Successes and failures

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (105) introduces articles that will analyse social and economic aspects of the resort’s history during the 1870s. Great changes occurred during this decade.

Victorian Bournemouth (105): population and economy

Momentum

The pattern of continuous growth in Bournemouth’s population and commercial establishment did not abate during these years. In rough terms, the town increased its social and economic mass by about three. In part, the annexation of the eastern territories contributed to this increase, but the older sections of the town also experienced growth. Evidence of the increase appeared in several factors. The town attracted more tourists than before. Its hotels increased, in part to match this. Analysis of want-ads suggests that, by the end of the decade, an appetite grew to employ domestic staff, in part an indication of middling wealth and its symbols. Technology contributed to the momentum. The railways arrived. A steam-packet company attracted enough investors to incorporate. The telephone made an appearance. The Commission spent time considering the advantages of a traction engine as well as using asphalt to surface its roads.

Breadth

As the culture increased speed, so did it broaden. A widening choice of worship places suggests a more varied religious sphere. People could attend different types of Anglican service. The menu widened also for Dissenters. The breadth for entertainment widened, both amateur and professional. A thriving amateur dramatics group developed. Other amateurs organised minstrel shows or musical concerts. Professional minstrels visited, as did Charles Halle and the D’Oyley Carte company. Other entertainers played concerts. Theatre acts arrived in number. At Christmas, Bournemouth hosted pantomime shows: Babes in the Wood, Cinderella. Other music hall or classical music events occurred during this decade. Bournemouth’s Philharmonic flourished, as did the ubiquitous Italian Band, a feature at many public events. The Winter Gardens hosted several promenade concerts. Elsewhere, a taste developed for lectures as a form of entertainment: pottery, literature, technology. Balls, also, increased in number. Military events augmented the traditional winter balls.

Victorian Bournemouth (105): Commission at the crossroads

Engineering projects

The Commission had come into existence in large part to address problems with the drainage network. As a decision-making body, the individuals involved never seemed to have achieved control. Despite their influence widening within the community, the Board remained a hostage to its management of the drains. Public opinion as reported (or fostered) by the press portrayed the Commission as a collection of amateurs at odds with each other about managing the project to extend the sewers. They sought professional advice but did not accept it. The works absorbed much money. Micro-management brought the project to a stand-still. Nevertheless, the Commissioners continued to commit funds and attention to another signature endeavour: a new pier. When the company involved collapsed, the Commissioners took responsibility. Thus, the Commissioners exhibited signs that the town’s system of government had perhaps run its course. Calls for incorporation occurred by the decade’s end.

Social projects

Terrace Road had formed an enclave for the town’s labouring population during the early years. The investors’ continued commitment to expanding the built environment attracted large numbers of immigrant working people. First Madeira Vale, but then Springbourne and parts of Boscombe became the new zones to house the town’s labour force and its families. Many of these people lay beyond the jurisdictional reach of the Commission, yet aspects of their lifestyles attracted its attention. The practice of Springbourne residents to keep pigs gained particular notice. In addition to this health danger caused by working people, their affluent counterparts in Boscombe appeared to threaten Bournemouth’s commerce. They wanted it to become a competitive watering-place. The Commissioners took advantage of the eastward extension of the drainage system to annex these territories, despite opposition. Furthermore, members elbowed their way onto the Union Board to prevent interference in other aspects. 

Victorian Bournemouth (105): violence

Knives and arson

During the 1860s, affluent physicians used their professional and social power to make violent attacks on the Commissioners. They launched media darts not physical blows, however. Members of the growing middling population pushed against traditional constraints. They confronted the Earl of Malmesbury and won. His attempt to establish a Volunteers’ Battalion to cover both Christchurch and Bournemouth failed. In the 1870s, several examples of aggressive, physical violence seared the newspaper columns and occupied the courts. The perpetrators in one instance belonged to the lower social levels. Violent acts included a knife and threats to burn property, the residents still inside. Another targeted attack, however, occurred at the behest of someone belonging to the upper social level. His gang of thugs terrorised a tenant whose rent payments had fallen into arrears. Bonfire nights had become instances where alcohol and young men resulted in anti-social behaviour using fireworks and burning tar barrels.

Inadequate control

Bournemouth’s halcyon creation-myth involved Arcadian imagery. Fashionable villas emerged beside poor fishermen’s huts, references to smuggling expunged from the record. Those witnessing or reading about the events of November 5th during the 1870s, perhaps considered this imagery antediluvian. The police specials enacted a violent suppression of young, drunken, working men sufficient to attract complaints into the press. In its fifth decade, however, Bournemouth’s commercial success created a social momentum that transformed it into an urban community. The instances of violence, the spates of bankruptcies, suggested that the impetus of the town’s progress might have caused its culture to over-heat. Violence flourished within all levels of the town’s society. White-collar crime entered the courts in addition to charges of drunkenness and burglary brought against working people. Such internal distortion, threatening to disrupt its smooth commercial impetus, perhaps suggested to some observers that their settlement needed a different form of governance.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (105) has provided one overview to the events and forces that shaped the resort’s culture and commerce during the 1870s. The culture increased but also broadened at speed. The Commission’s decision-making brought it to the stage where incorporation grew as the next significant civic development. Incidences of violence reflected cracks in Bournemouth’s society.

References

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