Southend-on-Sea were regular visitors to the show. The last show was held in 2012; an attempt to revive the show for September 2015, as the Southend Airshow and Military Festival, failed. Southend-on-Sea was formed as a municipal borough in 1892 with the functions of local government shared with Essex County Council. In 1913 the borough was enlarged by the former area of Leigh on Sea Urban District. In 1914 the enlarged Southend gained the status of county borough, exempt from county council control and a single-tier of local government. The county borough was enlarged in 1933 by the former area of
2014 Clacton by-election controversy by writing in "The Times" that the Conservatives should be “careless” of Clacton voters’ opinions as “Clacton-on-Sea is going nowhere”, remarks which were disowned by local Conservatives and denounced by Carswell as "reflective of what so many in the upper echelons of the Tory party really think" and were cited by two local Conservative councillors as a reason for defecting to UKIP. An important component of the UKIP campaign was a public meeting of 700 people at the Clacton Coastal Academy with Douglas Carswell and UKIP leader Nigel Farage which was billed as the "biggest public meeting in Clacton