“Done to a turn”

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (190) follows press accounts of annual Baron of Beef Banquets enjoyed by local tradesmen in the 1880s. The dinners captured the trappings and mood of festive male behaviour. Toasts accompanied speeches, many of which resonated with the contemporary social and political context. Attendees reflected a sense of uncertainty as the town moved from the old Improvement Commission to its charter of Incorporation.

Victorian Bournemouth (190): the event

Trappings and trimmings

According to the press, the dinners followed an ordered process whose ritual verged on the edge of a religious service. Much decoration abounded: flowers, furniture, flags. Mindful of the town’s competitive commercial context, the account recorded the names of tradesmen who had donated the trappings. The highlight consisted of presenting the baron of beef followed by the giant plum pudding. Its ritual became more complex. Four retainers, dressed as beefeaters, paraded the meat, then carved it before its diners. Each year, a ‘Baron’ provided the beef and chaired the session. A silver salver, bearing names of former Barons, graced the occasion. Later events introduced a table at the side for ladies to observe proceedings, but whether they ate or drank remains unclear. Behind the event and its conscious ritual, repeated each year, lay the local tradesmen’s corporate presence, a significant, continuous factor in Bournemouth’s power structure.

Speeches and songs

Following contemporary practice for public dining events, eating merged into toasts and speeches, while drinking continued. The toasts followed a repetitive pattern: loyalty; local commerce and prosperity; the town’s governance; that session’s Baron. Songs, rendered by chosen diners, provided musical variation. Each dinner thrummed with self-congratulation verging on adulation. Speakers feted the achievement which had transformed ‘the unknown hamlet, the smugglers’ retreat, the gypsies’ haunt’ into a town of 32,000 people and a rateable value of almost £250,000. They exulted in respectability’s guiding star: improvement. On occasion, the shrillness may have betrayed uncertainty, perhaps a lack of confidence. An osmotic relationship existed between commerce and the Improvement Commission. Many Commissioners had prospered first as traders. Now, that cosiness which accepted the Commission’s frequent stumbles, faced a cold wind of renewal through Incorporation and Council. Some may have seen the dinner’s regalia a pale imitation of Mayoral chain, chair, and robe.

Victorian Bournemouth (190): attendees

Committee

On occasion, the accounts reported committee members’ names of what became the ‘Baron of Beef Association’. Listings in other sources make identification certain for most, including the nature of their business. Bournemouth’s economy rotated around construction and tourism, the latter including hotels and lodging-houses. Although retail consisted of many separate businesses, it seems possible that together the category ranked after the other two. Nevertheless, according to the composition of the Baron of Beef committee, the retailers played a greater role than either construction or hospitality. Of the eight names found for the 1885 committee, butchers and fishmongers accounted for half. Other members included a tailor, a brewer, a hotelier, and an apartment manager. This pattern prevailed during the other years for which committee listings have survived. For advertising value, local butchers appear to have competed to provide the event’s beef, the successful man serving as that year’s “Baron”. 

Guests

Partial listings of each year’s growing number of attendees have survived. Numbers passed a hundred. Again, some identification has emerged, making a social and economic analysis possible. Participants in the two main economic segments – construction, hospitality – attended the events in numbers. The dinners proved popular, however, with a wide array of men trading in the local economy. Other retail owners attended: jewellery, tobacco, dairy, corn merchant, hairdresser. Furthermore, the events attracted members of the professions: auctioneers, estate agents, surveyors, solicitors, physicians, and bank managers. Mr Fudge, Baron for 1885, said that ‘artisans and the upper classes had their dinners’, so should the ‘tradesmen’. Most of the professionals did their best to occupy the blurred frontier separating the middling from the privileged. Nevertheless, they deemed it appropriate, either for business or social reasons, to join the tradesmen in their celebrations. So, also, did some members of the Improvement Commission.

Victorian Bournemouth (190): politics of beef

Political context

During the 1880s, Bournemouth witnessed the ebb and flow conducted by supporters and opponents of Incorporation. T. J. Hankinson, local business man but also an Improvement Commissioner, formed a committee as the basis for furthering the petition to win a borough charter. Most of his opponents consisted of upper sorts. His support seemed to lie with the commercial men. Nevertheless, Joseph Cutler, a successful builder, lampooned as the ‘weathercock’, showed a blurring of lines. It seems perhaps inevitable that Cutler served on the ‘Baron of Beef’ committee one year. Hankinson, however, whose business covered stationery and property, did not appear to attend the dinners. Letters of apology would come from him. Indeed, even after securing election as the first Mayor, he did not attend that year’s ‘Baron of Beef’ dinner. Instead, the Deputy-Mayor, constant attendee E. W. Rebbeck, found himself operating in that capacity for the first time.

The Association

Hankinson’s apparent coolness towards this event requires thought. Over time, the accounts show that an annual social dinner had turned towards politicisation. Speeches referred to the ‘Baron of Beef Association’, an entity which needed a local agenda beyond the annual ‘blowouts’. Indeed, the event’s ritualism and props may have reminded some of a Council’s regalia. Others may have seen parallels with St Peter’s High Church worship practices. Although membership of the Improvement Commission had involved elections, some men served by appointment, a process derided by opponents as ‘pitchforking’. In the minds of some, little had separated Commission from commerce. Now, with an electoral process open to public scrutiny, the new Council would have different spots to the old Commission. Hankinson had cut through the political undergrowth to clarify governance with the Borough charter. He would not have appreciated a government in exile: the Baron of Beef Association.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (190) has followed the Baron of Beef events during the last part of the 1880s. Analysis suggests that the event may have counterbalanced retailers against the large commercial sectors of construction and tourism. Furthermore, those involved perhaps endeavoured to achieve political momentum at a time when Bournemouth’s governance underwent transition. The new mayor, architect of Incorporation, may not have wanted to encourage the emergence of an organised power-base lying outside the new electoral system.

References

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