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 railway station , or Clacton-on-Sea. Clacton is on a spur from Thorpe-le-Soken which was built by the Clacton-on-Sea Railway and originally operated by the Great Eastern Railway. It opened some 15 years after the branch to Walton was opened. On 1 January 1923 the station passed to the London and North Eastern Railway following the 1921 Railways Act. After World War II and following nationalisation, it fell under the auspices of British Railways Eastern Region. Services were steam-operated until the line was electrified, with Clacton first seeing electric trains on 16 March 1959. Initially, the line was only electrified as far as