CLARENDON TAP Pubs of Deal

DOVER KENT ARCHIVES

Sort file:- Deal, December, 2021.

Page Updated:- Wednesday, 15 December, 2021.

PUB LIST

PUBLIC HOUSES

Paul Skelton

Earliest 1874-

Clarendon Tap

Latest 1896

(Name to)

190a Middle Street

Deal

The "Clarendon Tap" changed names in 1896 to the "Old Victory Inn," according to the Deal Licensing Register. I'm not sure what old victory they were celebrating at the time, but in 1940 the area was bombed and nothing more than a car-park remains today.

Stephen Clements Gray emailed me to say that John Clements was his Great, Great Great Grandfather who had the pub during the 1860s.

John Clements died by falling down holding an oil lamp and set himself alight. He died at the pub some time later from his burns in about 1882. He had lost his wife less than a year before this. Previously he had been a boatman. I have a copy of portraits of him and his wife that were painted about 1840 just before they married. I have been studying the photo in the book by David Collyer - (See "Old Victory Inn" Deal and district at war and I am pretty sure the pub is visible in it. Looking at the position of the bomb that was dropped on Short St and buildings still in place - I think it is on the far left, but I cannot be sure. The pub was located on the corner of Short St. and Middle St.

Stephen Clements Gray.

From an email from Stephen Clements Gray, 27 August, 2009.

From local papers, I believe, is the following:-

Transfer of licence 10/9/1881 The Clarendon Tap from Mercer Taylor to John Clements.

Death 12/2/1884 at The Clarendon Tap, Middle Street, Mary Dixon wife of John J Clements aged 65. [She was born c. 1819 in Deal, maiden name, Norris.]

Serious accident 23/8/1884 'It appears that early on Tuesday morning, Mr Clements, of the Clarendon Tap, by some means set himself on fire with a benzoline lamp. It is not clear how it happened but it is presumed that while in a stupor from a fit he caught alight, and being either unconscious or unable to help himself, he sustained injuries to the lower part of his body'.

Death 10/9/1884 at The Clarendon Tap, John J Clements aged 66.

Serious Fatal Accident. 13/9/1884 'Mr Clements, who was reported in these columns as having met with an accident by igniting himself with a paraffin lamp, we regret to say, succumbed to the frightful injuries he received, and ended his sufferings with death on Wednesday last.'

Borough Petty Sessions. 27/9/1884 The Clarendon Tap. 'The witnesses to the will of the late John Joseph Clements applied for the transfer of the house to George Henry Bailey, but the request could not be complied with until the will had been administered by one of the family of the deceased landlord.

Transfer of licence 8/11/1884 The Clarendon Tap licence was transferred from William Clements to George Bailey.

Another relative said that there was a parrot there which used to say 'Polly wants his sop'

Stephen Clements Gray

Manchester

LICENSEE LIST

TAYLOR Mercer 1874-Sept/81