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Author and journalist, George Augustus Sala was born in London in 1828, the son of Henrietta Simon Sala, a concert singer and woman of colour. After the death of his legal father in 1829, his mother taught singing to help support her family of five children.

At the age of 11, George was sent to study in Paris, where he stayed at a lodging house with his older “much-dreaded” brother, Frederic.¹ However, in 1840, with anti-British sentiment running high, his mother, fearing war between Britain and France, removed her family from Paris and departed “bag and baggage” to Dover.²

George describes their arrival in England in the winter of 1840:

“There was no Lord Warden Hotel at Dover in those days; and the railway to London although considerable progress had been made in the work, was, in 1841, very far from completion. It was, I think, at a cosy, old-fashioned hostelry by the side of “The Gun”, kept by an old-fashioned worthy named Hipgrave, that we first took up our quarter…”³

Hipgrave’s Victoria and Gun Hotel and Commercial Inn, adjoined the Custom House and prided itself on its “comfort, convenience and economy.” It offered accommodation on “extra moderate terms” which was exactly what Madame Sala needed having spent a considerable sum on the journey.⁴

On arriving in Dover, Madame Sala placed an advertisement in the Dover Telegraph announcing that she had “the honour to acquaint the Nobility, Gentry and her friends, Residents and Visitors in Dover, that she is just returned from Paris, in consequence of the unsettled state of that city, and will remain in Dover during the Winter, for the purpose of giving lessons in singing.” George’s older brother Frederic accompanied her on the piano.⁵

The Salas received much support from friends at this time, including Lady Fitzroy Somerset who arranged a benefit concert for Madame Sala in December, which “elicited the warmest applause from a crowded and fashionable audience”.⁶

Sala also remembers meeting the Duke of Wellington, who was walking along Snargate Street, with Lord Fitzroy Somerset. The Duke patted him on the head and “hoped that I was good to my mother”.⁷ George was “immensely delighted” and set off to write a “compendious biography of the Duke of Wellington on a slate”.⁸

The family moved into furnished first floor apartments at 64, Snargate Street, which Sala described as “opposite the Heights, the little summer-houses on the gentle slopes of which used to fill me with huge delight.”⁹ The land-lady gave the children “Fleet cakes” - “thin, brown, crisp parallelopipeds, into the composition of which hog’s lard enters somewhat too largely”.¹⁰

In December, despite her failing eyesight, a consequence of suffering smallpox in 1838, Madame Sala “kindly consented” to act as Miss Wyndham in ‘The Culprit’ and as Mrs Gregory in ‘The Two Gregories’ and also performed arias at the Theatre Royal. The Theatre which was at 87, Snargate Street ¹¹ was being run by Miss Caroline Darling “a tall and attenuated young lady, who was supposed to excel in “pantaloon parts.” ¹²

Sala’s older brother Charles who was “anxious to enact Hamlet the Dane ” performed at the Theatre Royal in the following February. ¹³ The theatre which was “in a simply deplorable condition”¹⁴ lacked suitable costumes and Charles had to design a suit of armour out of pasteboard and tinfoil.¹⁵

Early in 1841, Madame Sala along with Mrs Reignolds, hosted a grand ball at the Apollonion Hall, a newly built hall and tavern, on the corner of Snargate Street. Tickets were 6s for the gentlemen and 5 shillings for the ladies.¹⁶ and the entertainment included a quadrille band, refreshments and card room. The ball proved to be very popular and Snargate Street was “blocked with travelling carriages and postchaises”¹⁷ It was attended by the officers of the garrison as well as the county families from Folkestone, Hythe and Sandgate.

The military would have been ever present during Sala’s time at Dover, with the garrison stationed at the Western Heights on the cliffs above Snargate Street. Sala observed the funeral cortege of an twenty-six year old assistant surgeon from his drawing room window in Snargate Street: “the dead man’s cocked hat and sword lying on the Union Jack which was the pall of his coffin”. ¹⁸ Dr Everard had been killed in a brawl outside the Grand Shaft and his funeral left a deep impression on the young Sala.¹⁹

Describing Snargate Street years later, Sala wrote “when I saw the entrance to the shaft, and the red-jacketed soldiers lounging about - the officers wore blue frogged surtouts, and not scarlet shell-jackets in my time, - I felt reassured, and recognised in all their pristine freshness, the beloved scenes of my youth.”²⁰

The proceeds from the ball at the Appolonian enabled Madame Sala to equip herself for the London season.²¹ Leaving Dover, for London, Sala recalls “we were fain to be very frugal in our journey to the metropolis.” They travelled from Dover to Canterbury by stage-coach, after which, Madame Sala and Charles took a postchaise to Herne Bay; “and we children followed in an anomalous vehicle drawn by two horses which was half a coach and half a fly; the driver of the vehicle seeming himself somewhat diffident in defining its character. He spoke of it as “conveyance.””²² At Herne Bay steam packets sailed to London Bridge Wharf on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for a fare of 5 or 6 shillings.²³

Sala admits that he remembers nothing of Herne Bay “save a prodigiously protracted pier, very soon to be immortalised in the pages of the not yet nascent Punch.”²⁴

During his time at Dover, the thirteen-year-old Sala wrote his first novel entitled “Jemmy Jenkins: or, the Adventures of a Sweep” which was subsequently lost, revealing his early ambitions as a writer.²⁵ His mother’s connections with the stage brought him into the company of men of letters and in 1851 he attracted the attention of Charles Dickens.

Sala began to write for Household Words in 1851 and in 1856 travelled to Russia as a special correspondent. It was during this time that he wrote A Journey due North: being notes on a residence in Russia. Dickens embargoed the work which caused some bitterness between the two men. However in 1858, Dickens removed the embargo and Sala sent it to Richard Bentley, who agreed to publish it.²⁶

Returning from his visit to the continent, Sala read a review of his book at the Lord Warden Hotel, Dover, having decided to spend the day “at the venerable Kentish watering place” after a rather rough passage from Calais. The reviewer had described the book as “a bundle of impertinences” and insinuated that Sala was “an idiot, a libeller and a snob”. Sala “read and re-read it, quite forgetting my breakfast.”²⁷ The review did not damage his reputation however, and a second edition was produced.

Sala retained a fondness for Dover and wrote about it in his article ‘The Streets of the World’ published in Temple Bar in 1864, describing his mother’s practice of reading liturgy to her children from “a little brown-covered, battered, yellow-stained, dog’s-eared book” in the mornings and evenings in their home in Snargate Street.²⁸

He observed that few people actually know Dover: “You may embark or debark there five hundred times without ever seeing Dover at all.”²⁹ He continued: “You scud along passages, trip over level crossings, and clamber over platforms, and how you know not; but somehow or another discover yourself descending the slimy steps of the Admiralty Pier, on your way to the deck of the steamer.”³⁰ Returning from the continent, visitors “tumble up into a vestibule, and a refreshment-room where somebody wants one-and-sixpence for a cup of scalding water with a nasty flavour in it, libellously called coffee, and tells you that a twenty-franc piece is only worth fourteen shillings”.³¹

Even those passengers who spend a night at a hotel rarely see the town: “They may take a blow on the pier, and cast an upward glance at the Castle, the Heights and as much of the blasted chalk as railway engineers and landslips have left of Shakespeare’s Cliff”³² but then they travel on to new destinations, leaving Dover “still as a ledger that is locked”. For Sala, “he who knows not Snargate Street cannot be familiar with Dover”.³³

Returning to Dover years later, Sala discovered that his childhood home had been gutted and transformed into a haberdasher’s shop.

Sala also visited Canterbury and Sandgate.

This article was published: 13 November 2021.

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