ERO Presents: Brigade-Major Hope & Major Reynolds and the defence of Essex

Speaker: Neil Wiffen

Brigade-Major Alexander Hope of Luffness and Major Thomas Vincent Reynolds of
Great Baddow and the defence of Essex, 1797-8

The period of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars witnessed two great invasion scares, one of the late 1790s and the other from c.1803-5. In the run-up to this period, apart from Tilbury Fort and the defences of Harwich, there was little in the way of coastal defences. However, by the 1810s, the Essex coastline positively bristled with guns. So, before these defences were constructed, how was an invasion to be defeated if a French landing was made unopposed on the beaches of Essex?

The British Army were aware of the very serious threat to Essex and a series of illuminating surveys were made of the county. Join us for this talk to hear our own Neil Wiffen introduce just two of them, to find out how comprehensively the defence of London, in the Essex countryside, was to be undertaken if the French had of invaded.

Neil Wiffen has worked at Essex Record Office since 2000 and for the last four years he has been working on a part-time PhD at the University of East Anglia, looking at various aspects of Essex during the period of c.1790-1820.

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