History Coursework: - Southend.

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History coursework: - Southend. _                Charlie Mason 11MN          14-Sep-01

Throughout the 1700’s holiday resorts grew in popularity, Tunbridge wells, Harrogate, Bath and Scarborough were all popular spas all with there own assembly rooms, band, pump rooms, circulating library and theatre. This was the first time in Britain health spas were opening.    

In 1749, Dr. Richard Russell published his discoveries that drinking and bathing in seawater could improve your health, his book was called ‘A dissertation on the use of seawater in the diseases of the glands’, Dr. Richards theories were proven correct when one of his patients drank twenty five gallons of seawater, by drinking one pint every morning. This cured his patients tumor, who got to live a happy normal live.

The success of Dr. Richards’s patient led to many middle class people to head to the sea area to bathe and drink the seawater. In 1783 George, Prince of Wales had visited Brighton for the first time and soon after purchased a house there, later to be the Royal pavilion. The Prince of Wales also bathed in the sea (naked) but he didn’t walk down the beach naked he and many other rich people had a cart which took them right into the water the carts were pulled by horses, when people did bathe men and women had to bathe separate mixed bathing was forbidden. The Royals who visited the seaside resorts made them very popular because people saw this as a well to do thing, so whatever the Royal family do they must do. Luckily for Southend it was also one of the most popular resorts in the country at this time. Southend started to attract permanent middle class residents, which led to more middle classes visiting for their holidays and themselves then becoming residents. Southend was becoming so popular that they didn’t have enough room to accommodate everyone.

In the same year a local man called Daniel Scraton had a dream for new Southend in the Seacliff region. The dream was to build many middle class houses. These were no ordinary houses; these were to be well decorated with Georgian and Victorian artwork around the windows and doorframes. By 1794 the building work was finished. Because of the high quality of the properties it attracted the wealthier of London to come and live in Southend and commute to their businesses back in London. The Grand Hotel was a spacious convenient building beside a pleasant coffee room, it had a good layout of suite rooms for the accommodation of families, the room sizes were approximately 60 feet by 24 feet, a beautiful assembly room, a music gallery, supper and card rooms and an eye-catching terrace for the middle class.

By the 1800’s Southend was definitely becoming a popular seaside resort for the middle class. In 1824 a guidebook was published about the New Southend stating Southend as a great British seaside resort with many facilities for the middle class visitors such as a library, theatres and a music gallery. All these facilities were important factors in making Southend popular with the middle class. They were especially intrigued with libraries as they had not been around for very long. The guide also said that Southend had a chapel, the Grand hotel and coach houses. I think the chapel was so important because about 78% of people in the 1800’s were religious and went to Sunday services. The Grand hotel also had coach houses, which attracted the middle class as well, because most middle classes if not all of them had coaches. Princess Caroline was sent to Southend by George IV to provide her with a much healthier environment. She had been told specifically to bathe in the sea by her practitioner. The princess stayed at Prittlewell's "south end" in the lovely, quaint Terrace and Grand Hotel. Due to this prestigious visit of a royal, the Terrace was renamed "The Royal Terrace" and the Grand Hotel was known as "The Royal Hotel." The town's publicity was boosted enormously and its popularity as a seaside resort grew.

          However there was a problem with the guide it was bias towards Southend, the guide was clearly trying to sell Southend by using words such as, ‘Delightful’, ‘Magnificent’, ‘Very good’ and ‘Convenient’. Throughout the whole guide not one bad thing is said about Southend only good things, this guide is therefore unreliable. There was evidence that showed Southend’s real side, Arthur Young, a writer in the 1800’s wrote about Southend as an old washed up seaside town, also when the tide went out it left an ugly outlook nobody in their right mind would want to walk on. Being the closest bathing place to London, the journey was eight hours long, due to the poor road conditions. The evidence given in this piece I think is a reliable one because he had no reason to lie about Southend; unlike the guide he was honest about Southend.

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            Out of all the evidence I think the early development of Southend was very successful, mainly for attracting the Royal family, the Royal Hotel was named because of this, this attracted the middle class to the area, they stayed in the hotel and took to the water, which brought more trade to Southend, i.e. the baths, restaurants, clothes shops etc. Southend was getting so popular they had to build a new Southend the new Southend still wasn’t even enough to keep up with the accommodation demand, so more facilities had to be built. Although ...

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