Difference between revisions of "Folkestone"

From JSTOR Labs Wikibase
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 5: Line 5:
  
 
'''Folkestone
 
'''Folkestone
As one 19th century wag observed, Folkestone is a near anagram of ‘Kent Fools’, a joke not lost on the unknown author (believed to be from Dover) of ‘The Folkestone Fiery Serpent’. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=yiotAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=folkestone+fiery+serpent+first+published&source=bl&ots=FC3-gil3xI&sig=NR_HmDFGyrVpUf5psT-vvLgvK8k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMI9I2TlPmmxwIVsgjbCh146QCT#v=onepage&q=folkestone%20fiery%20serpent%20first%20published&f=false While the townspeople in this comic poem are unable to tell the difference between a dragon and a peacock, their real life counterparts were more astute in their promotion of the town.
+
As one 19th century wag observed, Folkestone is a near anagram of ‘Kent Fools’, a joke not lost on the unknown author (believed to be from Dover) of ‘The Folkestone Fiery Serpent’. https://books.google.co.uk/books?
 +
 
 +
id=yiotAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=folkestone+fiery+serpent+first+published&source=bl&ots=FC3-gil3xI&sig=NR_HmDFGyrVpUf5psT-vvLgvK8k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMI9I2TlPmmxwIVsgjbCh146QCT#v=onepage&q=folkestone%20fiery%20serpent%20first%20published&f=false While the townspeople in this comic poem are unable to tell the difference between a dragon and a peacock, their real life counterparts were more astute in their promotion of the town.
 +
 
 
‘Fashionable Folkestone’, as it became by the end of the century, first ‘discovered her fairy godmother in the changed order of existence brought about through the invention of steam locomotion’,  establishing itself in the 1840s and ‘50s.  But if it was accessible in one sense, Folkestone had no intention of lowering its standards. As Marc Arnold comments, ‘Although the town’s natural advantages were augmented by mechanical bathing machines, a pier and, in 1893, a switchback railway, entertainments and distractions that might have attracted day trippers and holidaymakers were resisted’.  Ultimately the 4th Earl of Radnor (1869-1889) elected to keep undesirable visitors off the Leas through the offices of a policeman. He might not have been too pleased to learn that this was a favourite spot for young women to read fashionable but not always edifying novels from the circulating libraries. ‘Some of the fair transgressors are very artful and seek to hide the tell-tale wrappers by brown paper covers; others artless do not. This is how we happen to know all about it.’  
 
‘Fashionable Folkestone’, as it became by the end of the century, first ‘discovered her fairy godmother in the changed order of existence brought about through the invention of steam locomotion’,  establishing itself in the 1840s and ‘50s.  But if it was accessible in one sense, Folkestone had no intention of lowering its standards. As Marc Arnold comments, ‘Although the town’s natural advantages were augmented by mechanical bathing machines, a pier and, in 1893, a switchback railway, entertainments and distractions that might have attracted day trippers and holidaymakers were resisted’.  Ultimately the 4th Earl of Radnor (1869-1889) elected to keep undesirable visitors off the Leas through the offices of a policeman. He might not have been too pleased to learn that this was a favourite spot for young women to read fashionable but not always edifying novels from the circulating libraries. ‘Some of the fair transgressors are very artful and seek to hide the tell-tale wrappers by brown paper covers; others artless do not. This is how we happen to know all about it.’  
  
Line 11: Line 14:
  
 
Arnold, Marc. ''Disease, Class and Social Change: Tuberculosis in Folkestone and Sandgate, 1880-1930.'' Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012.
 
Arnold, Marc. ''Disease, Class and Social Change: Tuberculosis in Folkestone and Sandgate, 1880-1930.'' Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012.
 
 
Clunn, Harold. ''Famous South Coast Pleasure Resorts Past and Present''. London: T.    Whittingham & Co., 1929.
 
Clunn, Harold. ''Famous South Coast Pleasure Resorts Past and Present''. London: T.    Whittingham & Co., 1929.
 
+
Grandfield, Yvette F. ‘The development of the seaside resort and the striving for `social   tone', 1850-1899, with a particular examination of Margate and Folkestone : dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of the University of Kent at Canterbury’. (1994).
Grandfield, Yvette F. ‘The development of the seaside resort and the striving for `social tone', 1850-1899, with a particular examination of Margate and Folkestone : dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of the University of Kent at Canterbury’. (1994).
 
 
 
 
''Holbein Visitors’ List and Folkestone Journal.
 
''Holbein Visitors’ List and Folkestone Journal.

Revision as of 12:35, 25 February 2020

Folkestone.JPG

'The Lees [sic] on a windy day.' Folkestone October 1888. Private collection.


Folkestone As one 19th century wag observed, Folkestone is a near anagram of ‘Kent Fools’, a joke not lost on the unknown author (believed to be from Dover) of ‘The Folkestone Fiery Serpent’. https://books.google.co.uk/books?

id=yiotAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=folkestone+fiery+serpent+first+published&source=bl&ots=FC3-gil3xI&sig=NR_HmDFGyrVpUf5psT-vvLgvK8k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMI9I2TlPmmxwIVsgjbCh146QCT#v=onepage&q=folkestone%20fiery%20serpent%20first%20published&f=false While the townspeople in this comic poem are unable to tell the difference between a dragon and a peacock, their real life counterparts were more astute in their promotion of the town.

‘Fashionable Folkestone’, as it became by the end of the century, first ‘discovered her fairy godmother in the changed order of existence brought about through the invention of steam locomotion’, establishing itself in the 1840s and ‘50s. But if it was accessible in one sense, Folkestone had no intention of lowering its standards. As Marc Arnold comments, ‘Although the town’s natural advantages were augmented by mechanical bathing machines, a pier and, in 1893, a switchback railway, entertainments and distractions that might have attracted day trippers and holidaymakers were resisted’. Ultimately the 4th Earl of Radnor (1869-1889) elected to keep undesirable visitors off the Leas through the offices of a policeman. He might not have been too pleased to learn that this was a favourite spot for young women to read fashionable but not always edifying novels from the circulating libraries. ‘Some of the fair transgressors are very artful and seek to hide the tell-tale wrappers by brown paper covers; others artless do not. This is how we happen to know all about it.’

Bibliography

Arnold, Marc. Disease, Class and Social Change: Tuberculosis in Folkestone and Sandgate, 1880-1930. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2012. Clunn, Harold. Famous South Coast Pleasure Resorts Past and Present. London: T. Whittingham & Co., 1929. Grandfield, Yvette F. ‘The development of the seaside resort and the striving for `social tone', 1850-1899, with a particular examination of Margate and Folkestone : dissertation submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of the University of Kent at Canterbury’. (1994). Holbein Visitors’ List and Folkestone Journal.