In the 1800s, the introduction of the railway and cheap paddle steamer services from London to nearby coastal towns made seaside holidays possible for working class people in East London.
Introduction
The idea of a trip to the seaside as a popular leisure activity started life in the 1800s, originally as a luxury only for the rich. Most of the poorer, working people living in what is now the borough of Hackney had neither the opportunity (working long hours, often six days a week), nor the money to go on holiday.
The introduction of bank holidays in 1871 however, gave many people the opportunity to take trips to the seaside for the first time. Railways offered cheap day return fares, and paddle steamers regularly left Tower Bridge full of Londoners heading to resorts at Southend, Margate and Ramsgate.
Gradual improvements in labour conditions and pay for workers meant that an annual holiday became possible for East London’s working class. Seaside towns responded to the demand from these new holidaymakers, developing into resorts offering entertainment and accommodation facilities.
Many people in Hackney visited Southend-on-Sea on the Essex coast, which at 40 miles away, was the nearest seaside.
An ‘unruly rabble’
However this development wasn’t welcomed by Southend’s locals, as evidenced in letters to the local press:
“If East London is to be let loose and 30,000 of its number poured into Southend on the first Monday in August every year from this time forward, something must be done for the protection of property.”
Letter in the Southend Standard, 1882.
The writer described these tourists as a ‘plague of locusts’ insisting “I cannot find a better comparison, for wherever they go they carry destruction with them”.
It would appear tensions surrounding bank holiday revellers in Southend continued over the following decade. Another letter in the local press in 1891 complained about this ‘unruly rabble,’ referencing women employed by the Bryant and May match factory, many of whom lived in what is now Hackney. It read: “This is the only seaside resort that the poorest of our London factory hands and match box girls can be brought to and taken home again for 1/6d“. It went on to attack the increase in licenses to sell alcohol “which turned this flock of innocent lambs into a hoard of wild beasts”.
The seaside holiday in the 20th century
The annual British seaside holiday remained popular, reaching its peak between the First (1914-1919) and Second (1939-1945) World Wars. Regular rest and leisure became seen as critical to people’s wellbeing, and paid time off from work became viewed as a matter of social justice.
The Holidays with Pay Act (1938) hugely expanded the number of people with paid holidays, providing the opportunity for longer seaside escapes.
“Each August we took a holiday by the seaside, at Margate, Ramsgate, or Southend-on-Sea. On this father insisted, although he could not often afford to be with us. He made this sacrifice so that mother and I could stretch our holiday to three weeks.
… I did not record my tears on returning to Hackney. But I often cried when I returned to the grey city and its dreary pall of smoke, a depressing contrast to the lively seas and skies of the seaside.”
Alan Wilson, describes family holidays during the 1930s. From ‘Hackney Memories‘ (2004).
In Hackney, revisiting a favourite seaside town each year was a commonplace family tradition.
“I came from quite a working class poor family … the holiday in Brighton once every summer – the same flat where my mum went on her honeymoon you know – that was life. The same spot on the beach! The same spot.
You’d look around and you’d see the people from Evelyn Court [Lower Clapton] where I lived sitting all around the beach. That’s how it was, everything was pretty localised.”
Penny Reel, Hackney Museum 2013.119.
Popular overseas tourism began during the 1950s and grew in the 1960s, as travel by airplane became more accessible and ‘package tours’ helped people explore once distant destinations like the Alps or the Mediterranean.
One person moving away from the traditional seaside holiday in favour of these more exotic destinations was former Hackney resident Kitty Daines (1909-1989). Having previously spent holidays in coastal towns like Southend-on-Sea, Hayling Island and Torquay, by the late 1950s she was travelling to cities across France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy.
Content for this blog featured in the article ‘We do like to be beside the seaside‘ in Hackney Today 18 July 2016, to promote the exhibition ‘Pubs, Clubs & Carnivals: An exhibition about pleasure and leisure in Hackney‘ at Hackney Museum 1 June – 3 September 2016.