Seaford Museum & Heritage Society

aTTEmPTEd murdEr oN BLaTCHiNGToN BEaCH

On the 30th of August 1833, the Coastguards on Blatchington Beach were surprised to see a man apparently trying to drown a young girl. Having dashed into the surf to stop the appalling act, they were more than surprised to find that the girl, Sarah Dean, was the man’s daughter.

The man, one Philip Dean, a labourer, was arrested on a charge of attempted murder. Dean had been observed walking some distance on the shore carrying the girl, who he beat several times. On the water’s edge, he stripped her of her clothes and waded chest deep into the sea where he threw the little girl out into the sea, whereupon he turned and waded back onto the beach.

The Coastguard and several other people had seen what happened and rushed to intervene. Seeing them Dean turned back and tried to retrieve his daughter from the sea. The rough sea brought the little girl back to the shore, half drowned and partly conscious.

At a nearby public house (probably the original Buckle), she was revived and examined by a Doctor Charles Verrall from Seaford. He revived her and noted many bruises on her legs and body, surmising that these had been inflicted by her father. At his trial, Dean’s defence was that he had been travelling alone with Sarah for three or four years and had ample opportunity to murder her before, and had no intention of murdering her at any time. As he had drunk twelve or thirteen pints of beer he was probably intoxicated and asked for mercy because of this.

The jury found Dean guilty of his daughter’s attempted murder, but recommended clemency. However, the judge felt he would be failing to do his duty if he were to offer any hope of mitigation of sentence. Dean was sentenced to death. Sarah was handed to her father for a moment who embraced the little girl with tears in his eyes. She was too young to understand what was going on and smiled at her father. It might have been expected that Dean would have been hanged at Lewes or Horsham Gaol, but there is no such record. A check on the list of convicts transported to Australia shows that Philip Dean was onboard the prison ship Arab on 22nd February 1834. Somehow his sentence had been commuted and some mercy had been shown, and Prisoner No 954 Philip or James Dean arrived in Tasmania in June that year.

As for his daughter Sarah, there is no record of her life thereafter. Perhaps she entered the workhouse or found a place of safety with a new name elsewhere. We hope she enjoyed some kind of life thereafter.

The research for this article and the original text was taken from On Blatchington Beach by Rodney Castleden.

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