Clacton-on-Sea possible invasion beach-head for Napoleon and his Dutch allies. There was a large army and militia camp where Holland-on-Sea now stands. In 1810 5 Martello Towers were built there to guard the beaches between Jaywick and Holland. Clacton was still a small village and a few outlying hamlets when the Essex railway engineer Peter Bruff, the steamboat owner William Jackson, and a group of businessmen built a pier and hotel there in the 1871. In the 1880s the Great Eastern Railway reached it, and it grew into the largest seaside resort between Southend and Yarmouth, with some 10,000 people by
Clacton-on-Sea by experts from the Navy; 2)The bombing of the Wagstaff Corner area in May 1941, which felled some well-known buildings; 3)The impact of a V2 rocket in front of the Tower Hotel, injuring dozens of troops inside though without bringing down the structure. Clacton looked out on the route taken by many of the V1 and V2 bombs aimed at London. A big role in the town's history just pre-and postwar was played by the KIngsman family, who bought and developed the Pier and ran a pleasure-steamer service from London. There was a summer sea excursion, on a larger ship,