Gillingham, United Kingdom

The Strand was once owned by the Davenport family in 1635, the Davenport family included a Mayor of Gillingham, pie makers and key holders of Gillingham. The Davenport family had a road named after them in 1920. The Davenport estate was in Ashford, Kent. The estate comprised around 15000 acres and was called The Davenport Manor. The Davenports lost the estate in 1889. The Davenport family were among the investors in the Chatham Dockyard. In medieval times the part of Gillingham known as Grange was a "limb" (junior member) of the Cinque Ports and the maritime importance of the area continued until the late 1940s. Indeed, a large part of Chatham Dockyard lay within Gillingham, and when it was closed in 1984, two-thirds of the then modern-day dockyard lay within the boundaries of Gillingham. The dockyard was founded by Queen Elizabeth I on the site of the present gun wharf, the establishment being transferred to the present site about 1622. In 1667 a Dutch fleet sailed up the River Medway and, having landed at Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey and laying siege to the fort at Sheerness, invaded Gillingham in what became known as the raid on the Medway. The Dutch eventually retreated, but the incident caused great humiliation to the Royal Navy.

The Seven Years' War began in 1756 and the government immediately gave orders for the defence of the dockyard; by 1758 the Chatham Lines of Defence were built. Over a mile long, they stretched across the neck of the dockyard peninsula, from Chatham Reach, south of the dockyard, across to Gillingham Reach on the opposite side. One of the redoubts on the Lines was at Amherst. The batteries faced away from the dockyard itself to forestall an attack from the landward side; the ships and shore-mounted guns on the river were considered sufficient to protect from that side. The lines of defence are now part of the Great Lines Heritage Park and also the Lower Lines Park (near MidKent College, Gillingham Campus).

War with France began again in 1778, and once more it was necessary to strengthen the defences. Fort Amherst was the first to be improved; it was followed by work beginning in 1800 to add others at Fort Pitt, Chatham, plus Fort Delce and Fort Clarence (both in Rochester); later in the 19th century others were added, including one at Fort Darland in Gillingham. This work, and the expansion of the dockyard, meant that more homes were needed for the workers. The position of the Lines meant that this building could only happen beyond, and so New Brompton came into being. The population rose to 9,000 people by 1851.

Gillingham was still only a small village; eventually it, too, was swallowed up, and the name of the whole settlement changed to Gillingham. In the 1891 census its population was 27,809, and in 1901, it was 42,530.

In 1919, after World War I, a naval war memorial in the shape of a white stone obelisk was set up on the Great Lines in Chatham. This monument, known as the Chatham Naval Memorial, commemorates members of the Royal Navy who died during the First and Second World Wars and have no known grave. Unveiled on 26 April 1924 by the Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII), the memorial originally listed 8,515 names of those lost in World War I. In 1952, an extension was added to commemorate the 10,098 sailors who died in World War II, bringing the total number of names to over 18,500. Designed by Sir Robert Lorimer, the memorial features a rostral obelisk intended as a mark for shipping, symbolizing the naval heritage of Chatham. It is one of three such monuments erected by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, with similar structures in Portsmouth and Plymouth.

In 1924, a war memorial was unveiled at the junction of Mill Road and Brompton Road in Gillingham to commemorate the borough's fallen from World War I. Designed by sculptor F.W. Doyle-Jones, the Gillingham War Memorial is a stone obelisk featuring sculptural roundels and inscriptions. Later additions honored those lost in World War II and the Korean War. Originally located at the junction, the memorial was relocated in the early 1970s to its current position outside Medway Park Sports Centre. It was granted Grade II listed status in 2016 for its architectural and historic significance.

Gillingham has been the scene of two notable disasters: on 11 July 1929 a public demonstration by Gillingham Fire Brigade went wrong, resulting in 15 fatalities; and in the 1951 Gillingham bus disaster, 24 Royal Marine cadets aged 10 to 13 were killed in a road accident.