Victorian Bournemouth (230) has traced the activities of slate clubs as reported in the local press during the last two decades of the century. Once a feature expressing the personality of their sponsoring local pubs, this form of behaviour became institutionalised to take its place amongst Bournemouth’s other charitable bodies.
Introduction Victorian Bournemouth (59) explores how, while sixteen residents went bankrupt between 1856 and 1866, in the following three years this happened to forty-one people. In 1869, the new Debtors’ Act reduced the inevitability of prison sentences for convicted bankrupts. While this may have increased a willingness to declare, the bankruptcies’ cause perhaps lay elsewhere. […]