Editing Clacton-on-Sea (section)

==History==
===Early history===
[[File:Clacton Spear 02.jpg|thumb|right|Clacton Spear, [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]], London]]
Deposits at Clacton have provided important evidence for the [[Lower Paleolithic|Lower Palaeolithic]] occupation of Britain by ''[[Homo heidelbergensis]]'' during the [[Hoxnian Stage|Hoxnian Interglacial]], around 424-375,000 years ago, including stone tools of the titular [[Clactonian]] [[archaeological industry|industry]].<ref name=Laing50>{{cite book |last1=Laing |first1=Lloyd |last2=Laing |first2=Jennifer |date=1980 |title=The Origins of Britain  |publisher=Book Club Associates |pages=50–51 |isbn=0710004311}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Citation |last=McNabb |first=John |title=Problems and Pitfalls in Understanding the Clactonian |date=2020 |work=Culture History and Convergent Evolution |series=Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology |pages=29–53 |editor-last=Groucutt |editor-first=Huw S. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-46126-3_3 |access-date=2024-07-28 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-46126-3_3 |isbn=978-3-030-46125-6|url-access=subscription }}</ref> At this time Britain had a temperate deciduous forest environment and climate similar to today.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Ashton |first=Nick |date=July 2016 |title=The human occupation of Britain during the Hoxnian Interglacial |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1040618215011805 |journal=Quaternary International |language=en |volume=409 |pages=41–53 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.055|bibcode=2016QuInt.409...41A |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Candy |first1=Ian |last2=Schreve |first2=Danielle C. |last3=Sherriff |first3=Jennifer |last4=Tye |first4=Gareth J. |date=January 2014 |title=Marine Isotope Stage 11: Palaeoclimates, palaeoenvironments and its role as an analogue for the current interglacial |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0012825213001554 |journal=Earth-Science Reviews |language=en |volume=128 |pages=18–51 |doi=10.1016/j.earscirev.2013.09.006|bibcode=2014ESRv..128...18C |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The "[[Clacton Spear]]", a wooden ([[Taxus baccata|yew]]) spear found in these deposits around Clacton in 1911 is the world's oldest known wooden spear.<ref name=Laing50 /><ref name="Clacton Spear">{{cite web
 |title=The Clacton Spear 
 |publisher=[[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] 
 |url=http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/results.asp?image=001066 
 |access-date=23 October 2012 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141028210420/http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/results.asp?image=001066 
 |archive-date=28 October 2014 
 |df=dmy 
}}</ref><ref name="Allington">Allington-Jones, L., (2015) ''Archaeological Journal'', 172 (2) 273–296 The Clacton Spear – The Last One Hundred Years</ref>

There is plentiful archaeological evidence of scattered settlement in the area, including [[Beaker culture|Beaker Folk]] traces at Point Clear to the south and round houses (as cropmarks) near the A133 extension from Weeley to the north. There may have been a pre-Roman (i.e. Celtic) settlement at Great Clacton and there were almost certainly scattered farmsteads as the important British Celtic settlement at Colchester was only about {{convert|15|mile}} away.  No traces of substantial Roman settlement have been found at Clacton though there are several Roman villa sites nearby (e.g. Alresford, Wivenhoe, Brightlingsea). After the Anglo-Saxon migration and the foundation of the kingdom of Essex, a village called ''Claccingtun'' ("the village of Clacc's or Clacca's people") was established. No pre-Norman buildings survive today. The [[Domesday Book]] of 1086 records the village as ''Clachintuna''.

Clacton was repeatedly surveyed by the Army in the Napoleonic Wars as a 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 five [[Martello Towers]] were built to guard the beaches between Colne Point to the south and what is now Holland-on-Sea to the north of the town.

In 1865 railway engineer and land developer [[Peter Bruff]], the steamboat owner William Jackson, and a group of businessmen bought an area of undeveloped farmland adjoining low gravelly cliffs and a firm sand-and-shingle beach lying to the south-east of Great Clacton village, with the intention of establishing a new resort. One of the first facilities they built for the new resort was [[Clacton Pier|the pier]], which opened in 1871, allowing visitors to travel by ship; the railway would not reach Clacton until 1882.<ref>{{cite book |title=Clacton-on-Sea through Time |date=2011 |publisher=Amberley Publishing |isbn=9781445627519 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c2KIAwAAQBAJ |access-date=3 September 2023}}</ref> The town of Clacton-on-Sea was laid out rather haphazardly over the next few years; though it has a central 'grand' avenue (originally Electric Parade, now Pier Avenue) the street plan incorporates many previously rural lanes and tracks, such as Wash Lane. Plots and streets were sold off piecemeal to developers and speculators. In 1882 the [[Great Eastern Railway]] already serving the well-established resort of [[Walton-on-the-Naze]] along the coast, opened a branch line to [[Clacton-on-Sea railway station]] from a junction on the existing railway at Thorpe-le-Soken.

===Twentieth century===
Clacton grew into the largest seaside resort between [[Southend-on-Sea]] and [[Great Yarmouth]], with some 10,000 residents by 1914 and approx. 20,000 by 1939. Due to its accessibility from the East End of London and the Essex suburbs, Clacton, like Southend, remained preferentially geared to catering for working-class and lower-middle-class holidaymakers.

For well over a century Clacton Pier has been an [[RNLI]] lifeboat station.

Just before the Second World War the building of [[Butlin's Clacton|Butlin's Holiday Camp]] boosted its economy, though the Army took it over between then and 1945 for use as an internment, engineer, pioneer and light anti-aircraft artillery training camp.

Four notable incidents occurred in Clacton-on-Sea during the Second World War. First, very early in the war a German airman bailed out over the town. Procedures for dealing with enemy captives were not yet well-established and he was treated as a celebrity guest for some days, including by the town council, before eventually being handed over to the military. Second, a [[Luftwaffe]] [[Heinkel He 111]] bomber crashed into the town on 30 April 1940, demolishing several houses in the Vista Road area as one of the magnetic mines on board exploded on impact, killing the crew and two civilians; another mine was defused by experts from the Navy. Third, the Wagstaff Corner area was bombed in May 1941, demolishing some well-known buildings. Finally, a [[V-2 rocket]] hit in front of the Tower Hotel, injuring dozens of troops inside though without bringing down the structure. Clacton lay beneath the route taken by many of the [[V-1 flying bomb]]s and V-2 rockets aimed at London.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

A big role in the town during the pre- and post-war period was played by the Kingsman family, which bought and developed the pier and ran a pleasure-steamer service from London. A summer sea excursion to [[Calais]] also ran until the early 1960s. Butlin's reopened the holiday camp after the war. This, along with the expansion of the nearby chalet town of [[Jaywick]], originally a speculative private development of inter-war years, and increasingly capacious caravan sites, all swelled by the movement of retired Londoners into the area, altered the character of the town.{{cn|date=April 2025}}

Throughout the 1960s Clacton beach remained a popular summer excursion for residents of Essex and east London and in August was often crammed to capacity in the area around the Pier. The [[pirate radio]] ship MV ''Galaxy'' (originally known as [[USS Density|USS ''Density'']]), which broadcast [[Wonderful Radio London]], was anchored offshore from 1964 until its forced closure in 1967.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Radio London Story, Part One: Big L Begins |url=https://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/bigl1.htm |access-date=2025-04-27}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Radio London Story, Part Six: Peel, Pepper and their final hour |url= https://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/bigl3.htm |access-date=2025-04-27}}</ref>

With the advent of cheap flights to Mediterranean resorts in the 1970s, the holiday industry began to decline. Increasingly, hotels' and guest-houses' spare capacity came to be used as 'temporary' accommodation by the local authority to house those on welfare, refugees, migrants and asylum seekers. Pier Ward, in the centre of the town, is one of the poorest in the UK (nearby Jaywick is often cited{{by whom|date=April 2025}} as the poorest of all). 

Since around 1970 several well-known local buildings have been demolished, including the palatial [[art deco]] [[Odeon Cinema]] (a great loss to both the town and the county); the Warwick Castle Pub; the Waverley Hotel; Barker House, a large home for the learning disabled, and [[Livability (charity)|John Groom's Crippleage]] which housed orphaned handicapped girls from London. Cordy's, a well-known large seafront restaurant has recently been demolished. The site of Butlin's Holiday Camp was redeveloped as a housing estate. The once famously crowded bus station in Jackson Road has become a car park. The Ocean Revue Theatre, where [[Max Bygraves]] made one of his first appearances, has closed.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jacobs|first=Norman |author-link=Norman Jacobs |date=1967 |title=Clacton Past and Present|publisher=WO series (War Office), ADM 1 (Naval), HO 192/3 (Civil Defence) files at the National Archives}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Jacobs|first=Norman |author-link=Norman Jacobs |date=1967 |title=The Essex Countryside|publisher=WO series (War Office), ADM 1 (Naval), HO 192/3 (Civil Defence) files at the National Archives}}</ref>

The town expanded substantially in the 1980s, 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, with new housing estates on the rural margins of town, and some brownfield developments. Many residents commute to work in [[Colchester]], [[Witham]], [[Chelmsford]] or [[London]]. Clacton was in the news when its town centre and seafront areas were struck by [[1981 United Kingdom tornado outbreak|an F1/T2 tornado]] on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.eswd.eu/cgi-bin/eswd.cgi|title=European Severe Weather Database|website=www.eswd.eu}}</ref>

===Twenty-first century===
[[File:Simon_King_Clacton_on_Sea_Ganesha_Visarjan_Wind_Turbines.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Wind turbines are seen in the distance from Clacton-on-Sea beachfront, as a Hindu [[Ganesh chaturthi|Ganesh Visarjan]] (immersion ceremony) is observed in the [[North Sea]]]]
[[Gunfleet Sands Offshore Wind Farm]], built in the early 2000s some {{convert|3|nmi|km|0|abbr=off|spell=on}} offshore, is visible from many places in the flat hinterland of the town.

As common with many English seaside towns, unemployment has remained stubbornly high in Clacton.<ref name=guardian-20230919/> In 2023, Clacton won a £20 million government [[Levelling-up policy of the British government|levelling-up grant]] to improve the town centre.<ref name=cg-20230119>{{cite news |url=https://www.clactonandfrintongazette.co.uk/news/23261790.clacton-wins-20m-government-level-up-town-centre/ |title=Clacton wins £20m from Government to 'level-up' town centre |last=Dwan |first=James |website=Clacton Gazette |date=19 January 2023 |access-date=19 September 2023}}</ref>