Background for teachers
Introduction
Gradually during Victoria’s reign there was an economic upturn
and generally people became more prosperous. Wages increased, the
price of food, clothes and everyday items fell and hours worked in
many jobs lessened. The working classes began to have more leisure
time and more money to spend on it. The middle classes were growing
in both number and prosperity and took up new leisure pursuits.
The leisure industry effectively began in the Victorian period.
Travel, particularly to seaside resorts and spas, cycling, sports,
game and toy manufacture, music, theatre and public houses all were
flourishing by 1901. Bank holidays were established by Act of
Parliament in 1871.
Seaside
Visiting the seaside as a leisure pursuit came into its own
during the Victorian period. There were 3 main seaside resorts in
Victorian West Sussex: Bognor, Littlehampton and Worthing. All 3
were first developed in the 18th century, but their popularity
grew in the Victorian period, when the advent of the railways made
it possible to come for the day or for a holiday.
The development of the resorts and their facilities may be
traced through a study of maps, newspapers, local authority minute
books, directories, census returns, town guide-books, photographs
and pictures. Both West Sussex Record Office (01243 753600) and
Worthing Library (01903 704824) have large collections of this sort
of material for further research. Bognor Regis, Littlehampton and
Worthing museums all contain material on the seaside, with Worthing
having a large collection of watercolours.
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Pleasure gardens and parks
Further inland, pleasure gardens such as the Victoria Pleasure
Gardens in Burgess Hill, the Chinese Gardens at Hurstpierpoint and
the Swiss Gardens at Shoreham, were set up as private enterprises.
These included such attractions as swings, switchbacks and other
fairground-style rides, ornamental gardens, boating lakes, bowls,
archery, theatres, outdoor concerts, ballrooms, balloon rides,
tea-rooms, observatory towers and firework displays. They were the
Victorian local equivalent to Alton Towers and Thorpe Park theme
parks today. Local authorities also began to create public parks,
such as Homefield Park in Worthing which opened in 1881.
Sport
The Victorian period was a golden age for sport. Thriving
bowling, cricket, croquet, cycling, football, golf, rugby and
tennis clubs were formed in West Sussex. Cycling clubs became
popular in the 1870s: Chichester and Littlehampton had clubs in
1877 and Worthing in 1883. The first evidence of a cycling club in
Bognor is in May 1889.
Hunting, shooting and other country pursuits continued,
particularly on the great estates such as at Arundel,
Cowdray, Goodwood, Parham, Petworth, Uppark, Stansted and Wiston.
Goodwood Racecourse was created in 1802 and remains one of the
premier horse-racing venues in the UK. The Victoria County History
volumes on Sussex have further information on the founding of
sports clubs and facilities.
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Theatre
West Sussex Record Office has theatre records for Arundel,
Chichester, East Grinstead, Horsham, Littlehampton, Midhurst,
Petworth, Shoreham and Worthing. The Theatre Royal at Ann Street,
Worthing had been founded as early as 1807 by Thomas Trotter but
closed in 1855. Other venues in the town included the New Assembly
Rooms, Bath Place (established 1884, became the New Theatre Royal
in 1897), and Montague (later St James’) Hall, which were used to
stage plays, concerts and lectures.
The 19th century guide books on the towns above detail
Victorian theatres and other entertainment venues and can be found
at Worthing Library and appropriate local libraries. Worthing
Library has a collection of early 19th century playbills from
Worthing theatre and Victorian posters advertising various
entertainments and events. The Victoria County History volumes on
Sussex also have further information on the founding of music halls
and theatres.
Music
As towns grew in size and visitor numbers increased so did the
need to entertain them, particularly in resorts. Worthing’s Steyne
(later Chatsworth) Hotel had an organ and an orchestra playing
there by 1811. As early as 1812 a band entertained summer visitors
in the Steyne.
Town bands began appearing in Britain in the early 19th century
and in West Sussex towns from the 1850s. A band was formed in
Worthing in 1851 but records of an official town band have not been
found before 1865. Horsham Town Band was formed in 1861, possibly
the first officially sponsored one in West Sussex. In
Littlehampton, the Blue Hungarian Band was established in the
1880s, and there was also a Town Band. Two musical societies were
in existence in Worthing by 1883. Robert Bottrill, a local coal
merchant, founded Chichester Brass (later City) Band in 1897.
Hollycombe Steam Collection (Phone: 01428 724900) has a
traditional fairground.
Many prominent musicians are associated with the county, some
Victorian, and details can be found in the book West Sussex
Literary, Musical and Artistic Links by M. O’Neill (West Sussex
County Council, 2nd ed. 1996). The Record Office also holds copies
of Christmas carols edited by John Mason Neale, c.1860, and records
of songs and singing, especially wassailing, plus town bands.
Articles can also be found in the Sussex County Magazine.
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Bognor
Sir Richard Hotham (1722-1799) had created Bognor as a purpose
built resort for the nobility. It was well patronised but heavy
debts necessitated the sale of his estates in 1800. Following this,
the town’s growth was piecemeal: Rock Buildings (1804) and New
(later Colebrook) Crescent (1827) beside the sea; shops and a
coaching inn (now the William Hardwicke) in High Street; and the
shaping of Waterloo Square and the Steyne with St John’s
chapel-of-ease from the 1820s. Speculators submitted 'New Town'
schemes and Sudley Lodge survives from an estate planned by the
Earl of Arran in 1827. Notable visitors included Princess Charlotte
and the future Queen Victoria.
Despite a branch railway line in 1864 and new pier in 1865,
Bognor remained small, offering safe bathing, pure air and
respectability for convalescents and selective private schools.
Non-conformist chapels, a police station, newspaper, sea-wall and
separate parish of St John’s arrived by the mid-1870s. Twenty years
on the town began spreading westwards and trainloads of Sunday
School children swelled a residential population still below 5,000.
A new railway station in 1902 stimulated an increase in the number
of trippers and beach-traders, and encouraged the provision of 2
new theatres and a dance-hall pavilion.
Local History Mini-Guide No. 5 Bognor Regis (West Sussex
County Council, 1996).
Littlehampton
Littlehampton was originally a village and sea-front serving
Arundel, but in the 18th century took on a new identity as a
seaside resort. Sea-bathing began in the 1750s and the Beach Coffee
House near the beach was built in 1775 and provided a place to
socialise. In 1790 Berkeley House, later Surrey House was built on
the east end of the Green, and attracted further Regency style
development to the east of the village. A bath-house was built in
1802 and a theatre opened about 1808. Over the 1830s and 1840s,
Littlehampton’s reputation and activities as a seaside resort grew
and the town’s population increased from 581 in 1801 to 2,270 in
1841.
In 1863, the London Brighton & South Coast Railway
LBSCR) extended a branch line from Lyminster to Littlehampton
to connect with a cross-channel ferry service. It encouraged the
growth of the town and resort and provided employment, but the
LBSCR later developed their services at Newhaven, and discontinued
the Littlehampton ferry in 1882. A new water and drainage scheme
was completed in 1882 and further improvements to the railway drew
people to the town towards the end of the century. Between
1891-1911, the population grew by 87% to nearly 6,000. In 1901 Wick
and Toddington were incorporated into Littlehampton UDC (Urban
District Council).
Local History Mini-Guide No. 13 Littlehampton (West Sussex
County Council, 2001).
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Worthing
In the late 18th century Worthing was little more than a hamlet,
but within a decade its population had grown so rapidly that in
1803 it achieved town status by an Act of Parliament. The main
stimulus for this growth was the arrival of seasonal visitors to
take part in the new fashions of sea bathing and the salt water
cure. Worthing was ideally suited with its mild and equable
climate, fine sandy beach (since replaced by pebbles due to the
erection of groynes to stop coastal erosion) and proximity to
London. Links to London were improved in 1804 by the opening of a
Turnpike Road running north via Broadwater and Steyning.
By 1810 Worthing had lodgings, hotels and town houses, notably
Warwick House, in which the fashionable gentry, nobility and minor
royalty could stay. Amenities for both visitors and residents were
gradually provided and by 1812 Worthing had baths, assembly rooms,
circulating libraries, theatre (1807), bank (1808) market (1810)
and Chapel of Ease (1812). Development continued for the
next 2 decades and the population increased from 1,018 in 1801
to 4,576 in 1831.
Worthing’s rapid growth slowed in the 1830s and '40s due to a
national recession and changing fashions, and the visitors no
longer came. Financial mismanagement by the Commissioners nearly
bankrupted the town and there were serious threats to public health
from a defective drainage system. In 1852 a local Board of Health
replaced the Commissioners and rapidly tackled Worthing’s
sanitation problems by introducing a new sewerage system and
waterworks.
Worthing again became a popular resort offering traditional
Victorian seaside pleasures to holidaymakers who could now arrive
in great numbers by train, the railway having reached Worthing in
1845. A pier was erected in 1862 and the promenade extended to
Heene Road in 1865. There was extensive residential development,
which by the end of the century had reached westwards to Heene and
north to the railway line and beyond. Several churches and a new
hospital (1881) were built and West Worthing got its own railway
station (1889). The pier was reconstructed in 1899 with a large
southern pavilion added for concerts and concert parties.
By 1890, with a population of over 16,000 Worthing was one of
the largest towns in Sussex and had achieved its ambition of
becoming a borough with its first mayor and council. However, any
impetus this may have had on its development was halted in 1893
when a serious typhoid epidemic broke out due to contamination of
the water supply. There were 1,416 cases and 188 deaths. Residents
and visitors fled and it was many years before the borough’s
economy recovered and the corporation could undertake major civic
projects such as the construction of a purpose-built library and
museum (1908).
Local History Mini-Guide No. 11 Worthing (West Sussex County
Council, 2000).
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