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Living in a leisure town: residential reactions to the growth of popular tourism in Southend, 1870–1890

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2013

DAVID CHURCHILL
DAVID CHURCHILL*
Affiliation:
Department of History, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK
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Abstract:

While historical interest in the seaside has grown appreciably in recent times, much of the literature remains preoccupied with issues specific to resort towns. This article examines the social dynamics of the seaside town more broadly, through a study of Southend residents in the 1870s and 1880s. It analyses their discussions of working-class tourists and the industries which catered for them, before examining attempts to regulate the use of public space in the town. This is a study of rapid urbanization in a small town, and how social perceptions and relations were reconfigured in this context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 42 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

1 This literature is vast: for a helpful overview, see Morris, R.J., ‘Structure, culture and society in British towns’, in Daunton, M. (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, vol. III (Cambridge, 2000), 395–426Google Scholar.

2 Walton, J.K., ‘Introduction’, in Walton, J.K. (ed.), Histories of Tourism: Representation, Identity and Conflict (Clevedon, 2005), 7–8Google Scholar. See also Walton's further studies, especially: The English Seaside Resort: A Social History 1750–1914 (Leicester, 1983); The British Seaside: Holidays and Resorts in the Twentieth Century (Manchester, 2000); ‘Respectability takes a holiday: disreputable behaviour at the Victorian seaside’, in Hewitt, M. (ed.), Unrespectable Recreations (Leeds, 2001), 176–93Google Scholar; ‘Policing the seaside holiday: Blackpool and San Sebastián from the 1870s to the 1930s’, in Godfrey, B., Emsley, C. and Dunstall, G. (eds.), Comparative Histories of Crime (Cullompton, 2003), 145–58Google Scholar.

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11 Southend Standard (hereafter SS), 11 Sep. 1874.

12 SS, 2 Jul. 1875.

13 SS, 1 Jun. 1877.

14 See SS, 1 Jun. 1877, 8 Jun. 1877.

15 SS, 8 Jun. 1877, emphasis added.

16 SS, 19 Aug. 1881.

17 SS, 28 Jul. 1882.

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27 Everritt, Southend, 26.

28 See below, Table 2.

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56 SS, 12 Sep. 1879, emphasis added.

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71 SS, 29 Jul. 1881, emphasis added.

72 SS, 2 Jul. 1880, original emphasis.

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74 SS, 16 Jul. 1880.

75 SS, 2 Jul. 1880.

76 Ibid.

77 SS, 30 Jul. 1886.

78 SS, 25 Aug. 1887.

79 SS, 23 Jul. 1880.

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81 Ibid.

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94 ERO: TS 136/1 (local bye-laws, 1867).

95 SS, 9 Jul. 1875.

96 SS, 29 Jun. 1883.

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98 SS, 8 Sep. 1882.

99 See for example ERO: D/HS 5, 6 Jul. 1886.

100 ERO: D/HS 2, 7 Aug. 1877.

101 ERO: D/HS 2, 2 Sep. 1873; D/HS 3, 15 Jul. 1879, 2 Jul. 1880, 3 May 1881; D/HS 5, 2 Jun. 1885, 7 Sep. 1886, 19 Jul. 1887; D/HS 6, 16 Jul. 1889.

102 ERO: D/HS 3, 5 Jul. 1881, emphasis added.

103 SS, 19 Aug. 1881.

104 See also Walton, ‘Policing the seaside’, 151.

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112 SS, 4 Aug. 1887.

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114 SS, 10 Aug. 1877.

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116 ERO: D/HS 3, 18 Mar. 1879, 6 Jul. 1880.

117 SS, 18 Aug. 1882.

118 SS, 15 Jun. 1883.

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