Varied and often transient

Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (92) explores the social backgrounds of lodging-house keepers recorded during the resort’s second period. For comparison, this article uses a similar analysis published about landladies active in Victorian Blackpool.

Victorian Bournemouth (92): overview

Terrain

Examination of the census and trade directories, including a comparison between them, shows that, for the period 1851-1871, holiday venues accounted for perhaps half of Bournemouth’s built environment. The number found for 1871 perhaps increased about twelve times the total recorded for 1851. At the beginning, affluent visitors appear to have rented entire properties, bringing with them a set of servants. Later, accompanied by much smaller retinues, visitors seem to have taken apartments rather than whole houses. In some cases, a lodging-house keeper featured amongst people listed, but their role remains unclear. They may have supervised the entire building, providing services to the apartments, but they may only have rented and let one section. Elsewhere, lodging-house keepers appear to have controlled the whole building. Overall, though, most Bournemouth holiday venues did not feature lodging-house keepers. Thus, agents may have helped provide supply lines and cleaning services for holiday apartments.

Blackpool

John Walton’s monograph on Victorian Blackpool’s landladies provides interesting information as a comparison with Bournemouth. The towns served different markets, however. Blackpool specialised in catering to working people, whereas Bournemouth had always offered a haven to affluent visitors. At Blackpool, the landladies almost always rented their property, attempting to live on the difference between their rent and the holiday rates they charged. This may have applied at Bournemouth, where some developers saw the holiday trade as low-hanging fruit. Furthermore, few landladies stayed for long at Blackpool, finding success harder than it seemed. Others might enter the market by opening their homes for a few months in the year. A respectable alternative to service, running a lodging-house offered a chance of independence for widows but also women locked in unhappy marriages. Walton found the landlady ‘a difficult creature to pin down and trap by definitions’. Fluidity emerges as a key concept.

Victorian Bournemouth (92): numbers and control

Lodging-house keepers

In 1871, the census and directory report different numbers of lodging-house keepers. The former lists about seventy people, the directory having just over forty. The census, taken in the spring, may reflect people coming into the market only for the season. Directories, built from local knowledge, may show established businesses known for regular participation in a trade. A directory for 1865 listed names of people running lodging-houses, some of whom reappeared in 1867, but recorded in the section reserved for private residents. This difference perhaps shows the same fluidity found in Blackpool. Most of the lodging-house keepers clustered in the town centre, either side of the burne, while about a sixth of them occupied Bournemouth East. Women ran about two thirds of the lodging-houses, of which a small number have the description of married. Thus, either widows or spinsters constituted much of the female population of lodging-house keepers in 1871.

The boss

A few women ran the lodging-house, while their husbands, listed as present, engaged in another occupation. Several had house-painters as husbands, but one had married a professor of music. In a few cases, married ladies ran a lodging-house, but without a husband present at the census, perhaps a life-choice. For one, however, the husband worked elsewhere in Bournemouth, part of the domestic staff for an old annuitant. This perhaps demonstrates the difficulty in surviving just on income from holiday visitors. The example of the Coles, however, illustrates the difficulties lying within the sources. Husband and wife moved to different lodging-houses 1859-1871. On some occasions, Henry appeared to run the business, on others his wife Elizabeth. Once, she appeared as ‘housekeeper’. Irrespective of descriptions, it seems plausible that they ran their businesses together, as perhaps did other couples. Overall, however, more women than men ran lodging-houses at Bournemouth during this period. 

Victorian Bournemouth (92): background and continuity

Social background

Families or individuals who kept lodging-houses at Bournemouth in 1871 came from different social levels and, within each, had varied previous experiences. The activities or estates found for fathers or husbands suggest that some women came from comfortable surroundings. Elizabeth Oakely, daughter of a farmer having 220 acres, had married a surveyor whose final estate had a value of £5,000. Harriet Evelyn had married a gentleman, his estate worth not less than £3,000. Several spinsters had similar backgrounds. Caroline Williams, descended from coal-mine proprietors, came from a well-connected trading family. Susannah Deane’s brother, a flour factor, left £2,000. A greater number of lodging-house keepers, however, came from lower social levels. Examples of their paternal occupations included the following: gardener, brushmaker, labourer, carpenter, fishmonger. Mary Toop, however, provided an example of social mobility. Her father had worked in the fields, but she married a man who left £12,000.

Revolving door

Ann Carter, from Holdenhurst, ran Moorland Cottage as a lodging-house for years. Mary Ware, also a spinster, from Cranborne, held Granville Cottage for about fifteen years. Several families moved between properties. For example, the Warren sisters and the Barnes did so. Some moved between the two prime sites: Westover Villas and Richmond Terrace. Others stayed at one or the other. Such people appeared committed to the business over the longer term, their kin taking roles.  Ann Carter appears to have done this. Most, however, appear to have seen participation as short-term speculation, leaving when success proved too elusive and cutting any losses experienced. For the most part, however, high turnover of people in the business appears to have occurred at Bournemouth as well as Blackpool. In the 1871 census, most names associated with Bournemouth lodging-houses had not appeared before. The 1881 census showed the same.

Takeaway

Victorian Bournemouth (92) has shown how lodging-house keeping at Bournemouth resembled that at Blackpool. Despite all appearances as low-hanging fruit, the business more resembled a revolving door. Few succeeded, a family commitment perhaps helping. The category attracted both genders, all ages, and people from across the social spectrum.

References

For references and engagement, please get in touch. Main primary sources: here and here (subscriptions needed). Thanks to the BBC for the picture. See also John K. Walton, Blackpool Landlady: a Social History (Manchester, 1986).