Take a look at life in Victorian Eastbourne in new book by Warwick Davis

Everyday Life In Victorian Eastbourne includes Eastbourne Amusements, Eastbourne banks, Eastbourne bath chairs, Eastbourne bathing machines, Eastbourne baths, Eastbourne chimney sweeps, Eastbourne cigarettes, Eastbourne coffee shops, Eastbourne cycles, Eastbourne dentists, Eastbourne drugs, Eastbourne gymnasia and Eastbourne Hackney carriages. He also looks at Eastbourne Home for Motherless Girls, Eastbourne Homeopathic Convalescent Home and Eastbourne Homeopathic Hospital.

As Warwick explains: “Victorian Eastbourne was a rapidly growing town boasting elegantly planned and laid out streets, its grand esplanades and leafy walks, the impressive town houses and hotels, copious fresh air, refreshing and health giving sea bathing, a pier and Redoubt towers. It sought to attract the nobility and gentry to what it liked to be known as the Empress of Watering Places. But what of the people who were moving en masse to the town? What was life like for them? This book takes snapshots of the challenges and opportunities that faced the townsfolk in their everyday lives.

“The book looks at drugs, gymnasia and libraries used by the locals as well as more workaday items like laundries and public baths. With no National Health Service how did they choose between the myriad offers of medicines that could cure everything from constipation to headaches, from kidney stones to fear of socialising? Did the use of laughing gas and cocaine encourage them to visit the peripatetic dentists or did they pop to the multi-tasking opticians? Who used the homeopathic hospital or the All Saints Convalescent and St Luke’s children’s hospitals? Where did motherless girls or homeless servants go to get help and shelter? What were servants’ rest homes and what provision was there for homes for motherless girls? Snapshots of different areas of life are all looked at taking stories from local newspapers, directories and archives. What happened if you got small pox or needed a public urinal hidden in the trees? How did homeopathy feature in health provision in the town? If you popped to the bank or penny savings organisations, could you stop for a coffee, a cigarette or a dozen oysters? If you got to any of them, could you cope with the myriad measures of weight or size? Could you get to the new libraries without getting dirty walking the streets or did the scavengers help? What was it like to use a bathing machine? Exactly what did the Eastbournians think of the day trippers from London especially the Bryant and May match girls? For that matter what did the west end of Eastbourne think about the east end?”

Warwick promises his book will give you a “feel for what it was like to be a Victorian Eastbournian and live life from a century and a half ago.”