“Who stopped the clock?” That was the question posed by a seven-year old boy to the vicar of Brighton as he rode his horse along Upper North Street.

Something snapped in the vicar’s brain after he had been taunted every day about the clock in St Peter’s Church which had stopped because no one was winding it. The Rev Henry Wagner wanted money to be available but some parishioners disagreed.

The boy dashed into his home closely followed by the vicar who dismounted and left another boy in charge of the horse. Told by his mother that the boy was hiding, Wagner commanded him to come out.

When he refused,Wagner burst the door open and hit the boy several times with his riding crop.The Vicar departed after giving a penny to the boy who had held his horse.

The boy’s father, Stephen Grover, was angry when he came home a few minutes later. He took his son to the vicarage and asked to see the vicar but Wagner refused.

News of the fracas spread around the town quickly and solicitor Sidney Walsingham, one of the vicar’s many enemies, took up the case.

Magistrates fined him £2 plus costs, not much to a man of means but a stain on his character that people recalled for the rest of his life.

Wagner was a major figure in the middle of the 19th century and was never afraid of controversy. Even the King was not immune.

When William IV asked Wagner why church bells had not been sounded for his arrival in Brighton one Sunday, he replied: that on the Sabbath they rang only for the King of Kings. It was an impressive answer.

He was a high Tory in the days when Brighton was a radical town. In those days there was no secret ballot and Wagner was always first to the hustings where he cast his vote.

He was also a high churchman when this caused controversy and he had constant problems over raising finance for the running costs of his churches.

And there were churches galore. The vicar, being a rich man, financed five of them and others more than equalled this sum.

Nominally Brighton was under the wing of Chichester but it was so much bigger and more powerful that it was described as a bishopric within a bishopric.

Wagner’s greatest church was St Paul’s which still stands in West Street. It was handsomely designed by Richard Carpenter and served the fishing community among others.

Several of his churches did not survive. Among them was Christ Church in Montpelier Road,replaced by co-operative flats in 1982.

He died in 1870,still a controversial figure despite having mellowed in his later years. For every worshipper who found him impossible, there would be another who praised his great generosity. His sermons were said to be among the best in Britain.

And that was by no means the end of the Wagners of Brighton. His son, Arthur, was an even more controversial figure whose generosity was even greater. But more of him on another day.