Introduction

Greedy lodginghouse keepers featured in a series of letters written to the Poole & Dorset Herald in 1854. Their author, Dr A.W.P. Pinkerton, adopted as his theme the ‘Capabilities of Bournemouth’. Pinkerton’s subject consisted of invalids, his concern lying in their obtaining the best conditions. He dwelt much on the standards of housing and the problems posed by the bad drainage, but he also criticised the business methods adopted by lodginghouse keepers.

Who was Dr Pinkerton?

Background

Baptised perhaps in Scotland during the 1820s, his parents gave him the names Archibald William Pulteney. In his final letter he refers to medical experienced garnered travelling at home and abroad, this having occurred before his arrival at Bournemouth. He appears to have qualified as doctor at Edinburgh by 1850.  Whereas a directory did not list him at Bournemouth in 1851, the letters showed him present by the summer of 1854. The 1855 directory did list him as a Bournemouth doctor. By that time, however, he had gone, answering a call for surgeons to serve in the Crimean War. Notice of his gazetting appeared during November of that year, a couple of weeks after Florence Nightingale’s arrival at Scutari. The letters display his observational abilities. His attention to greedy lodginghouse keepers shows that he appreciated factors affecting mental as well as physical health.

Crimean War and further military service

The Poole & Dorset Herald, early in 1855, carried a story in which Pinkerton featured. Soldiers invalided home from the Crimea, landing at Liverpool, told good stories (‘unanimous in their praise’) about a Dr Pinkerton they had encountered at Malta. Pinkerton, amongst many other medical officers, received a service medal because of his role in the Crimean War. If not before, this experience perhaps gave him a taste for military service. In 1858, his name appeared in the Scottish press as taking over a surgeon’s role at the 24^th Foot Regiment. At this time, the regiment served in India, where it formed part of the Punjab’s garrison during the First War of Independence. An Irish medical directory listed his name for 1860, suggesting that he had returned after a couple of years. After that he disappeared from records found to date.

Property and people

Bad quality housing

The series begins, almost in a pastoral tone, whereby Pinkerton uses flowing detail to showcase the area’s natural physical assets. He went on to a picture of possible disease and decay brought on by uncontrolled building, open sewers and greedy lodginghouse keepers. He revealed a keen knowledge of Bournemouth’s environment, both natural and built. In addition to issues of villa orientation, siting, and wind directions, he also addressed building design and construction quality. He mentioned narrow halls and staircases, walls built too thin to exclude noises and music coming from adjacent rooms. The comparative insulation provided by stone or brick walls attracted his attention. He also commented on building craftsmanship, using the phrase ‘running up buildings’ as a reflection on the tempo of construction. His comments on ever present limekilns and open sewers introduced air pollution and the possibility of cholera, subjects of general concern.

Bad quality lodginghouse keepers

Although Pinkerton appreciated that property improvement and commerce had a place in society, he criticised those whom he perceived as wringing money from invalids by extortionate and exploitative service. He highlighted those he characterised as greedy lodginghouse keepers. ‘Money is all they want and get it they will.’ He went further. ‘Bournemouth offers advantages not to be met with elsewhere, let it also present in the way it is kept, in the behaviour of the lodging house keepers, as fair a sample of pure generosity and good feeling, not the mere servile haste in making rich.’ This commercial category had begun rapid growth, listed lodging-house keepers numbering almost forty by the end of the decade, a quadruple increase. The category will have increased in response to growing demand, but greater competitive intensity may have caused some lodginghouse keepers to maximise every revenue opportunity, irrespective of its source.

The Pinkerton letters: an evaluation

Motivation for writing

Some might see the doctor’s motivation as income protection. Invalids, for the most part people of affluence able to afford villa rentals, could have constituted an important source of his revenue. Surviving invalids would offer a good source of recommendation, perhaps booking return visits. On the other hand, sincerity seems to dominate his approach, while his scope suggests an aware professional sensitive to a range of possibilities that might affect health. Furthermore, he appears to have volunteered for Crimean service, during which he performed at a level suitable to gain recognition. Returning soldiers praised him; he won a medal. These considerations would seem to exclude the possibility that Pinkerton’s letters constituted a commercial nest-feathering process. He used his professional experience to try and rectify a condition at Bournemouth that posed a threat to human health. The charge of greedy lodginghouse keepers as part of this context raises interest.

Greedy lodginghouse keepers

The product of a family affluent enough to support his journey to medical qualifications, Pinkerton’s opinion may have reflected contemporary upper-class attitudes towards not only trade, but also working people. His letters, however, suggest that he surveyed Bournemouth’s layout and its construction methods in person. His generalisation about greedy lodginghouse keepers, therefore, may have derived from actual events but perhaps not from his personal experience. Other Bournemouth medics occupied houses supported by servants, so perhaps Pinkerton followed this practice, having few if any commercial encounters with lodginghouse keepers. If so, his observation about lodginghouse keepers may have depended on word-of-mouth. Hence, the commercial attitudes and grasping behaviour of the resort’s lodginghouse keepers may have formed part of its public perception. Other analysis has suggested that, for the most part, men had little to do with this business category. Hence, Pinkerton’s observation referred to greedy women.

Takeaway

Dr Pinkertons’ letters, while they informed about the dangerous condition of drains and shoddy construction methods, perhaps have most value now for the possible insight they offered into business attitudes and behaviour active in the lodginghouse category at early Victorian Bournemouth.

References

See also this post and this post.

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