The English Seaside. A brief history of the seaside holiday.

Summer holidays and day trips to the seaside were once a part of the English way of life.

How and why did a summer holiday at the beach first become popular ?

Here also are some of the traditions that the English enjoyed at the seaside.

As the famous music hall song goes ...

Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside
I do like to be beside the sea!

Seaside holidays in the past...

For many years a railway trip to the seaside and to stay a week or two in a holiday resort was the highlight of the year.

The popularity of holidays at the coast grew over the years until the tide turned when the chance of trips abroad to chase the sun and experience different lifestyles saw the popularity of a holiday at the English seaside wane.

For many years a railway trip to the seaside and to stay a week or two in a holiday resort was the highlight of the year.

The popularity of holidays at the coast grew over the years until the tide turned when the chance of trips abroad to chase the sun and experience different lifestyles saw the popularity of a holiday at the English seaside wane.

The English before the days of holidays abroad had a great love of sea side holidays.

The railway links to sea side towns encouraged people to travel to the coast for their holidays.

the 1920's and 1930's on bank holiday weekends trains would be packed with people travelling from the cities to the seaside resorts.

After working hard in industrial towns and cities; when the factories closed for their annual summer holidays the workers and their families would head off to the coast for their well earned rest.

Wealthy families started to visit the seaside in the 18th century .

In the 19th century the seaside holiday developed. This was made possible by the railways expansion in the 1840s and 1850s which made travel more affordable.

The wealthy stayed in hotels, whilst boarding houses were used by the less wealthy holiday maker.

Small fishing villages became thriving and busy resorts when the railway services finally extended to them.

The Victorian period saw rapid growth in the size and population of resorts, with the coming of the railways which made it possible for visitors to arrive in greater numbers.

The number of wealthy visitors decreased as large groups of people on works outings,began to arrive on day-trips/ excursions.

If one finds it hard to understand the charm that a sea side holiday or trip to the seaside held in the past you need to imagine what life was like at the time.

Few 'ordinary people ' owned a car or a telephone until the 1950's and even when television sets became available they were very expensive to begin with. People worked hard all week in factories, shops, offices and mines and probably rarely had the opportunity to travel.

Why did the seaside become popular?

The seaside first became popular when it was decided that the sea sir and bathing in the sea was good for your health.

Dr Richard Russell, 1750 wrote "on the use of sea-water in the affections of the glands" in which he advocated bathing in and drinking sea-water to treat many illnesses.

So visiting the seaside became fashionable among the rich.

The fashion in sea-bathing played a large part in the development of seaside resorts.

The black and white or sepia photos of people bathing in the sea can be amusing, their approach to it is so different to today.

They had changing rooms on wheels to go into toput their costumes on, and what was considered suitable clothing looks rather odd to our generation . The purpose of the bathing machines was to allow bathers to change into their costumes and enter the water without being seen. The sea bathers wore suits that came down to their knees. Often they covered their heads with cloth hats. They walked down the steps of the bathing machines straight into the sea. Decorum was important in the past, in the days when ladies skirts were long enough to sweep the pavements as they walked.

Punch And Judy became a popular seaside attraction for adults and children. There are still Punch and Judy shows performed to this day. The Punch and Judy show is Instantly recognisable by the red and white striped booth . The story line has not altered much over the years although each owner of Mr. Punch will convey the story in their own way. To some the storyline may seem quite 'cruel' but it has delighted generations of children and still entertains both young and old whenever it is performed.

Piers were originally built for people get off steamships they then developed into a leisure facility.

Piers provided an exclusive promenade away from the crowds of the town as you had to pay an entrance fee. Piers offered good views of the coast and sea and the partaking of the sea air.

PromenadeIn Victorian times it was fashionable to walk or promenade along the seafront. That is why it is called the Promenade.

Postcards were first invented in 1870, they did not have pictures on them until 1894.

Picture Postcards from the seaside.

It was 1894 before the Post Office agreed to deliver postcards the mail.

Picture postcards did not immediately become a big success. Early examples showed seaside and city views.

By 1902 the Post Office allowed both address and message to be written on one side of the card, which meant the other side could be used for the picture.

Britain became the first country to introduce the divided back postcard we are familiar with today.

One cannot mention the seaside and the tradition of sending postcards without mentioning that at one time quite 'saucy' postcards were very popular and were sold and posted from most holiday resorts. Now we would think of them as not PC but at the time they were sold alongside the photo type postcards that were also popular. The 'saucy postcard' was often usually in a cartoon style and had an 'amusing' caption which when read with the image would create the 'joke'.

Children paddled, had donkey rides, and built sand castles.

Few could swim, but those who had costumes bathed in the sea. People believed that sea was beneficial to their health.

(The sea around the coast of England is rarely warm even in the summer months).

Early beach toys... wooden buckets and spades ...

Toys for the beach were buckets, spades, sieves, and sand mills. At first they were made from wood, but soon tin was used for buckets as it could be decorated with for colourful patterns and pictures.

It has lots of information about how people travelled ( to the seaside and other places) in the past. She has lots of photos and videos included in it ... it is 'well worth a look'.

 then this intersting page by another writer here may interest you it is about the history of the British seaside...