More Than a Spa Resort? - Abstracts

David Hughes (BSU): 'To Come Forward and Disturb the Tranquillity of a City hitherto Distinguished by its Quietude and Good Order': the Politicization of Bath's 'Respectable Tradesmen' after the Emergence of Radicals in the 1830s.

The election of J. A. Roebuck as one of the MPs for Bath after the passing of the Reform Act of 1832 elicited an openly political response from prominent members of Bath's 'respectable classes'. This was compounded after the new Corporation, elected under the Municipal Reform Act of 1835, when 'sixteen downright radicals' were elected as councillors. The Bath Loyal and Constitutional Association was formed after the election of Roebuck 'to preserve the institutions of the country'. However, the Association not only had national political ideals but also more practical concerns with the interest and prosperity of Bath that depended on appealing to the 'wealthy upper classes'. The Association made a special plea, at its formation, to the 'tradesmen and operative classes, whose interests and prosperity are so intimately connected with the objects of the Association'. Among the Association's committee members were two of Bath's prominent tradesmen, John Davies, a chemist and druggist, and Thomas Blanchard Coward, a draper, the motivating force behind the development of Royal Victoria Park in 1830 as an attraction for the 'wealthy classes'. This paper will examine how tradesmen, like Davies and Coward, were politicized with the emergence of overt radicals in Bath in the 1830s to help Bath maintain its status as 'Queen of the West'.

Emma Croker (Bristol): Time to Set the Record Straight: The Much Maligned Civic Elite of Elizabethan Bath.

The civic elite of Elizabethan Bath have been much maligned by Historians who have delved into the machinations of Tudor Bath; but are they really deserving of this negative reputation?

This paper will examine the actions of certain members of Bath's civic elite in order to establish whether previous interpretations of civic events in the late sixteenth-century are flawed. There can be little doubt that Elizabethan Bath was administered by a tight oligarchy, headed by a clothier named William Sherston and his sidekick, a master baker called John Sachfield, however, there is no conclusive evidence that they acted unlawfully, as has been previously argued.

This paper will explore the arguments made previously by historians regarding this controversy. It will reassess the context and chronology of events, calling for a reappraisal of the City's forebears. Using Bath as a case study to highlight the complexity of urban political power structures, this paper will raise questions about how best to tackle the issue of subjectivity when making assessments. It would be naive to assume that Bath's civic elite were entirely selfless in their endeavours; likewise it would be cynical and anachronistic to suggest that they were entirely selfish.

In light of the ever increasing interest in Urban History, particularly of towns during the Reformation, and the lack of prior scholarship relating to Bath at this time, this paper will contend that it is an opportune time to investigate these issues and to give Tudor Bath the recognition it deserves.

Benjamin Heller (Oxford) - Comparing leisure lives in eighteenth-century Bath and London

Despite the extensive attention scholars have paid to Georgian Bath, we still have an impressionistic understanding of how visitors' leisure activities compared with other parts of Britain that relies too heavily on literary representations of Bath and its visitors. In this paper I will present an agent-centred approach to Bath as a leisure centre that allows us to compare behaviour patterns and perceptions of those patterns in Bath with London and other settings in England. This approach involves using individual patterns of behaviour to re-examine the conclusions scholars have reached using different methodologies. I will present an analysis based on detailed examinations of six diarists who spent time in London and Bath: Dudley Ryder, John Wilkes, James Farington, Caroline Powys, Fanny Burney, and Emma Smith (later Austen-Leigh). Their diaries shed light on everyday life, in particular on the spaces used for recreation and sociability and the types of people encountered in those settings. Though these are not unmediated windows into past practice, they can be used to look into patterns of behaviour and to examine the relationship between egodocuments and the literary accounts of Bath and London historians have tended to focus on. By looking at the types of spaces people used--including private homes, outdoor spaces, and public venues such as coffee houses or assembly rooms--and the people encountered in those spaces, we can see how patterns of sociability varied between a leisure town, the capital, and locations in the provinces. This approach helps us to refine our understanding of the functions of a 'spa resort' and consider how patterns of sociability were shaped by the types of available spaces and different lifestyles in London, Bath, and elsewhere.

Barb Drummond (Independent Scholar, Bristol) - Women in Georgian Bath: how a masculine city nurtured the rise of women's education and power.

John Wood's vision of the city was a robustly masculine space, of large, imposing buildings, and extended vistas. It made a clear statement of masculine power and ancient male virtues. But it was immensely important in encouraging the liberation of women.

Unlike London, with a single focus at the royal residence, Bath was built with many foci, linked by spacious, clean, safe promenades. This allowed women to socialise in public, giving them more choice in their social groups and past-times. Beau Nash's encouragement of different social classes to mix was also a benefit to women, and allowed them more contact with each other, forming networks beyond the confines of the London scene or country houses.

There were still sexual divisions with men discussing world events in coffee houses, so women spent more time attending church, which in turn created a market for popular preachers and musicians, and it was largely female money that created two of the most unusual churches in the city, the Octagon Chapel and the lost Laura Chapel.

Freed from domesticity, women sought new entertainments. They created a market for circulating libraries, shows of curiosities and lectures. From the early 18th century a peculiarly British creature arose, the peripatetic science lecturer, who combined education with entertainment and proved to be particularly popular in Bath. Whilst some of these were quacks, some were the best of their day, so provided rare access to quality education for women.

Amy Frost (Bath): Baines, Goodridge and the reinvention of Catholic architecture in 19th Century Bath

In 1829 the Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, Peter Augustine Baines, purchased Prior Park in Bath with the express intention of making it a new symbol of the strength of the Catholic Church. Coinciding with the year of Catholic Emancipation in England, Baines' purchase of the Palladian country house was a bold move aimed at bringing Catholicism out of side street chapels and private homes that still retained the echo of post-reformation clandestine worship. Prior Park had been designed in 1734 by John Wood the Elder with the clear purpose of creating a house that could be seen from all of Bath. By converting this house into a Catholic school and seminary, with the long-term plan of creating a Catholic university, Baines was ensuring that Catholicism in Bath was physically coming out of the shadows with as much visible pomp, ceremony and confidence as possible.

The proposed domed chapel to be built behind the mansion and designed in 1835 by architect Henry Edmund Goodridge was to be a bold, ambitious and expensive statement in stone about religious liberty. In the style of Monumental Neo-Classicism Goodridge's designs, like Baines ambitions, alienated fellow Catholics in the south west, impressed the city's great aesthete William Beckford, and put fear into the hearts of the Bath Abbey congregation.

In this paper I will reveal the role this partnership between Baines and Goodridge at Prior Park played in the re-birth of Catholicism in Bath and the reinvention of Catholic architecture in the country. I will argue that, had it ever been fully realized, Baines' Prior Park would have been the most significant new Catholic Church structure in post-Reformation England.

Cynthia Hammond (Concordia, Montréal, Canada)- The Suffragettes' Wood: Landscape, Gender and Memory on the Outskirts of Edwardian Bath.

For fifty years the British suffrage activist, Helen Watts (1881-1965) carried a “faded sprig from the little juniper tree she planted in 1911” on the outskirts of Bath. Watts was one of over sixty suffragettes who visited a large villa in Batheaston prior to World War I, taking refuge at historic Eagle House to recover from abusive prison treatment. In this bucolic setting, Watts and other women rehearsed speeches, strengthened bonds, and embarked upon a remarkable, commemorative landscape project. Suffragettes planted carefully chosen trees and shrubs over three acres on the private grounds of Eagle House, “as a lasting memorial to [their] faith” in the political future of women.

Eagle House, beyond its associations with Bath's famous architects, John Wood the Elder and Younger, was in the Edwardian era home to the pro-suffrage, Blathwayt family. Emily Blathwayt tended daily to the arboretum while her husband, Colonel Linley took meticulous photographs of almost every tree and suffragette. The Blathwayt's daughter, Mary was a key local figure in the cause. The family's sense of the significance of their work is keenly felt in the photographs, which today are virtually the only trace of the arboretum: after Mary's death, in 1965 bulldozers destroyed the trees to make way for a housing estate – only one tree remains.

Using local residents' memories, regional newspaper accounts, WWII aerial photographs and archival research, I argue that the suffragettes' wood was a rare example of feminist landscape design that spatialized political and social networks during the militancy years. As part of this reappraisal, my paper seeks as well to explore the politics of memory and space in Bath today. There is no commemorative gesture at Eagle House that could indicate its place in the history of women's rights. In this way, Batheaston remains on the periphery of Bath's heritage machinery, while Eagle House is a site of interest for only the most dedicated architectural tourist. This paper challenges Bath's Georgian image (Borsay 2000) through a unique history which shows how, more than a spa resort, Bath has also been the site of feminist spatial practice and powerful collective action.

Kristin G. Doern (BSU): The City of Bath World Heritage Site: Interpreting Heritage for the Local, the Regional and the Global

As an 'exceptional example of mankind's reaction to the natural world', the city of Bath was designated a World Heritage Site in 1987.1 The main reasons for its designation are:.

However, while Bath attracts almost four million tourists per year, it is a relatively small city (with a resident population of just under 900,000) that constantly faces the competing demands of transport issues, housing shortages, tourist infrastructure, conservation, sustainability and development if it is to continue its success as a living dynamic modern city. The City of Bath World Heritage Site covers the whole of the city, including all of the urban settlement and large areas of the open countryside that extend in towards the city centre. This includes areas of Bath where often there is not an obvious connection for residents to the set Roman and Georgian pieces that give the city its World Heritage status. Bath's tangible history is a crucial element in its success as an international tourist destination but how that heritage is interpreted and presented – and to whom – is a topic of ongoing debate between all of the city's various stakeholders. The recent UNESCO World Heritage Committee delegation to Bath has invited the city 'to embark on a reinforced, integrated and homogenous interpretation for all the attributes bearing the Outstanding Universal Value of the property' in its 2009 Decision.3 The City of Bath World Heritage Steering Committee, together with Bath and North East Somerset Council, are currently in the process of renewing the city's World Heritage Management Plan and interpretation, community engagement and social inclusion are as high up on the agenda as conservation, sustainability, access and economic viability.

By using the City of Bath World Heritage Site as a case study, this paper will explore the complex relationships between: marketing and managing a World Heritage site; community engagement and social inclusion; and interpretation and learning.

Notes

  1. City of Bath World Heritage Site Management Plan Summary 2003-2009, Planning Services, Bath and North East Somerset Council (2003), p.4.
  2. 'The City of Bath UNESCO World Heritage Site', Bath and North East Somerset Council (September 2009).
  3. UNESCO World Heritage Committee – Decision 33COM 7B.131 -City of Bath (United Kingdom) (C 428), 2009, http://whc.unesco.org/en/decisions/1923.