Onwards and upwards
Introduction
Victorian Bournemouth (213) delves into the origins and social backgrounds of Bournemouth’s first councillors. The careers of these successful, respectable men highlight the transformative impact of commercial achievement on their inherited social positions. As a corollary to this achievement, the earlier role taken by the leisured gentry within civic governance appears to have evaporated.
Victorian Bournemouth (213): improvement
Environment and people
During its first half-century, Bournemouth exemplified the fundamental and traditional English concept of improvement. The obituary of William Hoare demonstrated its central appeal to the resort’s culture. The copy praised ‘its wonderful growth and prosperity, its triumphant rise from the wild common land, the gorse thickets and rabbit warrens of the early Victorian era’. The concept had emerged as early as the sixteenth century, then attached to agricultural practices. Enclosure of fields improved their return, thereby enhancing their economic value. Soon, its application extended from fields to people. Through hard work and shrewd commercial practices, an individual might improve his social position. Successful yeomen referred to themselves as ‘better people’, the term denoting a moral superiority based on accumulated wealth. Such men, sloughing off their working origins, acquired respectability, an important component of middling ambition during the Victorian period. Improvement combined Bournemouth with those that had achieved the same status.
An invented society
As a greenfield development, Bournemouth progressed through continuous growth, where spirit exceeded structure. Its society perhaps resembled that found in Imperial colonies or frontier settlements. Without tradition to restrict and structures to inhibit, opportunities existed for ambitious, able men to become respectable. A vanguard of successful, new building dynasties opened the way early to Bournemouth’s governance. Such men came from humble origins. In their wake streamed more builders as well as men who found success in other parts of a local economy that kept pace with the growing built environment. These men, for the most part, derived from similar humble origins. At an early stage, men of leisure, gentry, attempted to inculcate the historic structure whereby they controlled governance. The Improvement Commission glistened with old as well as new money. After incorporation, however, almost the entire council consisted of self-made men, who had risen far above their fathers.
Victorian Bournemouth (213): social backgrounds
Builders
Such men, accounting for around a quarter of the 1890s’ council, derived from perhaps the humblest of origins. Most of their fathers laboured or had artisan skills. The plutocrat C.A.D. George and Mayor William Hoare both had labouring fathers, while that of Herbert Ellison worked as a gamekeeper. Others had understood how their fathers’ skills might provide a better life. Albert Davis, Sidney Brown, Archibald Beckett (‘the maker of Boscombe’) had fathers who worked in plumbing and plastering. Mayor Lawson’s father had built coaches. All these men married women who derived from households having a similar social position to theirs: labourers, artisans, a grocer, and a publican. George Lawson, however, perhaps married better, for his father-in-law farmed over 400 acres in Fareham. These men advanced to the position where they employed others, George once paying wages for almost a hundred men. They built companies, some of which outlasted their founders.
Retailers and businessmen
Men having occupations within retail or other types of commerce accounted for about a third of the councillors. They had similar backgrounds to the builders, but perhaps from households occupying a higher level. No overall pattern appears within the retailers and the others; they worked in various businesses. Whereas the builders had often moved far away from their fathers’ occupations, several retailers and businessmen appear not to have deviated. Butchers Richard Hodges and William Vye both had fathers in the same trade. Ridley, the ironmonger, also followed the paternal line. John Gunning, another ironmonger, had a plumber for his father. Both Alfred Youngman and his father operated timber businesses. Marriage appears to have paired couples having a similar social background. John Gunning married a plumber’s daughter. Grocer Henry Trantum married a daughter of the same. On the other hand, Charles Mate, publisher, a bookseller’s son, married a wheelwright’s daughter.
Professionals
Men classed as professionals worked as physicians or lawyers, auctioneers, estate agents, and architects. Physicians and lawyers, older occupations, while they worked for a living, sometimes occupied a different social space to the retailers and commercial men. Men in the new occupations, perhaps, hovered between them. Several appeared to have occupations at the same level as their fathers. Frederick Cory followed his father into medicine. J.A. Hosker, another physician, had a stockbroker as father; Leveson Scarth, another, had a clergyman father. In other cases, the sons appeared to have improved on their inherited status. J.H. Moore, architect had a tailor as father. Others also had this pattern: H.T. Trevanion (lawyer: father smallholder); C.J. Haydon (lawyer: leather merchant); Alexander Abbott (auctioneer: policeman). Several, however, appear to have married daughters of professionals, others connecting with families of retailers or other businesses. Thus, professionals appear to combine characteristics of two groups already discussed.
Victorian Bournemouth (213): assessment
Thus, few even of the professionals, had elevated social backgrounds. As a group, they conformed to the social progress made by councillors occupied in other commercial activities. Examination of the probate records does suggest inequalities in wealth. However, inflation introduces noise into the trends. Also, divestment may have occurred before probate in some cases, the value of property perhaps unaccounted. Nevertheless, estate averages show that builders and professionals left the most money and retailers the least. The figures disguise variations, sometimes extreme: George, the builder, leaving almost £200,000 (1938); Rebbeck, the estate agent, £100,000 (1913). Bournemouth’s first councillors, therefore, consisted of men who had worked for their living, several continuing so to do. They brought to decision-making values and experiences derived from the market. Ideas formed by privilege or centuries of occupation at superior social levels had scarce currency in the chamber’s first decade. Meritocracy ruled Bournemouth then.
Takeaway
Victorian Bournemouth (213) has discovered that the resort’s earliest councillors epitomised respectability achieved through hard work and seizing opportunities. Their professional success laid the groundwork for attaining public office. The collective values of these individuals, shaped in the market’s melting pot, perhaps provided Bournemouth with a modern outlook, one that rejected inherited tradition. Other communities seeking to balance their society’s modernity with tradition would have found Bournemouth’s achievements instructive.
References
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