Cultural Life at early Victorian Bournemouth

Introduction

Cultural life began early in the public world of Victorian Bournemouth. Press references suggest that, for the most part, it emphasised music, but other activities occurred. The presence of pianos in auctioneers’ advertisements testifies to the symbolic as well as perhaps actual importance that music played in private lives. Advertisements by music teachers also illustrate this practice. Public musical activities delivered not only aesthetic pleasure but often money raised for charities. Most information relates to affluent people, little surviving about the cultural life of working people.

Early Bournemouth’s cultural life

An array of activities

John Sydenham established Bournemouth’s library by summer 1840. Its offering connected literary activities to the provision of wider social information. For example, the library held a current list of the resort’s visitors and their accommodation addresses. References to a hunt as well as a regatta appeared. Organised cricket began. Misses Lance and Burt transferred their ladies’ school from Poole to Bournemouth. The Reverend Wankelyn had a school for boys. Though no painters had arrived, an appreciation for visual arts appears amongst auctioneers’ details. As early as 1840 there occurred an auction for paintings by old masters, the copy reassuring doubters about authenticity. Later, a ‘superior collection of paintings and drawings’ went to auction at the Belle Vue. In 1855, a collection of paintings worth £13,000 came from London to feature in a charity bazaar. James Thornton, the gilder, offered to clean pictures with care as well as repairing frames.

Music at the core

Professional musicians saw Bournemouth as a commercial opportunity from the beginning. Henry Blagrove came for a morning as part of a southern tour in July 1840, but by August he returned to give two concerts at the Bath Hotel ‘to highly fashionable parties’. A subscription concert gave Bournemouth access to the Jacobowitch musical family. Lady Erskine, a Bournemouth visitor, sponsored the royal harpist’s visit to Poole together with other affluent females. Contemporary Cheltenham, for example, had enough interest to support several teachers of singing or dancing (in addition to art and language professors). Music teachers only visited Bournemouth at this time, but Miss Churchill (Royal Academy of Music) and Madame Anfosi saw enough potential to advertise their trips. The resort’s cultural life flourished also in its regular series of balls. These became a feature of the Christmas and New Year season, linking culture to socialising and fundraising.

The Balls

A tale of two balls

As much social as cultural activities, Bournemouth’s balls attracted different categories of attendees. This division had occurred at an early stage. In 1846 ‘tradespeople and other respectable inhabitants of Bournemouth’ came together at a Christmas party. Entertainment involved not only communal feeding on a grand scale but also music and dancing. ‘Our old friend, Baker, of Poole’ provided the music. Its success raised expectations of future repetition. Not long after, an event on a much grander scale occurred. Described as a ball patronised by ‘the most influential gentry of the neighbourhood’. The Dorset County Chronicle drooled over the event’s guest list. It took pains to emphasise the social superiority of this contribution to the resort’s cultural life. Guests at this event included the Tregonwells and their wider family, a collection of retired military officers based in Christchurch, sundry medics and clergymen. By the 1850s, however, charity balls occurred.

Fundraising

Early in the resort’s life fundraising, guided by the zealous Reverend Bennett, perhaps had its greatest focus on improving St Peter’s Church. Towards the end of the early period, however, a different focus emerged. Interest grew in the possibility of erecting a sanatorium to take advantage of Bournemouth’s climatic qualifications. This would operate as an extension of the Brompton Consumption Hospital in London, having royal patronage. Bournemouth prevailed over Hastings as the chosen site. An efficient fundraising apparatus supported the project. This involved the local masonic lodge (Hengist), but also harnessed bazaars for the purpose. Without doubt, the community involved in this project became part of Bournemouth’s cultural life. A fusion with the resort’s musical culture took the form of a ball. This seems to have doubled with the traditional January event, attracting gentry, military, religious and legal people as before. The Belle Vue participated by giving the room free.

Cultural life of working people

Culture and wealth

Thus, one form of a ‘cultural life’ consisted of activities engaged in by affluent people. This included classical music, the visual arts, ball dancing and communal public eating or tea drinking. Aesthetic enjoyment aside, participation involved public display to maintain social positions ranked by wealth. The local press published careful lists of gentry attending Christmas balls, but ignored individuals present at tradesmen’s seasonal counterparts. Participation cost money, from purchase of paintings to entry tickets to musical events. At 6/-, ball tickets lay beyond the reach of working people. The real cost, however, would have included appropriate clothing and the cost of education to empower aesthetic appreciation. Owned by affluent people, aimed at others of similar position, the media concentrated on content meaningful to this axis. If working people featured in its coverage at all, then it concerned court appearances, charity, or quaint rural festival customs.

Tearing off her hat

Sir George Gervis Tapps, Bournemouth’s main proprietor, allowed his rural tenants to conduct their summer festivals on his property. One of their competitions consisted of trying to tear off a young woman’s hat. ‘If a fine strong young woman had a handsome cap’, she would win 5/- by preventing any other females from tearing it from her head. This example of working people’s cultural expression would have provided anthropological amusement to affluent readers. The competition, however, perhaps offers clues to differences between cultural life across the social scale. This activity would appear to depend on the reduction of tall poppies: the uppity woman needs a lesson from other females. This activity celebrates cultural uniformity and communal equality. Affluent cultural life celebrated exclusion and social competition. They would have no interest in levelling, so working people’s cultural life remained unknown to them and posterity.

Takeaway

Early Victorian Bournemouth’s cultural life as it emerges from press coverage emphasised social exclusion and ranking competition amongst affluent people. This process used music, visual arts, dancing and feeding as its means of expression. Very little about working people’s culture in the town has survived to date. Nevertheless, affluent cultural activities did serve as ways of fundraising for such endeavours as the sanatorium.

References

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