Original Scientific Article
Leisure and Commerce: Seafront Rivals in England’s
First Seaside Resorts
Allan Brodie
Historic England, Partnerships Team West, United Kingdom
allan.brodie@historicengland.org.uk
During the first half of the 18th century, the earliest seaside resorts were created in
England in small coastal towns that had previously made their living as commercial
and fishing ports. Today many seaside resorts are still co-located with ports, ranging
from small, quaint fishing and leisure harbours to major container and ferry ports.
In most towns, industrial places of work are in areas near the periphery or where
the edge of the town was located when the factories or mills were being created in
the 18th and 19th centuries. However, the harbour inevitably lies at the heart and on
the front of a settlement that might become a seaside resort, and often this aspect of
their story has continued alongside the new leisure industry that has come to dom-
inate their identity. Therefore, this could lead to conflicts over time between polite
society and the commercial realm, and respectable visitors and the men and women
servicing the harbour and its shipping. Over 300 years, the detailed geographical
and economic relationship between leisure and commerce on seafronts has evolved,
and new arrangements are being reached as visitor numbers have increased and as
commercial facilities have expanded. This paper will consider a number of 18th-
century English and Welsh ports that pioneered sea bathing and seaside holidays.
Today, some are seaside resorts, some are purely ports, and a small group haveman-
aged to negotiate a more or less uneasy relationship between these two apparently
conflicting functions
Keywords: leisure, commerce, seaside resorts
https://doi.org/10.26493/2335-4194.12.13-22
The First Resorts: Changing Fortunes
By the mid-18th century, a number of small coastal
towns were beginning to be transformed into seaside
resorts, a consequence of the arrival of visitors seeking
to bathe in the sea for the benefit of their health. At the
forefront of this process was Scarborough, which had
been a popular spa town since the 1620s and there-
fore already had all the entertainment facilities that
spa, and later seaside, visitors would require. Initially,
these facilities were contained within existing build-
ings in the historic town that had developed on the
slope above and behind the harbour. Scarborough’s
harbour, which was home to a fishing fleet and ship-
building, also served as a port for a growing num-
ber of vessels that were transporting coal from north-
east England to London. During the 1730s a wealth of
documentary material, including an early guidebook,
miscellanies of poetry celebrating the town and sea
bathing, scientific texts, and Setterington’s wonderful
panoramic view of the town, clearly demonstrate that
sea bathing was a prominent new factor in identity of
the town (A Journey from London to Scarborough, 1734;
The ScarboroughMiscellany for the Year 1732, 1732; The
Scarborough Miscellany for the Year 1733, 1733; The
Scarborough Miscellany for the Year 1734, 1734; Shaw
1734, 1735; Setterington, n.d.).
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 13
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
Figure 1 John Setterington, View of the Antient Town, Castle, Harbour, and Spaw of Scarborough 1735
(reproduced with permission from Historic England, cc 80/00145)
At Brighton and Margate, the central narrative of
their history in the first half of the 18th century is that
the new fad for sea bathing came to the rescue of these
failing coastal towns. During the first half of the 18th
century, Brighton was a small, struggling, seafaring,
and fishing community with no harbour, its boats be-
ing drawn up on to the beach (Berry, 2005, pp. 2–
6, 10–11). The cessation of fishing in the North Sea,
prompted in part by the erosion of the town’s fore-
shore, led to long-term economic decline and a reduc-
tion in population (Walton, 1983, p. 48; Borsay, 2000,
p. 788). In the first edition of Reverend Lewis’ book
on the history of the Isle of Thanet published in 1723,
he described a struggling fishing industry that was
heavily impacting Margate’s economy, but by 1736 the
situation had worsened with some fishermen having
given up fishing due to suffering from poor catches in
the North Sea (Lewis, 1736, p. 33). These two exam-
ples contrast with Scarborough, where the expansion
of the coal industry led to significant investment in
the town’s harbour and increasing prosperity from the
commercial part of its economy. They also make an
interesting contrast because, unlike Scarborough with
its pre-existing tourist market due to its spa, Brighton
and Margate had to rapidly establish the range of en-
tertainment facilities expected by visitors. Local en-
trepreneurs, often innkeepers and doctors, were be-
ginning to make available bathhouses, circulating li-
braries, theatres and assembly rooms at these, and
other, coastal towns for a growing number of aristo-
crats and gentry seeking to be part of the resort’s lead-
ing social circle as well as attempting to improve their
health. The character of this new clientele, who were
wealthy, sophisticated, metropolitan, well-dressed vis-
itors accustomed to luxury, must have been in marked
contrast to the population of these first resorts, small,
provincial working towns or, as John Byng snootily
described them, ‘fishing holes’ (Andrews, 1934, p. 87).
In the early 18th century, John Macky saw Margate as
‘a poor pitiful Place’ and Revd Lewis in 1736 recorded
that the town was ‘irregularly built, and the Houses
generally old and low’ (Macky, 1714, p. 50; Lewis, 1736,
p. 123). These ports that were adding a resort function
had unpretentious buildings set in small plots sepa-
rated by narrow streets, and the buildings were pre-
dominantly vernacular in style and materials. Some-
thing of the atmosphere of these proto-resorts can
still be experienced in the old town at Margate, in the
Laines, the original part of Brighton and behind the
harbour at Scarborough. Although they were being
favoured for sea bathing, their orientation, despite the
presence of harbours, was not primarily towards the
sea, and it was still common for buildings to be facing
inland rather than seawards.
Margate and Brighton demonstrate an almost to-
tal shift from an economy dependent on the sea for
14 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
Figure 2 1728 Engraving by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck Entitled the South-West Prospect of Liverpoole
(reproduced with permission from Historic England, bb 86/03830)
commerce and fishing to one focused on leisure by the
end of the 18th century. Moreover, by the 19th century,
the seafront of these towns was being recast with new
buildings that were now facing the prized sea view. At
other early seaside resorts, the initial commercial di-
mension of the original coastal towns has continued to
the present day. For instance, Scarborough and Wey-
mouth successfully combine busy working harbours
with entertaining holidaymakers, though the size of
the harbour and the scale of the commercial economy
has not grown nearly as quickly as the leisure indus-
try. At Hastings, a more or less uneasy truce exists be-
tween the traditional beach-launched fishing fleet and
the encroaching seafront amusements and accommo-
dation desired by tourists.
Liverpool: An Early Seaside Resort?
Inevitably, anyone considering the origins of the sea-
side resort will concentrate their efforts on existing
resorts, plotting the shift from commerce to leisure,
and examining the territorial and economic tensions
that exist between twomore or less incompatible func-
tions. There is also a definite reorientation of these
early seaside resorts from a geographical focus on the
harbour and the town centre to the seafront and the
sea view. England’s rich heritage of seaside resorts has
some settlements that can trace their roots back to his-
toric coastal ports and some are stillmore or less active
today. However, there were a handful of Georgian ‘sea-
side resorts’ that have followed a different path, shed-
ding their initial seaside, seafront leisure activities as
the commercial dimension of these towns expanded.
At the beginning of the 18th century, many early
resort facilities were available at Liverpool, a city now
regarded as an international port rather than a sea-
side resort. An urban bathhouse existed during the
first decade of the 18th century, and a riverfront bath-
house was depicted in an engraving in 1728 at the edge
of the town as it existed at that date. There were proba-
bly primitive bathingmachines (cart-like contraptions
to take bathers into the sea), and updated versions of
these facilities were still in use in the early 19th century.
As well as opportunities for sea bathing, Liverpool of-
fered the range of facilities required by the clientele
of a rapidly-growing port, but these would have also
catered for any visitors seeking to bathe in the sea, a
function obscured by its later success as a port.
In 1673 Liverpool had around 1,500 inhabitants, liv-
ing in a town that consisted of only seven main streets
covering a mere 300 metres from north to south and
spreading a similar distance inland from the water-
front (Chalklin, 1974, pp. 98–100; Sharples & Stonard,
2008, pp. 3–4). In 1680, Daniel Defoe described ‘a
large, handsome, well built and encreasing or thriv-
ing town;’ ten years later ‘it was much bigger than at
my first seeing it, and, by the report of the Inhabitants,
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 15
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
more than twice as big as it was twenty Years before
that’ (Defoe, 1968, pp. 664–665). By 1700, its popu-
lation was 5,145; twenty years later it had more than
doubled to 11,833, and by the beginning of the 19th
century it had grown to more than 80,000 (Chalklin,
1974, p. 20; Enfield, 1773, p. 28; Mitchell, 1962, p. 24).
Liverpoolmoved during the 18th century from being a
small provincial town to being the second largest town
in England (Chalklin, 2001, p. 79). This rapid growth
was in large measure due to its location; like Bristol, it
was convenient for the Atlantic trade in slaves, sugar,
textiles and tobacco, but it also had a substantial hin-
terland that expanded rapidly during the 18th century
due to the Industrial Revolution (Porter, 1982, pp. 199–
200; Chalklin, 1974, pp. 19–20, 49–51; Ascott, Lewis, &
Power, 2006, p. 16; Longmore, 1989, pp. 116–146, 117–
119). In 1709, 374 ships brought in 14,574 tons of cargo
and 334 exported 12,636 tons, but by 1771 this had risen
to 891 ships importing 66,656 tons and 1,024 export-
ing 83,798 tons (Enfield, 1773, p. 67). The Old Dock,
the first enclosed, commercial maritime dock in the
world, was completed in 1719, and by the end of the
18th century the riverfront was dominated by a mile of
docks (Ritchie-Noakes, 1984, p. 19; Ascott et al., 2006,
p. 14; Longmore, 1989, pp. 120–122).
With a rapidly growing population and increasing
commercial activity, Liverpool also began to expand
its civic facilities including a new custom house built
in 1721–1722 and an ambitious new exchange com-
plete with lavish ballroom that was erected in 1749–
1754 (Rideout, 1927, pp. 5–6, 3–73; Borsay, 1991, pp. 109,
157; Sharples and Stonard, 2008, p. 7). New entertain-
ment facilities included walks and pleasure gardens, a
purpose-built theatre that opened in 1772 and by the
end of the 18th century, there was a Public Concert
Room (Moss, 2007, pp. 125–126, 128–129; Brodie, 2012,
pp. 63–76, 66–67). The 1766 Liverpool Directory listed
a range of professions and facilities that would be ex-
pected in a major port, but also in a nascent seaside
resort (Liverpool’s First Directory, 1987). There were
booksellers and stationers providing services similar
to circulating libraries, innkeepers and coffee-house
proprietors, and tradesmen providing luxury services
for people of wealth. This infrastructure of leisure
evolved to cater to the prosperous port, but these were
also the type of facilities that were fundamental to
the development of seaside resorts in the 18th cen-
tury. However, proof that Liverpool was more than
just a growing port, with entertainments for mariners,
merchants and residents, is provided by its history of
sea-bathing facilities.
The first reference to sea bathing in the vicinity
of Liverpool occurs on 5 August 1708 in the diurnal
of the local landowner Nicholas Blundell: ‘Mr Aldred
& I Rode to the Sea & baithed ourselves [. . .] it was
extreamly hot as were also the two preceding days,
the lick hardly ever known at this time in these parts’
(Tyrer, 1968, p. 181). This reference appears six years
after his diary begins, suggesting that sea bathing was
still only an occasional and novel activity. Blundell
seems to have bathed because it was hot, but a year
later the sea was being used for medical reasons: ‘I
went part of the way towards the Sea with my Chil-
dren but turned back, my Wife & Dorothy Blundell
went with them, they were put into the Sea for some
out breacks’ (Tyrer, 1968, p. 225). The Blundells prob-
ably visited the stretch of coast nearest their house,
possibly Crosby Beach, where Antony Gormley’s at-
mospheric ‘Another Place’ has become amodern place
of pilgrimage.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Liverpool had
an urban bathhouse on the south side of the Pool on
the road lying to the south of where the Old Dock
would be built (Touzeau, 1910, pp. 358–359, 398). A
second bathhouse is mentioned in a 1708 rate book,
‘ye bagniall’ being in the heart of the rapidly expand-
ing town, probably at the bottom of Water Street, on
the riverside beside the CustomHouse (Peet, 1908, pp.
55–56). However, the first reference to organised sea
bathing, which would not have been in the heart of
the town, occurs in the early 1720s. On 1 August 1721
Blundell wrote that: ‘Pat: Acton lodged here, he came
with an Intention to stay some time to Baith in the Sea,
I went with him to the Sea side to shew himwhat Con-
veniency there was for him.’ The entry for the follow-
ing day reads: ‘I went with Pat: Acton to Leverpoole &
Procured him a Place to Lodg at & a Conveniency for
baithing in the Sea’ (Tyrer, 1972, p. 52). ‘Conveniency’
is being used for something that has not yet acquired
a name and Blundell used the term to refer to some-
16 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
Figure 3 Detail of Sea Bathing from John Setterington,
View of the antient Town, Castle, Harbour, and
Spaw of Scarborough 1735 (reproduced with
permission from Historic England, cc 80/00145)
thing to aid bathing. A similar use of the word appears
in 1735 referring to sea bathing at Scarborough: ‘the
Ladies have Guides, Rooms, and Conveniences for it
[sea bathing], under the Cliff ’ (Shaw, 1735, pp. 35–36).
In the same year, John Setterington’s view of Scarbor-
ough depicts a figure emerging from what appears
to be a primitive bathing machine, and this seems
to be the only ‘convenience’ to which Shaw can be
referring.
Blundell’s companion, Father Acton, appears to
have been using some form of primitive bathing ma-
chine, which was probably available to the north of
the docks where there was a waterfront bathhouse by
the 1720s. A small rectangular building labelled ‘Bath,’
divided into two sections, presumably for male and
female bathers, is depicted on a map by John Eyes in
1765, at the left (north) side of the map.1 The same
arrangement appears in 1785 and 1796/1797 editions
of maps, but the building disappeared with the con-
struction of the Princes’ Dock, which opened in 1821
(Ritchie-Noakes, 1984, p. 43; Jarvis, 2014, p. 54). Frus-
1 Liverpool’s 18th-century maps are reviewed in Stewart-
Brown (1911, pp. 143–174).
Figure 4 Detail of Bathhouse in 1728 Engraving by Samuel
and Nathaniel Buck Entitled the South-West
Prospect of Liverpoole (reproduced with
permission from Historic England, bb 86/03830)
tratingly, Chadwick’s map of 1725 does not cover this
area, as if it was still largely or wholly undeveloped,
and the southern viewpoint of a 1725 painting of the
townmeans that a distant bathhouse could not be seen
(Tibbles, 2003, pp. 21–25). However, the building does
appear at the far left-hand side of the 1728 engrav-
ing by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck entitled the South-
West Prospect of Liverpoole (Buck & Buck, 1728) which
shows the river frontage of the rapidly expanding town
(Figure 4).2
A small, rectangular building is shown standing on
its own beside the river in the position of the bath-
house on the 1765 and subsequent maps. Its slightly
odd size and shape, including the number and position
of the chimneys and its tall proportions as depicted by
2On 26 August 1727 Nathanial Buck visited the Blundell’s
house to try to sell prints: ‘Nathaniall Buck came to see if
I would subscribe to his Proposalls for Publishing the per-
spective Views of some old Abbies and Castles &c: in Lan-
cashire, Chesshire and Darby-Shire’ (Tyrer, 1972, p. 221).
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 17
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
the Bucks are confirmed in a view of the bathhouse
as it existed at the end of the 18th century. The bath-
house continued in use until the early 19th century but
was apparently demolished in 1817 tomake way for the
Prince’s Dock as the riverfront began to become in-
creasingly dominated by docks and other commercial
structures. An 1814 map included the site of Prince’s
Dock with a faint rectangular shape labelled ‘Baths,’ as
if its future removal was expected, while a map pub-
lished in the following year shows the baths as if in-
tact but with the line of the dock wall running through
them.3
As the port grew during the 19th century, bathing
was instead relegated to the suburbs and beyond. A
bathhouse was open by the 1820s at 1 Neptune Street,
which was further to the north, lying inland from East
Waterloo Dock (Gore’s General Advertiser, 6 March
1823). Waterloo and Crosby, where the Blundells had
bathed at the beginning of the 18th century, became
increasingly popular. At Southport, a bathing house
was built in 1792 by William Sutton, followed by his
hotel in 1798 and a range of other facilities accrued
gradually during the early 19th century (Bailey, 1955,
pp. 29, 34; Glazebrook, 1862, pp. 59–64; Alsop, 1832,
p. 39; Robinson, 1848, p. 25). In the course of the 19th
century, Southport became a favourite place for peo-
ple from Liverpool to enjoy the sea and a place for
wealthy businessmen to live. However, there was still
a need for baths to serve Liverpool and people using
the docks and a new bathhouse opened on the river in
front of George’s Dock in 1828 in a monumental clas-
sical structure. This was demolished in 1906 during
the redevelopment of the Pier Head (Newlands, 1856,
p. 10; Calvert, 1987, pp. 117–136, 121).
Modern Ports – Old Resorts
Aswell as Liverpool, there are othermajor cities where
sea bathing was once a significant presence on the
seafront but has now been driven to the peripheries
of the settlement or beyond. In a letter dated ‘Satur-
day 9 August 1755,’ ‘Mr H’ wrote that ‘Portsmouth has
been now, for many months, the rendezvous of the
fashionable world; every gay young man of fortune,
3 Thomas Kaye’s Map of 1815 in Gregory et al. (2014, p. 95).
Figure 5 Quebec House, Portsmouth from Passing Car
Ferry (photo by Allan Brodie)
and woman also, in their circle of joyous amusements,
took a transient view of it’ (Mr. H., 1757, p. 16). The rea-
son for this seems to have been a nascent sea bathing
culture in the town, rather than at nearby Southsea
where resort functions developed during the 19th cen-
tury. Remarkably, Portsmouth still retains its Georgian
bathhouse near the docks. Quebec House was built
in 1754 and was mentioned in the same year by Dr
Richard Pococke: ‘The town of late has been resorted
to for batheing and drinking the sea-water, and they
have made a very handsome bathing-house of wood,
at a great expence, with separate baths and apartments
formen andwomen’ (Cartwright, 1888, p. 114). In 1755,
Archibald Maxwell waxed lyrically about this new fa-
cility in a footnote to a poem: ‘The open and close
Baths begun and finish’d by the worthy Corporation
and principal Inhabitants, at their own private Ex-
pence; which for Elegance of Structure, and Salubrity
of theWater, are no where exceeded’ (Maxwell, 1755, p.
15). The incoming tide was used to fill four baths, two
of which were apparently large enough for swimming
(Riley, 1972, p. 5; Lloyd, 1974, pp. 49, 51) (Figure 5).
This bathhouse still stands near the docks and can
be seen most clearly from passing car ferries. While
this location may seem strange, a quayside position
was also used for Weymouth’s first bathhouse in the
18th century, despite the town having a long beach and
seafront (Brodie, Ellis, Stuart, & Winter, 2008, p. 12).
The same letter written by ‘MrH’ in 1755 also recorded
18 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
that: ‘In this reign of saltwater, great numbers of people
of distinction prefer Southampton for bathing; but you
agree with me, that the bathing-house is not compa-
rable to that of Portsmouth: not only as being smaller,
and uncovered, but here is no water, except at cer-
tain times of the tide; whereas at Portsmouth one may
always bathe’ (Mr H., 1757, p. 25). Southampton had
mineral springs and three bathhouses developed be-
side its two quays as the town only had a muddy fore-
shore rather than a beach (Temple Patterson, 1966, p.
39; Hembry, 1990, p. 242). A 1771 map shows bathing
houses on the water’s edge, beside theWest Quay with
the ‘Long Room’ behind, while an 1802 map shows a
similar arrangement along with Goodman’s Baths fur-
ther to the south. Although the docksidemay not seem
a particularly salubrious or glamorous location, in
1750George ii’s son, FrederickPrince ofWales, bathed
in the town while staying nearby (Temple Patterson,
1966, p. 39). Dr Pococke, who visited in 1757, noted
that: ‘if it had not of late been much frequented for
bathing and drinking the salt waters they would have
had very little commerce, except among themselves’
(Cartwright, 1888, p. 242). Count Friedrich von Kiel-
mansegg, who visited England in 1761–1762, described
how: ‘Many people come here every year, partly for
sea-bathing, partly by order of their physicians, who
consider the air of Southampton to be the healthi-
est in all England’ (von Kielmansegg, 1902, p. 270).
Baths survived on the quayside until the 1830s when
themain bathing establishmentwas converted into the
‘Dock-house’ (Freeling, 1839, p. 51). Like Portsmouth
and Liverpool, the growing scale of the commercial di-
mension of the town displaced sea bathing to further
afield.
Other, smaller ports also managed the dual func-
tion of being a commercial port and a seaside resort for
a time.Dover, although primarily a port of transit, pro-
vided many features expected at a seaside resort (Fig-
ure 6). It hosted visitors during the summer who used
its hot baths and bathingmachines, as well as its circu-
lating libraries and its new assembly rooms and theatre
(A Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places,
1810 pp. 225-229). Snargate Street running along the
base of the cliffs contained facilities for visitors includ-
ing circulating libraries, a theatre and lodging houses,
Figure 6 Early Photograph of Bathing Machines on the
Beach at Dover (reproduced with permission
from Historic England, bb 88/03995)
while a row of early 19th century houses survive nearer
the modern ferry terminal. During the 19th century,
bathing machines are shown in photographs on the
beach that lies within the harbour and people still reg-
ularly swim in this location. Harwich, a small port in
the 18th century, also had private baths filled by the
tide and by 1810 the town was offering bathing ma-
chines (A Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing
Places, 1810, p. 261). From 1766, a ‘mixture of county,
naval and Plymouth families’ in search of a colourful
social life could use that town’s Long Room and the ac-
companying tepid bath on the shore of Mill Bay (Gill,
1993, p. 193; Rolf, 2011, p. 51). By the early 19th century
Swansea was attracting sea bathers despite the pall of
copper smoke that apparently hung over the periphery
of the town (Miskell, 2011, pp. 113–125, 115–117). It had
hot and cold sea water baths, libraries, and an assem-
bly room and theatre – the key pieces of infrastructure
for a successful resort.
Conclusion
At Swansea, the construction of commercial docks
in the mid-19th century on the foreshore tradition-
ally used for sea bathing meant that this leisure ac-
tivity shifted out of the town to the western end of
Swansea. Moreover, around Britain, there are major
towns where, like Swansea, the centre is now dom-
inated by commercial activity and leisure access to
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 19
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
the sea has been displaced to the edge of the settle-
ment or to a largely self-contained twin settlement.
In the case of Portsmouth, Southsea serves as its twin
with extensive sea bathing and leisure facilities. Wa-
terloo, Crosby and further away Southport now meet
the leisure demands of Liverpudlians on the east bank
of the Mersey, while on the Wirral, New Brighton re-
mains a popular place for a day out after a trip on
the legendary ferry or through the tunnel beneath
the river. Dover, now dominated by its ferry terminal,
still attracts some people to bathe in the sea, though
many appear to be waiting for a ferry or preparing
to swim across the English Channel. Furthermore,
a modern creation, Port Talbot in South Wales, has
the adjacent Aberavon where the residents can en-
joy access to the sea against the backdrop of the steel-
works, much as the inhabitants of Swansea two cen-
turies ago bathed under clouds from the nearby copper
works.
While there is now a geographical and economic
need to separate large-scale commercial and indus-
trial activity from leisure pursuits, this was far from
the case during the 18th century. Although this process
of separation was already underway at many coastal
towns, industrial activity, including the working life
of the port, was even an attraction for some visitors.
For instance, in the diary of his holiday in 1829 Daniel
Benham described a visit to the gasworks at Margate
and seeing the steam engine at Ramsgate that opened
the harbour sluices (Whyman, 1980, pp. 185–225, 191,
197). Moreover, diaries and guidebooks regularly refer
to a wide range of industrial, commercial, and insti-
tutional sites that members of the public might en-
joy visiting, ranging from textile mills and breweries
to prisons and active military fortifications. In mod-
ern parlance, they were indulging in a form of dark
tourism, the difference being that in the 18th cen-
tury these tourists were examining living phenomena
rather than staring at relics of the past. Today, holiday-
makers at seaside resorts with active harbours often
pass the time watching the boats and fishermen. How-
ever, it is unlikely that people driving past the rear of
the Liver Building on Liverpool’s waterfront realise
that they are passing over the site of the town’s brief
life as a seaside resort during the 18th century. Nor
do many travellers on ferries to France realise that,
as they are leaving Portsmouth, they are passing by a
Georgian bathhouse, a relic of the town’s previous life
of leisure.
References
A journey fromLondon to Scarborough. (1734). London, Eng-
land: Caesar Ward and Richard Chandler.
A guide to all the watering and sea-bathing places. (1810).
London, England: N. p.
Alsop, W. (1832). A concise history of Southport, etc. South-
port, England: William Alsop.
Ascott, D. E., Lewis, F., & Power, M. (2006). Liverpool 1660–
1750: People, prosperity and power. Liverpool, England:
Liverpool University Press.
Bailey, F. A. (1955). A history of Southport. Southport, Eng-
land: A. Downie.
Berry, S. (2005). Georgian Brighton. Chichester, England:
Phillimore & Co.
Borsay, P. (1991). The English urban renaissance. Oxford,
England: Clarendon.
Borsay, P. (2000). Health and leisure resorts 1700–1840. In
P. Clarke (Ed.), The Cambridge urban history of Britain
1540–1840 (pp. 775–804). Cambridge, England: Univer-
sity Press.
Brodie, A. (2012). Liverpool and the origins of the seaside
resort. The Georgian Group Journal, 20, 63–76.
Brodie, A., Ellis, C., Stuart, D., & Winter, G. (2008). Wey-
mouth’s seaside heritage. Swindon, England: EnglishHer-
itage.
Buck, S., & Buck, N. (1728). South-West Prospect of Liver-
poole. British Library Maps (K.Top.18.76.a), The British
Library, London, England.
Calvert, J. (1987). ‘The means of cleanliness:’ The provision
of baths and wash-houses in early Victorian Liverpool.
Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire, 137, 117–136.
Cartwright, J. J. (Ed.) (1888). The travels through England of
Dr Richard Pococke. London, England: Camden Society.
Chalklin, C.W. (1974).The provincial towns of Georgian Eng-
land: A study of the building process, 1740–1820.Montreal,
Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Chalklin, C. W. (2001). The rise of the English town, 1650–
1850. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Defoe, D. (1968).A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain
(Vol. 2). London, England: Frank Cass.
Enfield, W. (1773). An essay towards the history of Leverpool.
London, England: Printed for J. Johnson.
Freeling, A. (Ed.) (1839). Picturesque excursions; Containing
20 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
upwards of four hundred views, at and near places of pop-
ular resort. London, England: Ackermann & Co.
Gill, C. (1993). Plymouth: A new history. Tiverton, England:
Devon Books.
Glazebrook, T. K. (1862). A guide to Southport, North Meols
in the county of Lancaster: With an account of the places
in the immediate neighbourhood (2nd ed.). London, Eng-
land.
Gregory, R. A., Raynor, C., Adams,M., Philpott, R., Howard-
Davies, C., Johnson, N., Hughes, V., & Higgins, D. A.
(2014). Archaeology at the waterfront 1: Investigating Liv-
erpool’s historic docks. Lancaster, England: Oxford Ar-
chaeology North.
Hembry, P. (1990).The English spa 1560–1815: A social history.
London, England: Athlone.
Jarvis, A. (2014). Liverpool: A history of ‘The Great Port.’ Liv-
erpool, England: Liverpool History Press.
Lewis, J. (1736). The history and antiquities, as well ecclesias-
tical and civil, of the Isle of Tenet, in Kent. London, Eng-
land: J. Lewis.
Liverpool’s First Directory. (1987). Liverpool, England: Scouse
Press.
Lloyd, D.W. (1974). Buildings of Portsmouth and its environs.
Portsmouth, England: Portsmouth City Council.
Longmore, J. (1989). Liverpool Corporation as landowners
and dock builders, 1709–1835. In C. W. Chalklin and J.
R. Wordie (Eds.), Town and countryside: The English
landowner in the national economy, 1660–1860 (pp. 116–
146). London, England: Unwin Hyman.
Macky, J. (1714–1723). A journey through England (3 vols.).
London, England.
Maxwell, A. (1755). Portsmouth: A descriptive poem in two
books. Portsmouth, England.
Miskell, L. (2011). A town divided? Sea-bathing, dock-build-
ing and oyster-fishing in nineteenth-century Swansea. In
P. Borsay and J.Walton (Ed.),Resorts and ports: European
seaside towns since 1700 (pp. 113–125). Bristol, England:
Channel View Publications.
Mitchell, B. R. (1962). Abstract of British historical statistics.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Moss, W. (2007). Georgian Liverpool: A guide to the city in
1797. Lancaster, England: Palatine.
MrH. (1757).A journal of eight days journey fromPortsmouth
to Kingston upon Thames. London, England.
Newlands, J. (1856). Report on the establishment and present
condition of the public baths & wash-houses in Liverpool.
Liverpool, England.
Peet, H. (Ed.) (1908). Liverpool in the reign of Queen Anne,
1705 and 1708. Liverpool, England: Henry Young.
Porter, R. (1982). English society in the eighteenth century.
London, England: Allen Lane.
Rideout, E. H. (1927). The old custom house, Liverpool.
Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire, 79, 141–174.
Riley, R. C. (1972). The growth of Southsea as a naval satellite
and Victorian resort. Portsmouth, England: Portsmouth
City Council.
Ritchie-Noakes, N. (1984). Liverpool’s historic waterfront.
London, England: hmso.
Robinson, F. (1848). A Descriptive history of Southport . . . on
the western coast of Lancashire. London, England: Hall &
Co.
Rolf, V. (2011).Bathing houses and plunge pools.Oxford, Eng-
land: Shire.
Setterington, J. (N.d.). View of the ancient town, castle, har-
bour, and spaw of Scarborough. British Library Maps
(K.Top.44.47.b), The British Library, London, England.
Sharples, J., & Stonard, J. (2008). Built on commerce: Liver-
pool’s central business district. Swindon, England: English
Heritage.
Shaw, P. (1734). An enquiry into the contents, virtues and uses
of the Scarborough Spaw-Waters. London, England: Peter
Shaw.
Shaw, P. (1735). A Dissertation on the contents, virtues and
uses, of cold and hot mineral springs; particularly, those
of Scarborough: In a letter to Robert Robinson. London,
England: Ward and Chandler.
Stewart-Brown, R. (1911). Maps and plans of Liverpool and
district by the eyes family of surveyors. Transactions of
the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 62, 143–
174.
Temple Patterson, A. (1966).Ahistory of Southampton, 1700–
1914 (Volume 1). Southampton, England: Southampton
University Press.
The ScarboroughMiscellany for the Year 1732. (1732). London,
England.
The ScarboroughMiscellany for the Year 1733. (1733). London,
England.
The ScarboroughMiscellany for the Year 1734. (1734). London,
England.
Tibbles, A. (2003). A new painting of Liverpool: A prospect
of Liverpool about 1725. Transactions of the Historic So-
ciety of Lancashire and Cheshire, 152, 21–25.
Touzeau, J. (1910). The rise and progress of Liverpool from
1551–1835. Liverpool, England: Liverpool Booksellers Co.
Tyrer, F. (1968–1972). The great diurnal of Nicholas Blundell
of Little Crosby, Lancashire (3 vols.). Chester, England:
Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.
Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019 | 21
Allan Brodie Leisure and Commerce
Von Kielmansegg, F. (1902).Diary of a journey to England in
the years 1761–1762. London, England: Longmans & Co.
Walton, J. K. (1983). The English seaside resort: A social his-
tory, 1750–1914. Leicester, England: Leicester University
Press.
Whyman, J. (1980). A three-week holiday in Ramsgate dur-
ing July and August 1829. Archaeologia Cantiana, 96,
185–225.
This paper is published under the terms of the
Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0
International (cc by-nc-nd 4.0) License.
22 | Academica Turistica, Year 12, No. 1, June 2019