Most discussions about the future focus on housing, transport, the environment, education or economic growth. These are all essential. Yet another question receives far less attention: what stories do we choose to tell about ourselves, and whose histories do we recognise as part of Sussex?
The answer matters because every community is shaped not only by the policies it adopts, but also by the memories it preserves. Monuments, street names, museums, plaques and civic symbols are often treated as reminders of the past, but they also influence how people understand the present and imagine the future. They tell us whose achievements deserve celebration, whose labour is remembered and who belongs within the public story of a place.
If Sussex hopes to build a more confident, inclusive and democratic future, it must first become more honest about its past.
Brighthelmstone
Long before Brighton became known for Regency elegance, royal patronage and seaside tourism, it was Brighthelmstone, a working coastal settlement whose existence depended upon the sea. Fishing families possessed generations of knowledge about tides, weather, navigation and survival. For them, the sea was not a picturesque backdrop; it was their workplace, their livelihood and the foundation of community life.
This history is easily overlooked as Brighton’s popular story often begins with the arrival of wealthy visitors seeking the supposed health benefits of sea bathing. That transformation is important, but it did not occur on an empty coastline waiting to be discovered. It depended upon people who already understood the sea.
When visitors arrived, fishing families adapted. They operated bathing machines, guided inexperienced bathers into the water and used their practical knowledge of tides and waves to keep them safe. The fashionable resort that attracted royalty and investment was built not only through architects, entrepreneurs and princes, but also through the skill and labour of ordinary working people.
Martha Gunn
Few people illustrate this better than Martha Gunn.
Born in 1726 into Brighton’s well-known Killick fishing family, Gunn became the town’s most celebrated bathing attendant. Her work demanded strength, courage and an intimate understanding of the sea. She transformed knowledge acquired within a fishing community into a respected profession, reportedly working for almost seventy years and becoming one of the most recognisable figures in eighteenth-century Brighton.
Yet Gunn represents more than an interesting local character.
She reminds us that Brighton’s success did not simply arrive with royal favour. It was created through generations of working people whose experience, resilience and environmental knowledge made the town attractive to those who followed. When we remember Martha, we remember something larger than one remarkable woman. We remember that communities are built from below as well as above.
Her story also raises an uncomfortable question.
If one of Brighton’s most influential working women has largely become a footnote in public memory, how many other lives that shaped Sussex remain hidden behind more familiar stories of royalty, architecture and civic prestige?
The forthcoming 300th anniversary of Martha Gunn’s birth offers Brighton and Hove an opportunity to redress the record and to celebrate not simply one remarkable woman, but the wider fishing families whose labour, resilience and maritime knowledge helped transform Brighthelmstone into the city we know today. Brighton Museum already holds Gunn’s portrait, preserving her memory within its collections.
The history of the Gunn family also survives in the city through places associated with their name and enterprise. These provide meaningful starting points for telling a richer public story through exhibitions, walking trails, interpretation and community events. Such recognition would not diminish the importance of the Royal Pavilion, Regency architecture or Brighton’s later development. Instead, it would enrich those histories by placing them within the wider community that made them possible.
Sussex has always been connected to the wider world. Its coastline linked local fishing communities with maritime trade, naval power, migration and global exchange. Today its residents trace family histories across Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and beyond. These connections are not new additions to Sussex’s history. They are part of Sussex’s history.
Recognising that complexity does not require us to reject the past. It asks us to understand it more fully. A mature society is not one that remembers only its triumphs, nor one that dwells only on its failures. It is one that is willing to hold different histories together, acknowledging achievement while also recognising labour, hardship and those whose contributions have too often remained unseen.
The future begins not by erasing the past, nor by preserving inherited stories without question, but by telling a fuller, more honest history – one in which the fishing families of Brighthelmstone, the communities that followed them and the diverse people who call Sussex home today can all recognise themselves.
With that being said, the strongest communities are not those that remember the most comfortable stories.
They are the ones that remember enough of the truth to build a better future together.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO OUR CROWDFUNDER
HELP US BECOME STRONGER SO THAT WE CAN CONTINUE TO DELIVER POWERFUL CITIZEN JOURNALISM!
