Edmund Reid

Reid was unsympathetic and wrote to the paper in characteristic style:
Why, what ever is the matter with the anonymous writer who signs himself ‘A Progressive’ in your last
week’s issue touching the above subject [‘Progressive Whitstable’].
Why don’t he come and live up Borstal Hill way, where all is peace and joy? We ain’t got no troubles up
our way like he writes about.
We ain’t got no path to get out of order between ‘The Four Horse Shoes’ Hotel and the end of Whitstable
District.
We ain’t got no gas lamp that wants lighting to show us our way home on a dark night like they have at
Tankerton.
We ain’t got no scavengers coming and taking away our dust and putting it in a heap to annoy our
visitors. We look after that ourselves.
We ain’t got no trouble to
read any acknowledgement
to our applications for a
gas lamp and a path to the
end of Whitstable District
(which we pay for), because
they never send one.
Cheer up, old boy, better
days in store.
Thanking you in anticipation
for a good time coming,
when we shall all know the
boundary of Whitstable on
the road to Canterbury by
the erection of a gas lamp
on a footpath. 8
His practice of writing letters
Postcard showing Whitstable from Borstal Hill, where Reid made his home
to the press continued and, as in
Herne Bay, a local councillor was
the target of his chagrin. Councillor Church had remarked that he did not think that the gas company should be
asked to extend their mains into the country. In response to this Reid wrote a long letter to the Whitstable Times
which they declined to publish as it was ‘of too personal a character to be inserted in its entirety.’ 9 The gist of the
letter was that Reid could not understand ‘how Councillor Church can show so much ignorance as not to know the
extent of the district, adding that the boundary of the Urban District extends to just past the ‘Long Reach’ Tavern,
and that there are several persons residing in the Councillor’s so-called country who would be only too pleased to
burn gas in their houses if they got the chance.’ 10
Reid had taken out a six-year lease of the unfurnished Borstal Hill house early in 1905, but in 1907 he was sued
by his landlord, George Hall, for non-payment of a quarter’s rent of £5 10s, plus 5s in interest on the payment.
Reid had always settled regularly up until that time, but now he claimed he was unable to pay and offered Hall an
extra pound a year in rent if he could just wait a while longer for the quarterly payment. Hall was not interested
and the case ended up at the Canterbury County Court in April 1907.
Unfazed at being a defendant in a court case, Reid argued that the house was unfit to live in. He claimed that
it was overrun with rats and that there was ‘not a room that the rain does not come in.’ George Hall was not
impressed by his truculent tenant’s defence. He told Reid that he had ‘got it cheap enough’ at £22 a year and
if there were any rats in the property it was through his own neglect. The judge pointed out that the alleged
condition of the house was not a valid defence as Reid had already lived there for two years and was only now
8 Whitstable Times, 22 July 1905.
9 Whitstable Times, 21 July 1906.
10 Ibid.
Ripperologist 147 December 2015 8