Introduction

Working people formed a parallel settlement to the resort they had built for affluent visitors at early Victorian Bournemouth. Although the press concentrated on marketing the site to higher types, occasional reports show a range of attitudes towards improving the quality of working people’s lives.

Apartheid

Out of sight

In 1843 Scrooge suggested exiling poor people to workhouses and prisons. Less than a decade later, an angry ratepayer, so signed, wrote to the Poole & Dorset Herald about the state of Bournemouth’s roads. He had not received value for his rates. As an aside he had a suggestion. ‘I think that some of the able-bodied poor might be employed in repairing the roads instead of being kept in idleness.’ His phraseology echoed the long-used official label ‘sturdy beggars’. Bournemouth’s concentration of rich vacationers attracted the poor. In late 1851 a ‘sturdy vagrant’ convicted of begging in Bournemouth, received twenty-one days’ hard labour. Almost a year later a ‘sturdy looking fellow’ came before the Petty Sessions, accused of begging at a Bournemouth house. Scorn fell on those who used ‘pitiful though false accounts’ to play on affluent sympathies. Some thought that apartheid would solve the problem of working people.

Outer site

Dr Granville had recognised the need for working people, but recommended clustering them together near the church. The 1851 Census shows that a form of zoning did occur for working people congregated in districts: Terrace Road, Rusina Cottages and further up Poole Road, while the upper-class vacationers occupied Westover Villas, Richmond Terrace and sundry other similar buildings. Others, however, wanted more. They favoured removing them at a distance from the resort’s affluent visitors. One letter writer praised the nearby but separate settlement which the wealthy, philanthropic Talbot sisters had established. A visitor applauded the labourers’ ‘spade husbandry’, approving how work on the allotments ‘disperses wretchedness, ignorance and corruption’. Furthermore, the writer purred over the presence of a schoolroom rather than a beer house. Although philanthropy rather than prejudice motivated this initiative, the result nevertheless created physical distance between richer and poorer.

Warmer embrace

Educate to improve

Other parts of the local establishment took steps to address the poor and working people. The Church of England, wealthy traders, and landowners each contributed time and funds. National Schools educated children of poorer families as a way of inculcating Christian behaviour. Schools at Bournemouth and Holdenhurst existed by 1851, head count over a hundred. The perpetual curate of St Peter’s, the Reverend A. M. Bennett, applied zeal to these foundations, including his rigorous conduct of examinations. Furthermore, he supported building a school at Moordown, campaigning for building funds. Bennett, a high churchman, saw education as a way to save poor and working people in his version of Christianity. On the other hand, attempts to establish a Mechanics’ Institute at Bournemouth had mixed results, initiators seeing their creation as ‘unsectarian’. As a result, perceived as a threat to the established church, the Institute remained stillborn at this time.

Fund raising

The press praised Sir George Tapps Gervis, on whose land most of early Bournemouth stood, for his supporting several Friendly Societies. Because of his prominent local position, his actions would have carried weight with many social peers. Towards the end of the period, increasing establishment concerns over medical treatments translated at Bournemouth into the creation of a Sanatorium, dedicated to afflicted poor and working people. Affluent people raised money through such devices as fetes, bazaars and balls. Even Dickens, together with Wilkie Collins, joined the fundraising by running his amateur dramatic sessions in London. The Masonic Lodge Hengist, dormant at Christchurch, experienced relaunch at Bournemouth during its early period. Populated by local builders, lawyers and bankers, men involved in the resort’s built environment, the Lodge would play a role in fund-raising. As the 1850s ended a penny bank and a general dispensary would add support to poor and working people.  

Team work

Odd-Fellows and Foresters

Mutual aid organisations or friendly societies had flourished in the country since the late eighteenth century. A form of social protection funded by collective saving, they provided support to poor and working people, extending different forms of insurance. Many societies came into existence at this time. In the summer of 1853, a few days before Coronation Day’s celebrations, the Manchester Order of Odd-Fellows came to Bournemouth, opening Lodge 4627. Just over a decade later, another friendly society would take root in Bournemouth. The Ancient Order of Foresters established Court Tregonwell in the resort in 1864. Although intended to support poor and working people, such societies appeared to attract middling people onto their boards. As mentioned, Hengist consisted of successful traders and professional types. The same applied to Court Tregonwell. At its outset, however, Bournemouth Odd-Fellows seemed closer to their social origins.

Solidarity and processions

The Odd-Fellows chose the Royal Arms Inn for their Bournemouth presence on coming south. The publican, William Joy, made clear the reason for the development: ‘there was no benefit society in place’ at Bournemouth. Joy, a carpenter by trade, belonged to a kinship group active amongst those building Bournemouth. His craft background gave him a social qualification suitable to the friendly’s origin. The Royal Arms stood on Commercial Road, amidst shops and not too far from the working-class zone that had flourished along Terrace Road. During their early years, Bournemouth’s Odd-Fellows adopted the practice of holding processions around the town, often on Coronation Day. That occasion attracted many people from neighbouring towns to Bournemouth, a day perhaps when working people outnumbered the resort’s affluent visitors. These parades perhaps advertised a form of solidarity amongst the society’s members: working people.

Takeaway

Even an affluent haven like Bournemouth could not avoid working people, despite suggestions for their wholesale removal. For the most part, however, concern rather than contempt drove active, supporting initiatives from privileged people, but self-help flourished through the establishment of friendly societies.

References

For references and discussion, contact here. For Talbot Village, see Alwyn Ladell’s photo-album, here.