HOW TO FIND TRAVEL RECORDS ONLINE AND IN THE ARCHIVES
Discover where your ancestors spent their holidays and what records survive with Paul Blake
Increased exploration introduced new lands for the intrepid voyager to investigate
Ever since man could walk on two legs he has found the need to travel, initially and almost certainly as a result of climate change, to find better supplies of food. In pre-history, territorial gains from other communities or peoples encouraged more movement. But these movements were essentially migrations of varying strengths.
It was not until classical times that travel for personal reasons and leisure commenced. A sizable proportion of the Greek population could, and did, travel. They crossed the Mediterranean to trade, sell their skills, attend or participate in sporting events, or travelled simply to see the sights of the ancient world.
Similar opportunities were also taken by the Romans who travelled to distant parts of the world to see great buildings or other works of art; to learn new languages, or to taste new cuisine. Places such as Baiae on the Gulf of Naples were popular coastal resorts for wealthy Romans.
The need to undertake extended journeys as an essential part of their profession, originated with merchants and ambassadors who would have brought back stories of their travels and the countries and cities they now knew. Increased exploration introduced new lands for the intrepid voyager to investigate. In the centuries that followed, increasing numbers of the well-off visited places further and further afield, encouraged by the writings of those such as the English traveller, Thomas Coryat and his account of a 1608 gastronomic journey through Europe, Coryat’s Crudities: Hastily Gobled up in Five Moneth’s Travels, a tradition started by the likes of Marco Polo in the 14th century and continued by the great travel writers, such as Laurence Sterne, in the 18th century, through to
Eric Newby, Jan Morris, Bill Bryson and others in more recent times.
The Grand Tour
During the 18th century, the Grand Tour of Europe became part of the upbringing of the well-educated and well-heeled British gentleman. For periods of several months to several years, young men in particular, at the very top of the social ladder, travelled all over Europe, but notably to places of cultural and aesthetic interest, such as Rome, Tuscany and the Alps. Many used the occasion to acquire art treasures which form the basis of many public and private collections today. Later, it became fashionable for wealthy young women to undertake tours too: a trip to Italy with a spinster aunt as chaperone, became part of a lady’s education.
These first tourists, though undertaking their Grand Tour, were more travellers than tourists. The terms ‘tourist’ and ‘tourism’ were first used as official terms in 1937 when the League of Nations defined ‘tourism’ as people travelling abroad for periods over 24 hours.
Mass travel, however, could not really begin to develop until two things came about. The first was the improvement in technology allowing the transportation of large numbers of people to places of leisure interest. And secondly, greater numbers of people becoming able to enjoy leisure time. The expansion of the railways in the 19th century brought many of Britain’s seaside towns within easy distance of its urban centres.
The father of modern mass tourism was Thomas Cook who, in 1841, organised the first package tour taking a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough. Thomas immediately saw the potential and became the world’s first tour operator. He was soon followed by others, and the tourist industry developed rapidly in early Victorian Britain.
Early holidaymakers
It was not until the 19th century that cultural tourism developed into leisure tourism. Britain was the first European country to industrialise, and the industrial society was the first to offer leisure time to a growing number of people. Initially, these were the new middle classes, the factory owners and traders.
The 1871 Bank Holiday Act introduced a statutory right for workers to take holidays, even though they were unpaid. This, with the increased strength of the unions and the need for improved working terms and conditions, lead to the formalising of paid holidays. By 1925, 1.5 million manual workers in Britain had paid holidays and by 1939 this had grown to 11 million people.
The combination of short holiday periods and improved travel facilities over greater distances, meant that the first holiday resorts to develop in Britain were seaside towns situated as close as possible to the growing industrial conurbations. For those in the industrial north, it was Blackpool in Lancashire and Scarborough in Yorkshire. Those in the Midlands went to Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset and Skegness in Lincolnshire. And for those in London it was Southend-on-Sea, Broadstairs, Brighton, Eastbourne and many other places, both on the coast and inland.
It was with the introduction of cheap air travel and package holidays, that international mass tourism developed from the early 1960s. Florida, Benidorm and the Seychelles are today almost as accessible as Brighton or Skegness were 100 years ago.
Travel guides
Guide books encouraged leisure travel to all corners of the world and these can give a fascinating insight into the journeys that your ancestors may have taken.
The Baedeker Guides, founded by the German publisher Karl Baedeker, were first published in the 1830s. Printed in several languages, the guidebooks provided valuable historical information and
Postcards were both collected as souvenirs and sent to friends and relatives
ran into many editions, especially for European countries. Although the firm’s files were destroyed during the Second World War, the business was revived after the war by a great grandson of Baedeker. A list of Baedeker Guides can found on Wikipedia and many have links to digitised editions ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baedeker_Guides).
Another source to explore is Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide, first published by George Bradshaw in 1847. This would have been your forebears’ travel bible when visiting Europe; it included details of train timetables, hotel addresses and tourist attractions. Combined with postcards, letters or diaries, it could allow you to trace an ancestor’s trip across the Continent. An example from 1888 can be viewed on archive. org ( archive.org/details/BradshawsContinentalRailGuideSeptember1888).
Surviving sources
In spite of the impact travel has had on most families, there are relatively few official, even unofficial, records of those who travelled within the British Isles or further afield. Records relating to passports are for their issue only, with no information as to whether they were ever used. Which effectively only leaves the official ships’ passenger lists which nearly all date from the 1890s and cease in 1960. There was rarely any differentiation between the traveller or tourist, whose intention was always to return, and the migrant, whose intention was to remain.
An important role was played by newspapers, through the notices they carried, providing information about the departure and arrival of ships. Also adverts give the names of local agents through whom passages might be arranged.
During the 19th century, many local newspapers, especially for those places favoured by the upper classes for their seasonal sojourns, reported the arrival and departures of these families. In August 1851, the Brighton Gazette reported that “Mr and Mrs Protheroe, Mr and Mas Moore, Mr Blunt, Mr and Miss Squire [and many others] are amongst the latest arrivals at the Bristol Hotel”; and “Mr John and Mr George Fitzherbert have left the Albion Hotel after a stay of two months”.
For those whose ancestors may have been among the more notable explorers and travellers, or biographers of 19th and early 20th century travellers and geographers, the library and archive of the Royal Geographical Society is a rich source for information.
But it is within surviving ephemera kept by families themselves that the richest sources can often be found. Postcards were both collected as souvenirs and sent to friends and relatives. Guides to tourist sites, even tickets were often kept. Many who travelled on the ocean liners and later cruise ships held onto menus and other pieces of memorabilia. Completed passports, from the days when every entry and departure in foreign country was ‘stamped’, together with photographs, are often the most informative and personal survivals.