Victorian Bournemouth (210): a new frontier

All change, please!

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (210) explores how the 1890s represented significant change in the resort’s civics, culture, and community. Continued population increase led the Council to make a significant decision concerning settlements adjacent to the resort. One of the economy’s main engines, building, may have entered a stagnant phase. Bournemouth began to reflect major changes in the place experienced by women within the national society. Thus, as the new century began, Bournemouth found itself at a new frontier.

Victorian Bournemouth (210): suburban power

Demographics

Although Bournemouth’s population during the 1880s had doubled, little increase occurred during the next decade. The town’s built environment had little room for growth. Instead, the rising population flooded into adjacent townships. Located to the north, east, and west of the original town, these settlements almost doubled their population during the 1890s. As a result, for the first time, their collective populations exceeded that of Bournemouth’s. Three people dwelt in the settlements for every two recorded in the town. Bournemouth had set a precedent, when, as a green-field site lying within Christchurch and Holdenhurst parishes, it had seized the opportunity to establish a civic identity independent of either. The settlements of Winton and Moordown, Pokesdown, Southbourne, and Branksome, however, lay beyond the boundary for Bournemouth Council’s authority. The size of the populations initiated a trajectory whereby they could also achieve an independent civic identity, lying on the resort’s border.

Urban Districts

The Local Government Act (1894) provided a legal basis whereby Bournemouth’s adjacent settlements might achieve a modern, established civic identity. Each had the opportunity to create a Council to manage their self-government. On several occasions, Bournemouth’s Council received approaches from the townships asking the then Municipal Borough to absorb them. The absorption of Springbourne and Boscombe (parts) during the 1870s provided a blueprint for the second wave of adjacent townships, albeit a much larger and more complex enterprise. Then, Bournemouth proceeded despite resistance, whereas now the townships welcomed absorption. The requests failed, however. As a result, the townships chose to become Urban Districts, taking government into their own hands, the press providing regular reports of meetings. Resistance within Bournemouth appears to have lay in concerns about possible changes within the established civil power’s social structure. Respectability wanted to hold labouring people at a distance, not share power with them. 

Victorian Bournemouth (210): economic developments

Demographics

The census and directories suggest that changes occurred within the population’s distribution across the economy. Since the resort’s foundation, its economy had rested on the twin engines of construction and hospitality. Its growing popularity for tourists – convalescent and pleasure-seeking – required venues and their management. Builders, of humble origin, had prospered and comprised much of the town’s civic governance. Hoteliers sat beside them in the chamber. The 1901 census, however, shows marginal increase for the number of manual labourers. Furthermore, the number of building artisans dropped. This suggests possible stagnation in property investment. The carpenters’ strike (1897) illustrated the extent to which the national agenda orchestrated by the Trades Unions could reach Bournemouth, once so remote. This may have discouraged some investors, where bankruptcy waited on extended completion schedules. Indeed, fewer carpenters and joiners appeared in the 1901 census than for 1891. Other parts of the economy, however, may have prospered.

Social upgrade

Bournemouth’s society had perhaps at first lay in two camps. On one hand sat the gentry, visiting and retired. On the other sat the working people upon whose labours the town’s built environment grew. Over time, perhaps stewarded by successful retailers, Bournemouth society achieved a slice of respectability. The 1901 census suggests a large increase in ‘professional’ residents. This category’s earlier members had consisted of clergymen, lawyers, and physicians. Now, it ballooned to include large numbers of estate agents and auctioneers, teachers, and clerks, reflective of national efforts to increase literacy. Commensurate with this change, the number of those involved in the arts also increased: painting, music, literature. Oxford University’s Extension programme sought to raise the academic level of historical and cultural knowledge. The numbers involved in domestic service also grew, signifying another indicator of respectability. Thus, Bournemouth appears to have undergone economic changes which resulted in a social upgrade.

Victorian Bournemouth (210): gender matters

Demographics

As young males from working households entered manual labour, so their female equivalents undertook similar work within domestic service. The 1901 census shows continued increase in the numbers of women employed within this category. Those working upstairs perhaps grew at a faster rate than those downstairs, a possible indicator of conspicuous consumption on the part of their employers. As increase amongst male manual labourers had stagnated, therefore, females expanded their presence within the economic category. Elsewhere within the economy, women expanded at a similar or higher rate compared to males. In particular, they expanded their presence within the commercial and professional groups. The former accepted an increasing number of women into retail, working as shop assistants. The latter saw more women entering employment within bookkeeping and teaching. Another aspect of the Local Government Act (1894) granted votes to some women. By 1901, they accounted for a quarter of the electorate. 

Changing role

Thus, as Bournemouth faced a new century, its society experienced changes within the context of gender roles. The number of women working in domestic service rose, a reflection of a growth in employers keen to signal their respectability and wealth. Such women continued the traditional role of women working in a confined physical and social environment. In contrast, however, the increase in females employed as professionals and commerce introduced them into more open and variable contexts. Those working here, it seems, would have needed to employ greater personal initiatives than their counterparts in service. Thus, males would have needed to accustom themselves to sharing decision-making and pathfinding with women in increasing numbers. For example, more than twice as many women as men worked as drapery assistants. Women ran lodging-houses compared to men in a ratio of 4:1. In this decade, also, the Foresters’ Court Wilberforce initiated its first female.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (210) has sketched areas where the resort’s society, economy, and community had undergone substantial change during the decade. To some extent, its world tilted towards upside down. The economic cornerstone of building appeared to contract. Women began to change their social and economic roles. Strengthening civic governance in adjacent townships represented a threat to Bournemouth Council’s authority, yet including them posed a risk to the social profile of established power. At length, as a palm bending during a long and forceful hurricane, Bournemouth Council decided to absorb the townships. Including potential troublemakers and revolutionaries inside the tent seemed safer than leaving them outside.

References

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