horse drawn carriages stopping outside Liverpool Terrace and the Steyne and riding up Chapel Road in the days when ‘aristocratic ladies came to Worthing to shop'.
Ernest Bridger, of Teville Road and later Thorn Road, Worthing, was a coachman, driving a vehicle that would probably have used two or four horses but may have had up to six, whereas John Mash of Heene Cottages, drove a Fly Curricle which was drawn by just two horses and made, as the name suggests, to be speedy and light.
Residents in the cemetery who worked with horses mostly divide into two camps. Agricultural workers who aspired to be grooms, and grooms who aspired to drive cabs.
Walter Carver, 1879 -1906, born near Chichester, the child of an agricultural labourer who came with his family to the Drive, Worthing, enlisted with the Royal Horse Artillery as a groom. He served in the Boer War where horses were used in cavalry units as well as for transport and carrying supplies.
James Young, 1837 -1900, of Elm Grove, Worthing is listed as a stable boy, huntsman to hounds and groom, while Henry Fryer, 1857-1905, from Liverpool started as groom and graduated to a coachman. His work took him to Wales, Oxford and finally Worthing were he settled in Mill Road. Thomas Dawes of Elm Grove, was an agricultural labourer and later a groom and Robert Blunden, originally from Hampshire, served in the Merchant Navy before moving first to Littlehampton and then to Elm Grove, Worthing where he worked as a gardener and groom.
Joseph Collins 1847-1918 was a groom graduating to running a business as a Fly proprietor. He lived with his family above the stables in Milton Street, Worthing.
Not everyone fits into a category and David White, of Ham Road and later Thorn Road, is listed as simply a ‘horse-keeper’, which might have meant a dealer, among his other jobs were labourer and baker.
Of course, horses were not only used for coaches and traps, they were ridden. Many people would have used a horse as opposed to a cab or bicycle to get around as well as for work and leisure including racing. Smithies, making and fitting horseshoes, would have been in much demand.
Ellen Haffenden 1866-1925, of Tarring Street and later Taring Road, married James listed as a blacksmith and plumber; Mary Young, 1809-1888, baptized in Broadwater and working as a servant in Ferring, married John, who worked as a blacksmith in Tarring and Mary Charles,1801-1886, a charwoman from Washington who, after her husband’s death lived with Thomas Tidey, a blacksmith, on the corner of Heene and Shelley Road.
Philippa Matthews