Imagine. Kingston in 1854 was undergoing one of the greatest social and economic upheavals in its history, but there was nothing beyond the occasional handbill, or public meeting, to keep people informed of events that might change their lives forever.
It was left to Thomas Philpott, an unassuming Surbiton printer, to launch Kingston’s first newspaper, the Surrey Comet, in the August of that year.
Because of the Stamp Act, which imposed a punitive tax on newspapers, he was forced to put strict limits on editorial coverage. Neither could he afford to employ staff. He himself was the editor, printer and publisher. He also did most of the writing, with occasional hired help from, in the words of his daughter, “a broken down schoolmaster”.
It was 10 years before the Comet could appoint William Drewett as its first, and for many years only, staff reporter.
News reporting then consisted almost entirely of courts, public meetings, dinners and special church services, and it was a tough job physically.
For example, after covering late-night vestry meetings at East Molesey, he often had to ferry himself over a flooded river because Hampton Court Bridge had yet to be built. Having reached the other side, he would walk back to Kingston, keeping to the middle of the unlit road in the hope of avoiding the dubious characters who lurked in the dark.
A regular assignment was Spelthorne Petty Sessions. These were held at Hampton in a room at the Red Lion (a large coaching inn, now converted offices) and he walked there and back across Bushy Park.
He also covered Kingston’s Magistrates’ and County Courts, both of which sat in the Town Hall (now Kingston Market House). He had to report each case, and found it a hard day’s work.
Drewett’s appointment as a reporter ended a system in which “liners”, freelance writers who were paid by the line, would suppress reports of court cases in exchange for cash.
In those days, few meetings of public bodies were open to the press. Those that were included Kingston Council, Surbiton Improvement Commissioners and Kingston Board of Guardians, administrators of Kingston Workhouse, and local Poor Law provision.
Inquests were boozy affairs. There was no mortuary, so all bodies taken from the Thames (and there were many) were carried to a nearby pub and put in an outhouse. As Drewett later recalled, inquests were mostly held “in a parlour of a pub in surroundings quite out of keeping with the solemnity of the occasion”. Jurors were usually men of no settled occupation and, as each district had its own set of jurymen, the same faces appeared again and again.
The 12s (60p) paid to each juror for his services were regarded as common property, to be spent on “refreshments” for the jury as a whole. Any man who asked for his fee in cash was regarded as mean, and would be permanently boycotted by his colleagues.
If a juror appeared in a coloured tie, he would be fined by the foreman when the coroner had left the room, and the money spent on drink. Even the coroner had to open his purse occasionally. It was the custom to wish him the compliments of the season at the first inquest of the New Year, and he was expected to give the gift of a crown for a large bowl of punch.
Dinners were an important part of Drewett’s work, with the annual venison dinner in August the most important of all. It took its name from the gift of two fat bucks to the Royal borough, one from Richmond Park, the other from Bushy, given as compensation for rights conceded by the town to the Crown in days gone by.
It was held at the Griffin for guests invited at the mayor’s expense, plus others who paid one guinea, including wine, for the privilege. Another social fixture was the annual Bean Feast held in July at the George and Dragon Inn (now the Kingston Lodge Hotel). It was attended by leading tradesmen of the town, who played quoits and bowls before sitting down to dinner.
Winter brought the four Market Dinners, held at the Griffin, The Sun, The Wheatsheaf and the Clarence Arms, plus the annual dinner at the Fox and Hounds and Seething Wells, and venison dinners at Hampton and Hampton Wick.
Though the food at all of them was good, the work was hard for Drewett. All dinners ended with many lengthy speeches, every word of which had to be reported. Sermons, too, were usually noted in full. This would not appeal to modern readers. But in an age where there was no radio or TV, people devoured printed news in a way unimaginable today.
It certainly put demands on Drewett, and his freelance predecessors. Having walked miles to and from their various assignments (there were no telephones) and taken laborious verbatim notes in pencil, they had to write out their copy by hand. Typewriters, it seems, did not reach the Comet until many decades later. Neither did news stories and interviews of the type we know now.
Drewett was not deterred. He eventually became the Comet’s editor, and in 1885 launched his own newspaper, the Kingston and Surbiton Times.