John Sydenham: Bournemouth’s energetic media entrepreneur

Introduction

The career of Bournemouth’s media entrepreneur John Sydenham illustrates how commercial and social success might result from marketing the written word. His main business established at Poole, the new resort, nearby at Bourne Mouth, attracted his attention. He lost little time in establishing a presence at the affluent colony. The press reported his opening a library and news-room there during late summer, 1840.

Spas attracted literate, information-hungry, affluent spenders

Spas and watering-places provided good business opportunities for a media entrepreneur. They attracted increasing numbers of affluent people, keen to tick a box on their social experience card. Local populations therefore contained a much higher proportion of affluent people than average. Furthermore, although some came for extended stays, others might visit for a few weeks or perhaps less. Thus, the target audience for commercial activities not only had substantial spending ability but also refreshed itself on a regular basis. In marketing terms, therefore, traders had a regular stream of new customers ready to sample their offers. Bookshops and news-rooms offered affluent visitors two benefits. They supplied content with which to exercise their literacy, an important social characteristic. In addition they offered networking opportunities, another key part of affluent behaviour. Sydenham’s news-room, for example, possessed a social honey-pot: a register holding the names and venues of current visitors to the resort.

Media businesses clustered at spas

Directories show the extent to which a media entrepreneur might flourish in response to this regular demand for literacy and social contact. The three largest spas – Cheltenham, Bath and Brighton – supported each more than 40 such companies. Booksellers and stationers accounted for the largest segment, but libraries and reading rooms ran at about half that level. For purposes of comparison, such businesses at Cheltenham outnumbered all companies listed at Bournemouth during its first two decades. Specialisation had developed in the larger towns. Businesses in smaller towns combined printing, binding, bookselling and stationery. Libraries and reading-rooms flourished in smaller towns also. Harrogate and Ramsgate had five enterprises listed under ‘libraries and reading rooms’, Weymouth four, Bognor and Margate two. Libraries also enabled affluent people to make social contributions by collecting poor donations. An advertisement at Bath named not only libraries involved but also the donors’ identities and their amounts.

Visitor Guides: a good opportunity for revenue and affluent connection

Revenue opportunity

Visitor guides offered a media entrepreneur two benefits: higher margin, social connections with affluent people. The higher profitability accrued because a guide provided multiple opportunities to harvest margin through vertical integration. For his Bournemouth guide Sydenham had the ability to control content, printing, binding and local marketing through his own outlet. The title page shows he involved a London partner, source of many Bournemouth visitors. Guides would have played a central role during tourist holidays. They would feature when the day’s agenda came up for discussion, Sydenham, in effect, guiding readers around the town. The useful life of a guide might extend beyond the stay. It brought the publisher into meetings held to report back and share vacation experiences amongst tourists’ social equals. The book therefore became a silent salesman, introducing to potential visitors not just Bournemouth but also Sydenham’s publishing and retail business.

Social opportunity

A visitors’ guide might offer a media entrepreneur more direct opportunities to connect with the aristocracy, sharing characteristics with older Antiquarian County studies. These provided leading families with recognition, not least the wealthy parvenus ambitious for social advance. Mention in such a book would return subscriptions to its publisher. A guide for Tunbridge Wells (1840) followed this procedure. John Colbran, a bookseller and stationer who also had a printing business, published this guide. His signed advertisement lavished good feelings towards those supporting his book: not only local traders but also resident gentry. A list of the higher sorts appeared at the end of the book, noting with care the primi inter pares who had ordered two copies. Sydenham’s Bournemouth guide applied the pattern. The first edition gave prominent and lengthy acknowledgement to two local affluent families, Tregonwells and Gervis Tapps.

John Sydenham

Background

John Sydenham, in his mid-fifties when his Bournemouth library began, came from Devon, but he had married into the Moore family, owner of an established bookseller and library at Poole. He joined the business and by 1819, on old Moore’s passing, he and the son took it over. The entrepreneurial and promotional approach to Bournemouth’s library had appeared earlier at Moore’s business. This sold lottery tickets, patent medicine, and helped promote local events and sales. In the 1820s he became a media entrepreneur on a larger scale. He bought into the Dorset Chronicle, but, after divesting his interest in 1842, proceeded to establish the Poole and Dorset Herald. Press ownership provided opportunities for mentioning his businesses on a regular basis. His children worked in his businesses. A son edited the Herald for a while, two daughters ran Bournemouth’s library. Two granddaughters continued the association through their ladies’ school at Bournemouth.

Bournemouth business

Towards the end of August, 1840, the Dorset Chronicle noted that John Sydenham had opened his promenade library and reading room at ‘the delightful and rising watering-place’ in ‘Bourne Mouth’. The copy plugged its ‘spacious and commodious library and newsroom’ as well as proximity to the beach. The visitors’ guide appeared very soon, priced 1s-6d. Sydenham understood the need to maximise his revenue opportunities within such a small economy, so his library also sold stationery and ‘a variety of fancy articles’. In addition, the premises functioned as a contact address for those advertising items to sell. These included real estate but also a pair of brown ponies and a handsome carriage. Those worried about runaways received reassurance that ‘the Ponies have been constantly driven together and are very quiet in harness’. Later he became an agent for Chinese tea ‘now available after a peace treaty signed’.

Bournemouth society

Mr Sydenham worked to become a member of Bournemouth society. In 1845, he chaired a dinner for 100 people held to celebrate the new church’s consecration. This placed him in a social context with W.E. Rebbeck, the vice-chair and church clerk, at that time establishing his estate agency. The new incumbent, A. M. Bennett, and the Bishop of Winchester also formed part of the gathering. Six years later, John Sydenham assisted in establishing the settlement’s first masonic lodge. At the ‘most excellent supper’ to accompany this event ‘ample justice was done’. Sydenham not only played an important role within early Bournemouth’s economy but also its society. John Colbran, the Tunbridge Wells media entrepreneur, followed a similar path where by 1863 he had become a Town Commissioner.

Takeaway

John Sydenham applied his promotional and entrepreneurial approach to various print media. He spotted an opportunity at Bournemouth: its growing stream of higher social visitors with an appetite for literary products, books, periodicals and newspapers. His arrival in 1840 helped elevate the fledgling site’s literacy offering at an early point in its development to a level present at most other spas and watering-places, many well-established.

Thanks to Alwyn Ladell for this view of Sydenham’s Library.

References

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