genealogy Archives - News from the Past

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (223): a ratepayers’ association

April 14, 2025 by Kitablios 0 comments

Victorian Bournemouth (223) studied the Springbourne and Malmesbury Park Ratepayers’ Association to examine the political and social identity among working people during the 1890s. The vocabulary used in their meetings indicates the presence of a strong, local culture. The members’ reaction to their exclusion from new secondary schools due to high fee levels suggests an interest in education as a means of advancement. During this period, local union organisers also focused more on education. Furthermore, in the year the Association was founded, Bournemouth experienced its first industrial strike.

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (218): the second wave

March 10, 2025 by Kitablios 0 comments

Victorian Bournemouth (218) examines the social backgrounds of men on the Malmesbury Park and Springbourne Ratepayers’ Association committee. Despite advocating for manual labourers’ issues, their elevated social status made them popular with voters, community stakeholders, and the establishment, allowing them to become prominent local politicians and even mayors, thus forming a second wave.

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (216): a stag at bay

February 24, 2025 by Kitablios 0 comments

Victorian Bournemouth (216) has provided an overall review of 1895, the year when Merton Russell Cotes became the mayor at bay. Appointed perhaps as an alternative to divisive political interests occupying the Council, his unilateral behaviour, descending at times into self-interest, proved fatal to his survival. Furthermore, despite claiming otherwise, his reactionary stance on the social aspects of Bournemouth’s commercial development perhaps constituted a much larger obstacle than overriding procedures within the chamber. The experiment of appointing a mayor without public representation appeared to fail.

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (215): early mayors

February 17, 2025 by Kitablios 0 comments

Victorian Bournemouth (215) has reviewed the profiles and activities found for the borough’s first decade. Commonalities and differences appeared. At the heart of this analysis lies the finding that almost all the mayors hailed from humbler backgrounds compared to the elevated social positions they reached in Bournemouth. In a new position, the magistrates had to learn the best way to manage affairs during their years. Analysis of their business and civic records suggests that while religious and community participation seemed mandatory, each found a way to build a proprietary reputation.

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (214): civic success

February 10, 2025 by Kitablios 0 comments

Victorian Bournemouth (214) has considered the origins, careers, and community participation evident for those serving as aldermen during the 1890s. The analysis has shown that most emerged from humble backgrounds, but, by commercial success and community involvement, they achieved social elevation and respectability. This formed the basis for their securing political positions far distant from their social origins. Their stories illustrate how, at Victorian Bournemouth, political influence became a reward for merit and enterprise. Aldermen, therefore, offered a model for advancement to younger ambitious men. Indeed, some became mayor.

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (213): rising men

February 3, 2025 by Kitablios 1 comment

Victorian Bournemouth (213) discovers that the resort’s earliest councillors epitomised respectability achieved through hard work and seizing opportunities. Their professional success laid the groundwork for attaining public office. The collective values of these individuals, shaped in the market’s melting pot, perhaps provided Bournemouth with a modern outlook, one that rejected inherited tradition. Other communities seeking to balance their society’s modernity with tradition would have found Bournemouth’s achievements instructive.

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (212): public men

January 27, 2025 by Kitablios 0 comments

Victorian Bournemouth (212) finds that in its first decade the council included men representing different segments of the local economy.

5th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (210): a new frontier

January 13, 2025 by Kitablios 1 comment

Victorian Bournemouth (210) has sketched areas where the resort’s society, economy, and community had undergone substantial change during the decade. To some extent, its world tilted towards upside down. Changes in the economic and social structure occurred. So, also, did relationships with the adjacent settlements. As much change in this decade as in several previous seems to have occurred.

4th Period, Thought-pieces

Victorian Bournemouth (208): Q4 summary

December 30, 2024 by Kitablios 0 comments

Victorian Bournemouth (208) has revisited articles published in the preceding quarter. Most of its attention has fallen on social rather than economic or commercial subjects. It has looked at examples taken from the lifestyles of gentility and labouring people. Furthermore, it has examined the occasions when the lives of these people, as a rule separate, interlocked and the results of such encounters.

4th Period

Victorian Bournemouth (205): Joseph’s dream

December 9, 2024 by Kitablios 1 comment

Victorian Bournemouth (205) examines how Joseph Cutler used a public dinner given in his favour as a platform for furthering his political career. A divisive civic figure, Cutler had his eye on the first borough elections, his dream the mayor’s regalia. The dinner eschewed politics for bolstering his public image. The resort’s power brokers declined their invitations. A splendid occasion failed in its apparent purpose, for, at next year’s elections, voters did not favour Joseph Cutler .

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