It was instituted in 1871, and educates about 220 boys. There is a separate junior school.
Dover is the only one of the Cinque Ports which is still a great port. It is one of the principal ports for passenger communications across the Channel, steamers connecting it with Calais and Ostend. The Admiralty pier was begun in 1847 and practically completed to a length of about 2000 ft. in 1871. In 1888 the gates of Wellington dock were widened to admit a larger type of Channel steamers; new coal stores were erected on the Northampton quay; the slipway was lengthened 40 ft., and widened for the reception of vessels up to 800 tons. In 1891 it was resolved to construct a new commercial harbour at an estimated cost of about £700,000. Begun in 1893, the works included the construction of an east pier (“Prince of Wales’s Pier”), running parallel to the general direction of the Admiralty pier and in conjunction with it enclosing an area of sheltered water amounting to seventy-five acres. This pier was completed in 1902. A railway line connected with the South-Eastern and Chatham system runs to its head, and in July 1903 it was brought into use for the embarcation of passengers by transatlantic liners. In 1896 and subsequent years funds were voted by parliament for the construction of an artificial harbour for naval purposes, having an area of 610 acres, of which 322 acres were to have a depth of not less than 30 ft. at low water. The scheme comprised three enclosing breakwaters—on the west an extension of the Admiralty pier in a south-easterly direction for a length of 2000 ft.; on the south an isolated breakwater, 4200 ft. long, curving round shoreward at its eastern end to accord with the direction of the third breakwater; on the east, which runs out from the shore in a southerly direction for a length of 3320 ft. These three breakwaters, with a united length of rather more than 134 m., are each built of massive concrete blocks in the form of a practically vertical wall founded on the solid chalk and rising to a quay level of 10 ft. above high water. Two entrances, one 800 ft. and the other 600 ft. in width, with a depth of about seven fathoms at low water, are situated at either end of the detached breakwater. The plan also included the reclamation of the foreshore at the foot of the cliffs, between the castle jetty and the root of the eastern breakwater, by means of a massive sea-wall. The construction of three powerful forts was undertaken in defence of the harbour, which was opened in 1909.
Besides the mail service and harbour trade, Dover has a trade in shipbuilding, timber, rope and sail making, and ships’ stores. Dover is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese of Canterbury. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The town is governed by a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. Area, 2026 acres.
History.—Dover (Dubris) was one of the ports for continental traffic in Roman times. In the 4th century it was guarded by a fort lying down near the harbour, and forming part of the defences of the Saxon shore (Litus Saxonicum). As a Cinque Port, Dover (Dofra, Dovorra) had to contribute twenty of the quota of ships furnished by those ports; in return for this service a charter of liberties was granted to the ports by Edward the Confessor, making the townsmen quit of shires and hundreds, with the right to be impleaded only at Shepway, and other privileges, which were confirmed by subsequent kings, with additions, down to James II. During the middle ages Dover Castle was an object of contention both in civil wars and foreign invasions, and was considered the key to England; the constable of the castle, who from the reign of John was appointed by the crown, was also warden of the Cinque Ports. The castle was successfully defended in 1216 against the French under the dauphin Louis by Hubert de Burgh, who was also the founder of the Maison Dieu established for the accommodation of pilgrims. The title of mayor as chief municipal officer first occurs about the middle of the 13th century, when the town was governed by a mayor and twelve jurats. The Cinque Ports were first represented in the parliament of 1265; Dover returned two members until 1885 when the number was reduced to one. In 1685 Charles II. confirmed to the inhabitants of Dover a fair beginning on the 11th of November, which had been held of old in the town, and granted two others on the 23rd and 24th of April and the 25th and 26th of September.
After the decay of Richborough harbour the passage from Dover to Whitsand, and later to Calais, became the accustomed route to France, and by a statute of 1465 no one might ship for Calais except at Dover. The guardians of the harbour were incorporated by James I. in 1607.
See S. P. H. Statham, History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover (London, 1899); and Dover Charters and other Documents (London, 1902).
Battle of Dover
This famous and important naval victory was won off the town of Dover by the ships of the Cinque Ports on the 21st of August 1217, during the minority of King Henry III. The barons, who were in arms against his father King John, had called Louis, son of Philip Augustus, king of the French, to their aid. Having been recently defeated in Lincoln, they were hard pressed, and reinforcements were sent to them from Calais in a fleet commanded by a pirate and mercenary soldier called Eustace the Monk. His real name is uncertain, but according to the chronicle of Lanercost it was Matthew. He passed the Straits of Dover with a numerous flotilla laden with military machines and stores, and also carrying many knights and soldiers. The Monk’s fleet was seen from Dover, where the regent, Hubert de Burgh, lay with a naval force of the Cinque Ports, said to have been very small. Sixteen vessels of large size for the time, and a number of smaller craft, is said to have been their total strength. But medieval estimates of numbers are never to be trusted, and the strength of the Cinque Port squadron was probably diminished to exalt the national glory. It put to sea, and by hugging the wind gained the weather gage of the French adventurer. Eustace is said to have been under the impression that they meant to attack Calais in his absence, and to have derided them because he had left the town well guarded. When they were to windward of his fleet the Cinque Port ships bore down on the enemy. As they approached they threw unslaked lime in the air and the wind blew it in the faces of the French. This form of attack, and the flights of arrows discharged by the English (which flew with the wind), produced confusion in the crowded benches of the French vessels, which in most cases must have been little more than open boats. It is further said that in some cases at least the English vessels were “bearded,” that is to say, strengthened by iron bands across the bows for ramming, and that they sank many of the French. The Monk was certainly defeated, and his fleet was entirely scattered, sunk or taken. His own vessel was captured. Eustace, who had concealed himself in the bilge, was dragged out. In answer to his appeals for quarter and promises to pay ransom, he was told by Richard, the bastard son of King John, that he was a traitor who would not be allowed to deceive more men. His head was struck off by Richard, and was sent round the ports on a pike. The Cinque Port seamen returned in triumph, towing their prizes, after throwing the common soldiers overboard, and taking the knights to ransom according to the custom of the age.
The political importance of the battle was very great, for it gave the death-blow to the cause of the barons who supported Louis, and it fixed Henry III. on the throne. But the defeat and death of the Monk was widely regarded as in a peculiar sense a victory over the powers of evil. The man became within a few years after his death the hero of many legends of piracy and necromancy. It was said that after leaving the cloister he studied the black art in Toledo, which had a great reputation in the middle ages as a school of witchcraft. A French poem written seemingly within a generation after his death represents him as a wizard. In a prose narrative discovered and printed by M. Francisque Michel, it is said that he made his ship invisible by magic spells. A brother wizard in the English fleet, by name Stephen Crabbe, detected him while he was invisible to others. The bold and patriotic Crabbe contrived to board the bewitched flagship, and was seen apparently laying about him with an axe on the water—which the spectators took to be a proof either that he was mad, or that this was the devil in his shape. At last he struck off the head of Eustace, upon which the spell was broken, and the ship
