Sanditon and the Seaside Resort
The terrific grandeur of the ocean in a storm, its glassy surface in a calm, its gulls and its samphire, and the deep fathoms of its abysses, its quick vicissitudes, its direful deceptions, its mariners tempting it in sunshine and overwhelmed by the sudden tempest...
-Sir Edward in Jane Austen's Sanditon
Sanditon was Jane Austen's last novel, never to be completed. She had written eleven chapters when she was forced to abandon the story due to her failing health. On July 18, 1817, exactly four months after she last worked on the manuscript, Jane Austen died...leaving readers to wonder what would have become of the fledgling seaside resort and Charlotte Heywood, Sanditon's would-be heroine.
Sanditon was a fictional place, entirely of Jane Austen's creation, but I've wondered how it fits in with its historical context and her own experience with the seaside. During Jane Austen's life, seaside resorts surpassed spa towns as the preeminent destinations for health and leisure. We know that Jane Austen visited multiple seaside resorts. Among them were Lyme Regis, Dawlish, and Sidmouth.
Robert Havell after Hubert Cornish, Sidmouth, Devon, John Wallis, J. & E. Wallis, and R. Ackermann, 1815, hand-colored aquatint, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Many of these resort towns were of special fascination. Not only were they novel in their purpose, being that of health and leisure, but many had emerged from sleepy fishing villages into bustling, fashionable towns seemingly overnight. In a country long-settled, it must have been exciting, even jolting, to see a place grow and change so quickly. In Sanditon, Mr. Parker emphasizes the modernity of the town and we find Charlotte "standing at her ample, Venetian window, and looking over the miscellaneous foreground of unfinished buildings..." This is a town that is alive and full of possibilities.
One of the earliest seaside resorts was Scarborough. Unlike Sanditon, it was not necessary to turn it upside down to satisfy the new rage for the sea. Scarborough was well established as a spa town and therefore already had the facilities to begin to accommodate its clientele. So, it easily transitioned to the new fad for sea bathing, for the "bay is spacious and open to the sea; the waves, in general, as transparent as those in mid-ocean; the sand clean, smooth, and even; and the inclination of the beach toward the sea scarcely perceptible," according to the late 18th century historian, Thomas Hinderwell.
William Payne, Scarborough from the South, ca. 1776-1830, Watercolour, Victoria & Albert Museum.
However, Tom Parker, the visionary behind Sanditon, was hoping to create a sea-bathing paradise more akin to the likes of Weymouth or Brighton. These resorts had the patronage of George III and George IV, respectively. This was a much coveted blessing indeed, for where the royal vanguards went, the beau monde followed. George IV's love of Brighton led to him order the construction of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, an undertaking that lasted from 1787 to 1823. His patronage was so important that The Sussex Weekly Advertiser proclaimed in 1820 that 'the king is to this town what the sun is to our hemisphere.'
Thomas Sutherland after George Fennel Robson, Pavilion, Front Towards the Steine, 1826, British Museum.
Like Sanditon, many seaside resorts such as Brighton began as fishing villages. So, in the early days of a resort's development, fishermen's cottages often accommodated visitors. Jane Austen refers to this when she writes, "A branch only of the valley, winding more obliquely towards the sea, gave a passage to an inconsiderable stream, and formed at its mouth a third habitable division, in a small cluster of fisherman’s houses. The village contained little more than cottages, but the spirit of the day had been caught, as Mr. Parker observed with delight to Charlotte, and two or three of the best of them were smartened up with a white curtain and ‘Lodgings to let’..."
William Henry Hunt, Fishermen's cottages at Hastings, 1815-1825, watercolor, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Eventually, terraces of houses would be built to accommodate visitors, and if one were in need of lodgings, a visit to the circulation library was in order. There, a list was kept of available accommodations. Hotels, as we know them today, did not really come into being until the early 19th century, but by the 1820's, many were being built along the seaside.
Percy Heath after William Henry Bartlett, The York Hotel, and Library, Sidmouth, first half of 19th century, British Museum.
Apart from lodging, there were standard facilities necessary for comfort and entertainment in order for any seaside resort to be a success. Among them was the circulating library, already mentioned as a place to obtain information. In addition to finding available lodging, one might also learn who was in town from the list of subscribers. As an avid reader, the circulating library would have been important to Austen's enjoyment during her visits to the seaside. On an 1802 visit to Dawlish, she said of the library, that it "was particularly pitiful & wretched . . . & not likely to have anybody's publication." It was obviously not on the scale of the Weymouth circulating library, which by 1800 had more than 7,000 books to lend.
Thomas Malton the Younger, Hall's Library at Margate, 1789, Hand-colored aquatint, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
The circulating library needed to do more than lend books in order to provide a its owner a good income. Souvenirs, trinkets, and articles needed for writing were often sold. In Sanditon, Jane Austen tells us that, "The library, of course, afforded everything: all the useless things in the world that could not be done without," and many "pretty temptations". The library might also have rooms where less wholesome activities took place. Sometimes there was a room set aside for gambling, which was expected to be one of the pleasures of the seaside.
From Thomas Rowlandson, Genus Officiating at a Gaming House, 1821, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Every seaside resort needed venues where visitors could not only gamble, but socialize and drink tea during the day, and also serve as a venue for assemblies, balls, and concerts in the evening. Below, a Scarborough ballroom is depicted. Scarborough had fully developed assembly rooms by the 1730s.
Like circulating libraries, assembly rooms required a paid subscription, but sometimes one could pay per ball. Teignmouth, a well-established and fashionable resort, had regularly enlarged its assembly rooms since 1796. In addition to a large and elegant room for balls and card parties, there were also smaller rooms for reading and billiards. In Sanditon, the circulating library,a hotel and billiard room are mentioned, but it is unclear whether the town had developed to the point of having its own elegant assembly rooms.
Outdoor activities were equally important at the seaside resort. The Prince Regent's life in Brighton revolved not only around banquets, cards and gambling, theatre, music, and balls but also outdoor entertainments like racing, hunting, boxing, riding, and cricket. Furthermore, his birthday was publicly and elaborately celebrated with fencing matches, parades, mock battles, bands, country games, illuminations, fireworks, and bonfires. Thus, the most fashionable resorts offered just about any amusement one could think of. At one point riding donkeys along the beach became the fashion, especially for women.
But, most central to the seaside resort's existence was, of course, the sea itself. Prior to the 18th century, the sea was useful as a source of salt and food. It was also useful as a
natural defensive barrier preventing invasion. However, it was a dangerous and unpredictable place full of unknowns. Certainly, it was not a place for frolicking.
Sir John Floyer was an early key figure in the development of sea bathing as a medical cure. By 1700, he had published several books and papers on the subject, recommending short dips in the cold sea before any meal was taken in the morning. An key part of this treatment was that it left the rest of the day for pleasure, which was especially important to the invalids companions. By the mid 18th century, Dr. Richard Russell had based himself in Brighton and promoted his medical system of sea-bathing, causing fashionable invalids to seek him out.
In many cases, sea bathing must have been just as beneficial as whatever 'cure' was offered by physicians of the time. Perhaps, it was more so, since it was less likely to do harm. According to Lady Denham, patroness of Sanditon, they were better off without doctors at all. She says, "Here have I lived seventy good years in the world and never took physic above twice — and never saw the face of a doctor in all my life on my own account. — And I verily believe if my poor dear Sir Harry had never seen one neither, he would have been alive now."
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Sea bathing and imbibing the seawater could treat or cure ailments that included rheumatism, scurvy, leprosy, diabetes, rickets, nervous complaints, poor circulation, and various common infections. To aid this procedure, bathing machines began to line the beaches. These huts were pulled into the water by horses to the appropriate depth where the bather would emerge either naked or in a sort of wool bathing suit.
According to Sanditon's indefatigable promoter, Tom Parker, "The sea air and sea bathing together were nearly infallible, one or the other of them being a match for every disorder, of the stomach, the lungs or the blood; they were anti-spasmodic, anti-pulmonary, anti-septic, anti-bilious and anti-rheumatic. Nobody could catch cold by the sea, nobody wanted appetite by the sea, nobody wanted spirits, nobody wanted strength."
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Large-scale growth of seaside resorts was made possible by increasing prosperity brought about by the Industrial Revolution and a rapidly increasing population. Still, access to a seaside resort, especially from London, was of the utmost importance to its success. This explains why Tom Parker, rather sillily, emphasizes that Sanditon in relation to London was "One complete, measured mile nearer than Eastbourne. Only conceive, Sir, the advantage of saving a whole mile, in a long journey." Due to their more limited accessibility, some resorts remained only regional attractions. However, development of the turnpike toll road system facilitated the rise of regular coaching service to many seaside towns.
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Margate had the advantage of being easily accessible from London. One could arrive by sailing down the Thames, and in 1802 the hoys brought 20,000 visitors to the resort town. By 1815 the journey became even faster with steamships puffing their way from London. The masses could easily make a jaunt to the seaside in the case of Margate, and it did indeed cater to the masses. Unlike Brighton, which was the epitome of Regency fashion, Margate served a wider clientele. Most seaside resorts were aimed at the gentry and aristocrats, but Margate welcomed less prosperous visitors of the professional or mercantile classes, initiating an early version of mass tourism.
Nature had marked it out — had spoken in most intelligible characters — the finest, purest sea breeze on the coast — acknowledged to be so — excellent bathing — fine hard sand — deep water ten yards from the shore — no mud — no weeds — no slimy rocks — never was there a place more palpably designed by Nature for the resort of the invalid — the very spot which thousands seemed in need of — the most desirable distance from London!
Many seaside resorts sprung from fishing villages, some more organically over a longer period of time, and some very purposefully and very quickly. There was precedent for a man like Tom Parker with a grand vision for a fashionable seaside resort of his making. Richard Hotham spent around £60,000 between 1784 and 1799 in an attempt to develop Bognor. Sir Richard Hotham was a London hatter and East India ‘ship husband’ who made the development of Bognor the object of his speculation. The patronage of the most fashionable people of England and even of royalty was his ambition, much like Tom Parker. He invested his considerable fortune in planning and building the resort, maintaining detailed control of its operations, its visitors and how they were amused up until his death in 1799. Hotham saw Bognor much as Tom Parker saw Sanditon. It was his "second wife and four children to him — hardly less dear — and certainly more engrossing." Bognor was never the success that Hotham had hoped for. We wonder what would have been the fate of Sanditon. Surely, it would have been a success, for...
Sources
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One of the earliest seaside resorts was Scarborough. Unlike Sanditon, it would not be turned upside down to satisfy the new rage for the sea. Scarborough was already well established as a spa town and therefore already had the facilities to begin to accommodate its clientele. So, it easily transitioned with its "bay is spacious and open to the sea; the waves, in general, as transparent as those in mid-ocean; the sand clean, smooth, and even; and the inclination of the beach toward the sea scarcely perceptible," according to the late 18th century historian, Thomas Hinderwell.
William Payne, Scarborough from the South, ca. 1776-1830, Watercolour, Victoria and Albert Museum.