Chatham, Kent

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Chatham
Coordinates: 51.3610° N 0.5362° E
Population	70,540 (2001 Census)
OS grid reference	TQ765659
Unitary authority	Medway
Ceremonial county	Kent
Region	South East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	CHATHAM
Postcode district	ME4, ME5
Dial code	01634
Police	Kent
Fire	Kent
Ambulance	South East Coast
UK Parliament	Chatham and Aylesford
European Parliament	South East England
List of places: UK • England • Kent

Chatham is a large English town that developed around an important naval dockyard on the east bank of the River Medway to the south-east of London in the county of Kent. Together with Gillingham and Rochester it is today part of the Medway Towns conurbation.

[edit] History

Chatham Dockyard was established by Elizabeth I of England in1568 and the small village of Chatham grew. At one point thousands of men were employed at the dockyard, and many hundreds of ships and submarines were launched there including HMS Victory which was built there in the 1760s. The dockyard was shut as an operational site 1984 by the Thatcher government; a large part of it became a historic site (operated by Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust) and the rest has been developed for housing, industrial sites and as a commercial marina.

Chatham Dockyard, seen from Fort Pitt, ca. 1830. From W. H. Ireland's History of Kent.

Chatham is also the site of many of the fortifications built to protect the dockyard from invasion. The Great Lines (abbreviated from "great lines of defence") were built across the neck of the peninsula formed by the bend in the river. By 1758 this stretched for more than a mile from Fort Amherst (today a heritage site) to Gillingham Reach. Later, forts were built above the town, among them Fort Luton (also a heritage site), Fort Pitt (later used as a hospital by Florence Nightingale; the site is now a girls' grammar school) and Fort Horsted. Many still exist; some have been converted into housing; others have been demolished.

The town was also the location for several military barracks, most of which have now shut. Although the postal address of Brompton Barracks (the headquarters of the Royal Engineers) indicates Chatham as its location, Brompton was an entirely separate village within Gillingham parish.

Chatham was almost certainly the home of the first Baptist chapel in north Kent. The first Baptist place of worship in the town was founded in 1644, meeting in private houses and in barns. The first known pastor was Edward Morecock who settled there in the 1660s. During Cromwell's time Morecock had been a sea-captain and had been injured in battle. He knew the River Medway as few others, and it was this knowledge that preserved him from persecution in the reign of King Charles II^{[citation needed]}.

This church built its first meeting-house, the Zion chapel, in Clover Street but in 1842 and 1843 two groups left through doctrinal disagreements. The first formed a Particular Baptist Church on Hamond Hill, the second, calling itself Aenon, rented a building alongside the Medway. In 1844 the two groups united in the Aenon building. In April 1845 Aenon called Mr Thomas Jones as its first minister. He declined but continued as the regular preacher and overseer of the church until 1852. At some point the "A" was dropped from the name of the church and it became known as Enon.

John Bennett became the church's first pastor in 1860 and remained until March 1864. Two more short pastorates followed. In 1881, the lease on their building about to expire, the church bought a site in Nelson Road where a new chapel was built. In 1968 Leslie Jarvis became pastor and helped the church though a move necessitated by the compulsory puchase of the old building in 1968-1971. The new timber-famed building, containing the pews from the old chapel, opened in 1971. Mr Relf FIRST NAME NEEDED is how pastor.

Chatham became a market town in its own right in the 19th century, and a municipal borough in 1890. By 1831 its population had reached more than 16,000. By 1961 it had reached 48,800.

More recently, Chatham has been cited as the potential source for the derogatory term "Chav", as it is assumed the term is derived from the town's name (see below). Since the closure of the Chatham Dockyard in 1984, the area has seen an unprecedented surge in local unemployment and many districts of the Medway conurbation are considerd high in crime and social depravation.

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

Social problems such as drug misuse, teenage pregnancy, juvenile crime,and other expamples of delinquency and civil disobedience have unfortunately become prolific- in the recorded period between April and December 2006, arrests for violent crime had increased by as much as 8.0% against the same period the previous year, in addition to recorded arrests for substance violations increasing increasing by a surprisingly high 40.1%.[1] Consequently, the town is seen as forbiddingly dangerous in parts (especially at night), although there are few- if any- residential housing estates in Chatham that can justify the description of being Police "No-go" areas.

However, as these problems are symptomatic of the "Chav" subculture, Chatham has developed an unfortunate association with chavs and the more unpleasant associations with the stereotype of the contemporary English underclass.

[edit] Local Youth Organisations

• Medway Towns Sea Cadet Unit - T.S. Cornwallis. Originally located in the Naval Barracks at HMS Pembroke, the Royal Navy's Cookery School. The unit is now housed in what was the original Royal Naval shore establishment HMS Collingwood, now known as Collingwood Block in Brompton Barracks. As well as the standard nautical-based training provided by the SCC the Medway Towns unit trains young people to take part in Field Gun competitions and are proud to carry on the tradition of the Nore Command Field Gun Crew who trained in Chatham to take part in the Royal Tournament.

[edit] Communications

[edit] Roads

Chatham stood on Watling Street, the Roman road from London to the Kent Coast; the length of it from Chatham to Canterbury was turnpiked in 1730, to become the A2 main road in the 1920s. Now, the M2 motorway diverts all through traffic south of the Medway Towns. The central bus station for the towns is in Chatham, within walking distance of the railway station. On the 19th September 2006 the Ring Road in Chatham was made 2 way and the Sir John Hawkings flyover was closed except for buses, taxis and cycles as part of the regeneration of Medway. In 2007 the flyover will be removed to make way for the Pentagon Shopping Centre expansion to the river and a new bus station.

[edit] Railways

The railway came to Chatham in 1858: first when the East Kent Railway opened a line to Faversham; and later in the year when the short section to connect with the North Kent Line to London was opened. Chatham railway station is the main interchange for the Medway towns.

Part of the railway in what is now Chatham Historic Dockyard is still in operation, run by the North Kent Industrial Locomotive Society.

[edit] River Medway

The River Medway, apart from its use by warships to travel to and from the dockyard, was an important means of communication to the interior of Kent. Timber from the Weald for shipbuilding and agricultural produce were among the cargoes. Sun Pier in Chatham was one of many such along the river.

[edit] Sport

The town's Association Football club, Chatham Town F.C., plays in the Southern League Division One East.

[edit] Notable residents

Charles Dickens lived in the town as a boy, both in the Brook and in Ordnance Terrace before the railway station was built just opposite. He subsequently described it as the happiest period of his childhood, and eventually returned to the area in adulthood when he bought a house in nearby Gad's Hill. Others of note include the composer Percy Whitlock (1903-1946); the painter and killer Richard Dadd (1819-1887); and, in more modern times, the artist/poet/musician Billy Childish. The author and screenwriter Stel Pavlou also attended Chatham Grammar School for Boys, and boyband-singer Lee Ryan.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Trivia

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.

The town has recently become associated with chavs^{[citation needed]}

Chav is a Romany word meaning 'boy'.^{[citation needed]} It has been claimed by some people that is the origin of todays word chav. It should be noted that noted that in other parts of the UK, other words may be applied to people who fit in the chav description.

Whether or not the chav in its common was actually derived from the romany, today the word is frequently used to describe a set of cheap fashions and taste associated with white, working-class young people, and commonly thought to be an abbreviation of "Chatham Average", or an approximation of "Chatham Girl". Chatham is often referred to "Chavham". The word has also been in use for several generations to describe a person on the dole. To be "on the dole" was to be "on the chat" or "on the chav". It was a local joke that people from Chatham dressed a certain way and were frequently on the dole, which led to the term "Chatham Chav". Chav fashion includes Burberry clothing and white tracksuits.

Chatham sports a strong unsigned music scene, mainly thanks to the Post-Core Collective, Urban Fox Press and Rock 'N' Rant, and the movements they represent.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] See also

• Gillingham
• Rochester
• Strood
• Medway

[edit] External links

• Chatham News Index (1899–1965)
• 19th century map showing boundary of Chatham
• Webpage about Chatham's fortifications

[edit] References