Introduction

Textile workers reached and left early Victorian Bournemouth, but, by the period’s end, established firms had got their start. The category covered tailors, drapers, a milliner, a furrier as well as many dressmakers. Their comings and goings, but also the beginnings of established firms, perhaps illustrates economic trends during the resort’s early period. Fluidity blended into stability as time passed.

Textile workers

Category size

In the developed economies of the larger spas, the textile category had developed a range of specialised offerings. Opportunities at Cheltenham in 1842 existed for the following textile workers: Berlin warehouses; haberdashers, hosiers, and lacemen; hatters; glovers; linen and wool drapers; milliners and dressmakers; straw-hat makers; tailors; plumasiers. For the most part, at contemporary Bournemouth, the category consisted of tailors, drapers, and dressmakers. The number of their businesses had reached around ten by 1851, although the largest number of workers consisted of dressmakers. Some of these sold their labour to established firms as outworkers. W.B. Rogers advertised for such a resource in the late 1850s. Most perhaps had their own circle of customers. At Cheltenham, the wide array of businesses indicates that they will have sold to spa visitors, affluent and sophisticated people for whom adornment had social importance. At Bournemouth, however, visitors may not have formed their main customers.

Social profiles

In other work categories, a pattern of geographic concentration has characterised many participants, kinship connections also a regular feature. Apart from three coming from Poole, the rest appear to have come from Wiltshire (Salisbury, Hindon), Dorset (Woodsford Castle, Poole, Wimborne St Giles), and Hampshire (Milford). Eliza Housden came from Huntingdon, but she and perhaps a brother or uncle had moved to Wimborne by the 1840s, her relative running a bookshop there. No apparent kinship connections have surfaced.

In some cases, the paternal occupation has survived. While people might change occupations during their working lives, the evidence found suggests that Bournemouth’s textile business owners did not appear to have cloth in their backgrounds. No pattern but variation appears in paternal occupation: innkeeper, farmer, shopkeeper, shipwright, gamekeeper. Only for one – John Elgar – did his father work at tailoring. The fathers did, however, share the characteristic of business owners.

Passing through

Life stage a factor

For some, marriage appeared to have taken men and women from their textile businesses. Eliza Housden, listed as a draper for Bournemouth in 1851, soon married James McWilliam, an important builder and civic leader. After 1859, however, she disappeared from the directories, the census showing no occupation for her. Harriet Harrington, a milliner, immigrated from the Cranborne hinterland by 1851. Within three years, however, she married a joiner and moved to Southampton, making hats in the short but not long term. Marriage may have changed the Garrets business, a sister and two brothers. The brothers married, one emigrating to Washington Territory, the other elsewhere in Hampshire, neither textile workers. The sister, Maria, followed her brother to Hampshire, still a draper, but disappeared soon after. Thomas Webber, tailor, left Poole for Bournemouth, living with his sister, but she returned to get married. Later, Thomas took his tailoring to Wareham.

Apparent false starts

Two textile workers appear to have served apprenticeships, established a business at Bournemouth, but then left. Both men may have taken over their master’s business – Alfred Kerslake Dorchester, John Woodcock Wimborne – while soon opening a branch at Bournemouth. At this stage, they seemed men of success, having a growing business if not a residence at the resort, yet both took their families and left. Kerslake, still in drapery, and his wife went to Tottenham, but he died in middle-age, retired at Great Yarmouth. His probate hinted at success by describing him as a gentleman, although the estate did not reach £100. John Woodcock, a Poole man, by 1855 he had come to Bournemouth, in addition to his business in Wimborne. Soon, however, the family moved to Yorkshire, where Woodcock became a corn-merchant. By 1870, however, they had emigrated to a South Carolina plantation. Bournemouth could retain neither man.

Beginnings of stability

W.B. Rogers

Advertisements show the draper W. B. Rogers conducting business by 1855. He and shoemaker Whiffen occupied adjoining premises. Rogers had to pay £50 rent a year and perhaps chased business too much, for he had £30 owed him by Samuel Bayly at the latter’s bankruptcy in 1856. He survived, however, leaving estate worth almost £12,000 at the turn of the century. He would become prominent in civic life.

Alfred Rogers

The basis of the textile business run by Alfred Rogers, no apparent relation, took shape in the form of his mother’s fur business which traded in both Poole and Bournemouth in the early 1850s. The 1861 Census located him living with his mother in Poole, working as a draper. Alfred and his wife, Lydia Wise, a bankrupt’s daughter, would stay in Bournemouth until around 1880, trading as drapers.

John Elgar

John Elgar, from Milford, Hampshire, son of William, a master tailor, had come to Bournemouth by 1851. He and his wife, Charlotte, may have found things difficult, at first, for they both carried letters in 1861 in addition to his tailoring business. He did, however, have an apprentice and a journeyman tailor present in his house. The foundation this couple laid perhaps attracted his father’s interest. He came to Bournemouth by 1871, living in a house bearing a meaningful name: Milford Villa. John Elgar had a long career in Bournemouth as a tailor, not passing away until aged almost 90, living in four reigns.

Takeaway

The transient careers of textile workers present in early Victorian Bournemouth suggests that insufficient custom may have existed for them. On the other hand, changes in life-stage may have hastened their departure. Towards the end of the period, however, three individuals managed to establish textile businesses that would enjoy some longevity.

References

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