Change, improvement, image
Introduction
Victorian Bournemouth (221) summarises the key findings and themes explored in the first quarter’s articles. The focus falls on the extensive changes occurring and obstacles affecting council success; on the social profiles of councillors, aldermen and mayors; and on how image and reputation played an important role in Bournemouth’s identity.
Victorian Bournemouth (221): a world turned upside down
New
During the 1890s, Bournemouth experienced substantial changes in governance, economic shape, and social structures. Its incorporation as a borough introduced governors and governed to a new civic framework. The borough replaced the old Improvement Commission, introducing a more formal way of conducting civic affairs. Many former Commissioners won election to the Council, but they discovered that change rather than continuity had occurred. Decision makers at higher levels, however, must have approved of the town’s adaptation, for they granted it a higher status – county borough – within a decade. During this period, one of the old economic cornerstones – construction – appeared to have lost vitality. In parallel, however, professional occupations became active. As a result, the town acquired a greater proportion of respectable, middling people. Another important economic and social change occurred as more women entered employment. This growth occurred not in domestic service but in the retail trade.
Obstacles
This apparent formalisation of civic power, however, did not bring the new councillors unfettered decision-making. As the resort had hatched from its early seclusion, its commercial success attracted the attention of numerous regional and national agencies. These agencies often acted as impediments, sometimes causing complete halts rather than delays. Furthermore, within the resort, individuals had significant opportunities to obstruct and influence the Council’s decision-making process. Such old issues as drainage, planning, roads, and lighting continued while dead issues came to life. Taking over the Winter Gardens required substantial time and debate, sometimes vigorous, as did the plans to construct an Undercliff Road. The growth in suburban influence, however, introduced perhaps a more fundamental issue. The growing populations and developing communities brought new civic demands. Springbourne and Boscombe, already within the borough, wanted greater representation in the council. Winton, Moordown, and Pokesdown wanted absorption, and thus greater representation.
Victorian Bournemouth (221): councillors and mayors
Social profiles
The old Improvement Commission had combined men of leisure with those successful in business but of humble origin. Membership of the council and tenure of the offices (alderman, mayor), however, appeared to tilt in favour of the latter. Such men had escaped humble beginnings through commercial success and community involvement to win social elevation and respectability. Their personal stories illustrate how, at Victorian Bournemouth, political influence became a reward for merit and enterprise. As a new civic institution, without local tradition to guide, the mayors had to discover the best way of managing affairs during their tenure. They had to learn on the job. Their social background did not include a leisured man’s easy presumption to rule. They had to apply experience learned from their business lives combined with their religious and community participation. Hence, without a tradition to apply, each mayor had to govern according to his inclinations.
Stag at bay
The year that Russell Merton-Cotes became mayor, however, stands in sharp contrast to the others who held this office. Elected as an Improvement Commissioner, he had not, however, gained representation on the Council that replaced it. Thus, he fell into the category of a ‘pitchforked’ official, an individual common to the Improvement Commission, an object of much derision. Those manipulating his appointment perhaps wanted an alternative to divisive political interests that hindered smooth administration by the Council. His unilateral behaviour, however, descending at times into self-interest, must have disappointed his supporters. It proved fatal to his term. Furthermore, despite claiming otherwise, his reactionary stance on the social aspects of Bournemouth’s commercial development perhaps constituted a much larger obstacle than overriding procedures within the chamber. Encountering opposition from the beginning, he spent much of his year away from the chamber. Thus, pitchforking in a man as mayor appeared to fail.
Victorian Bournemouth (221): image and reputation
Civic heroism
Analysis of obituaries published to eulogise many of Bournemouth’s councillors provides the basis for defining contemporary civic heroism. They represent a parochial example of the ‘Great Man of History’. The obituaries display an effort to enrobe Bournemouth’s explosive civic success with instant mythology. Bournemouth had perhaps achieved equal or greater civic stature than such adjacent settlements as Poole, Christchurch, and Wimborne. These towns, however, in place for centuries, had had a long opportunity to accumulate traditions and textures. Thus, Bournemouth needed to accelerate this process. The eulogies embedded into the obituaries provided a basis on which this could occur. Decision-makers and influencers, however, had always proved adept at creating and broadcasting an image for the town to the extent perhaps well in advance of reality. Indeed, a comparison of actual behaviour, as revealed in the chamber or elsewhere in public life, suggests that the Olympian eulogies followed a similar process.
Reputation for financial success
The Improvement Commission had battled to align civic ambition with affordability. From its beginning, local ratepayers had contested the need to equip the town with expensive signature buildings or other structures suitable to attract tourists. Thus, mindful of the need for these, the Commissioners had turned to sporadic and opportunistic borrowing, often at high interest. Supporters of incorporation stressed how this civic level brought the ability to evolve strategic borrowing at a reduced cost. The new council’s leaders introduced the resort to the dazzling yet perilous realm of Corporation Stock. The government and the Bank of England now encouraged towns to venture in this way. However, unsuspecting civic leaders risked stumbling if their town’s image of prosperity wavered. Stock prices could drop, and interest rates rise, resulting in future issuance becoming harder. Leveraging Bournemouth’s history of successful marketing, its Councillors perhaps already had the experience to avoid this financial trap.
Takeaway
Victorian Bournemouth (221) has considered the main themes explored in the first quarter of articles published covering the resort during the 1890s. It has discussed how the decade involved change in many areas and levels. The new civic status of a borough required councillors and mayors to handle matters and adopt procedures in ways comparable to similar towns. The social profile of these men changed from that characterising the Improvement Commission in that men of leisure gave way to meritocrats, albeit of humbler origin. The continuing process of shaping Bournemouth’s image appears in the model of civic heroism propounded within magistrates’ obituaries. Presenting the town in a positive way to the new audience of institutional and personal investors applied these skills in the new discipline of Corporation Stock issues.
References
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