In his history of Essex (1848) W. White describes Purfleet as having 704 inhabitants including 199 from the barracks. "Purfleet is a village and military station...at the mouth of a rivulet, and at the west end of West Thurrock ... sometimes called a township ... and has a pleasure fair on the 13th of June. Near it are the extensive limeade chalk pits of W.H. Whitbread, the lord of the manor. The harbour is often full of shipping business and animation: and joining it is a large government powder magazine, consisting of five detached bomb-proof and well-protected store-houses, barracks for a company of artillery, a store keeper's mansion, and a good quay. The magazine was built in 1781, and has room for the safe keeping of 60,000 barrels of gunpowder."