Lured to the Court Hall, the Lit. Soc.’s Lonely Hearts assembled to hear a lively
discourse from a vivacious, ebullient Jane Darcy on the topic of “The
Romantic Seaside” Lorna Challand’s introduction reviewed the speaker’s
oeuvre in which melancholy seemed to feature prominently but the black bile
disease and the attendant humours
propounded by the physicians of Antiquity were displaced by a thoroughly modern
one which saw the lecture punctuated by frequent bursts of audience
laughter.
The narrative began in the mid-eighteenth century as some
doctors deserted their old haunts in spa towns for seaside villages where they
became enthusiastic proponents of seabathing. Contemporary cultural influences
like Dutch landscape painting, which presented the coast as a liminal space,
and the Enlightenment vogue for Natural Theology, which saw the hand of the
Creator all-present in Nature, helped turbocharge seabathing’s surging
popularity. Medical treatment then was still driven by concepts of correcting
imbalances of humours and excretions of toxins which explained the enthusiasm
for emetics, purgatives and bloodletting.
Dr. Richard Russell of Lewes was an early pioneer of
therapeutic seabathing at Brighton. Physicians, possibly with an eye to their
fee schedule, micromanaged the prescription of the treatment with a Dr. White
recommending “the dip” last less than 2 minutes, with the maximum permitted
“dosage” being twice a day or 3 times a week. Just as modern sports generate a
demand for essential “accoutrements” so Georgian seabathing spawned bathing
chariots with awnings, flannel swimsuits, oilskin caps, bathing guides or
“dippers”and a macho, extreme-sport fringe of men who swam naked – usually at
another part of the beach. In the spirit of Enlightenment empiricism, a Dr.
Anderson interviewed experienced bathing assistants before issuing an advisory
code for female bathers on what to do if pregnant, menstruating or seeking to
cure infertility. Much of the medical advice was devoid of logic and
consistency so preliminary “tonics”, alcohol and hearty meals were prescribed
on occasion. Male voyeurism, aided by powerful telescopes placed on viewpoints,
was a parallel activity recorded in cartoons by Rowlandson – a sort of Donald
McGill of the time.
Seabathing was incorporated into contemporary literature. The
speaker described Jane Austen’s Sanditon as
the lost novel of seabathing, recounted the bathing misfortunes of Matthew
Bramble, the main protagonist in Tobias Smollet’s Humphrey
Clinker, at Scarborough and told of Boswell’s surprise at Brighton to find
that Dr. Johnson was a strong swimmer.
Jane Darcy’s favourite seaside venue was the south coast of
the Isle of Wight, visited by a litany of literary luminaries – Darwin,
Turgenev, Keats, George Eliot, Karl Marx, Wordsworth, Charles Lamb and
Tennyson. Perhaps not surprising that the last left the island complaining of
too many tourists! The magnet for the tourists was now sea air and sea views.
“Picturesque” travellers cherished rugged vistas marked by variety, singularity
and grandeur.
The audience expressed their appreciation of a lecture marked
by extensive research, learning lightly worn and an irrepressible, mischievous
humour, with a resounding round of applause.
Bill Doherty
