Growth. Expansion. Control.

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (117) looks back on the first quarter’s articles referring to the resort’s third period, the 1870s. Articles covered Bournemouth’s demographic and cultural profile, the Improvement Board’s annexation of the eastern settlements. During the latter questions arose concerning its members’ competency to administer Bournemouth at this stage of development.

Victorian Bournemouth (117): demography and culture

Quantitative profiles

During Bournemouth’s fifth decade, its historic growth trend continued. The town’s footprint grew bigger, as did its population, and commercial mass. The 1870s experienced not just growth but acceleration. Population size approached 20,000, a large settlement in the area. Suburbs flourished. Population became redistributed around the town, creating zones having concentrations of working or affluent people. By now, the town had acquired a mixed economy combining production, retailing, and services. In 1880 almost a thousand enterprises gained listings in the directory, around triple the number a decade before. The appearance of several corporations having stockholders showed an economy having increased complexity. It perhaps also overheated. Evidence of trading difficulties towards the end of the decade appeared in the press. Thus, Bournemouth’s rapid growth had changed the nature of civic administration required. The Improvement Commission had tended to react to problems but it now needed the ability to anticipate them.

Qualitative profile

The town’s culture acquired depth and texture. Its built environment widened. More mansions appeared for the wealthy, but so, also, did rows of terraced houses to house working people. A new pier underlined the town’s position as an important seaside resort. The expressive arts grew in number and nature. Offers included not only classical music, but also music-hall and light opera as well as theatre performances. Amateur societies flourished. The choice of places for worship widened. Bournemouth’s period as a High Anglican fiefdom ended. Technology enriched lives. Trains provided easier access to the town. Sewing machines empowered dressmakers. Against Temperance influence, public houses increased, often amongst working people. Alcohol ignited violence. Riots tested the small police force. The scale of crime required Bournemouth to have its own courts to provide legal administration and social control. The Improvement Commissioners’ stewardship thus covered a decreasing amount of civic and social affairs.

Victorian Bournemouth (117): Eastward Ho!

The big prize

Population increase, immigrant and native, grew the size of both Springbourne and Boscombe, settlements to the east of Bournemouth. Each area developed an embryonic cultural identity along with a sense of independence. Bournemouth’s Improvement Commissioners saw annexation of this flourishing area as a way to address two problems. First, they needed a terminus for their drainage network. They wanted to keep  sewage away from Bournemouth’s beach, an important tourist asset. They saw Boscombe as providing suitable sea access. Second, the area’s population would increase Board revenue through its wider rating authority. The Board also wished to incorporate the affluent area on East Cliff then labelled ’70 acres’. The annexation would add to Bournemouth settlements having distinct social profiles and different attitudes: working, middling, and affluent people. Local meetings occurred where  resistance matched acceptance, but the Local Government Board ruled that the Improvement Commissioners could annex as they wished.

Other opportunities

Bournemouth lay in two parishes: Holdenhurst and Christchurch. Confusion grew between the rating assessments for Holdenhurst parish and Bournemouth’s improvement rate. This provided an opportunity for Bournemouth people to become involved in the village’s vestry. As a rule, elections for Holdenhurst’s vestry occurred without opposition, but in 1877 fifteen candidates, most from Bournemouth, attempted to participate. A much larger opportunity for widening Bournemouth’s influence lay on the Board of Christchurch Union’s Guardians. This group administered poor relief for the area. Bournemouth’s population increases grew its appropriation for places on the Guardians’ Board. Energetic and imperialistic Bournemouth members challenged the Board’s traditional lethargic approach to poor relief. Most of Bournemouth’s representatives also had places on the Improvement Commission. Thus, in addition to administering the civic complexities of Bournemouth, these men chose to become further involved in important but peripheral matters. Encounters with resentful members from Christchurch will have increased their load.

Victorian Bournemouth (117): Improvement Commission

Pandora’s Box

The aftermath to the Board’s annexation of the eastern settlements may have struck  some contemporary observers as akin to opening Pandora’s Box. Press accounts suggest that two areas of trouble occurred. The first consisted of mismanaging the engineering works that extended Bournemouth’s drainage system under Springbourne and Boscombe. The Commissioners combined amateurishness with micro-management, wasting time, effort, and money. Court cases and embarrassment accrued to the Commissioners. The second consisted of disruption brought by the Board’s additional members, recruited to represent the new areas. Their penetration of the old self-selecting oligarchy changed the Board’s social profile and challenged its traditional independence. In one sense, they appeared to behave not as an establishment’s new members, but as fifth columnists intent on private agendas. As a result, the relative ease with which the Board had made its decisions appeared to evaporate, replaced by dithering and division. Evolution tilted towards revolution.

Need for professionalism

The Commission had come into being as a taskforce to improve Bournemouth’s drainage system. This Sisyphean task remained a challenge for years. As a group having Parliamentary authority and the ability to levy rates, the Commissioners had become sucked into making decisions about many and varied matters concerning Bournemouth. Few of the Commissioners had skills appropriate to the decisions they had to make. Despite many having experience of construction, their administration of the drainage extension in the 1870s must have struck many as verging on amateurism. New blood in the form of eastern Commissioners appeared not to provide constructive innovation. The Board continued in its introverted mode, pitchforking a favourite way to fill gaps in their membership. A feeling germinated that Bournemouth’s civic governance had run its course, overloaded at home, challenged by increasing requirements from central government. Incorporation beckoned as a way to reach professional and responsible civic control.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (117) has summarised a quarter’s articles relating to Bournemouth’s sudden growth in population and culture. This increased the complexity for civic governance which now included social control. The Improvement Commission appears to have fallen behind the town’s broader requirements, yet widened its responsibilities with the eastern annexation. The Commission’s apparent inadequate decision-making caused contemporary observers to consider a change from Improvement to Incorporation.

References

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