Early history , London Deposits at Clacton have provided important evidence for the
Lower Palaeolithic occupation of Britain by
Homo heidelbergensis during the
Hoxnian Interglacial, around 424–375,000 years ago, including stone tools of the titular
Clactonian industry. At this time Britain had a temperate deciduous forest environment and climate similar to today. The "
Clacton Spear", a wooden (
yew) spear found in these deposits around Clacton in 1911 is the world's oldest known wooden spear. 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
the pier, which opened in 1871, allowing visitors to travel by ship; the railway would not reach Clacton until 1882. 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 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 bombs and V-2 rockets aimed at London. 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. 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), which broadcast
Wonderful Radio London, was anchored offshore from 1964 until its forced closure in 1967. 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 as the poorest of all). Since around 1970 several well-known local buildings have been demolished, including the palatial
art deco Odeon Cinema , the Warwick Castle Pub; the Waverley Hotel; Barker House, a large home for the learning disabled, and
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. 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
an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.
Twenty-first century (immersion ceremony) is observed in the
North Sea Gunfleet Sands Offshore Wind Farm, built in the early 2000s some 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. ==Seaside resort==