Southend Timeline
Bringing Your Memories Back to Life
Postcard View - Looking West
Hotel Metropole is Built - It naturally took a while to build, but this huge hotel dominating the Southend seafront came alive in 1904. It changed its name not long after to the Palace Hotel. It famously played its part through both wars as a military hospital. Today it still dominates the Southend seafront and is being rejuvenated and brought back to life as a class hotel at the end of 2009 under the Park Inn banner. Read more: Click New School - As the urban sprawl expanded so the need for schools was needed, so in Ambleside Drive a new sizeable school called Southchurch Hall was built in four quarters. Today this impressive building still exists in an educative format but as an adult community college.
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Tramways Double Up - Rush-hour in Southend was becoming a chore, so much so in 1904 the fleet was increased to 22 passenger tram cars in the May. Local Chamber is Born - The idea of a local chamber was first mooted in the late summer of 1904 and an inaugural meeting took place at the St Alban's Schoolroom. Prominent local businessmen present were Messrs. Smerdon, Bullivant, Lawes, Osborne, Brightwell and R.A. Jones. These businessmen were local household names for many years but alas none of their businesses survive today.
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Luna Bioscope Opens - The Kursaal was in its infancy, but still has its finger on the pulse as to what would entertain the public. Films using the Ruffel's Imperial Bioscope were played in the ballroom. As this medium of entertainment developed so the Kursaal developed it's very own Kinema within the complex. The concept of the cinema was finally dropped in