Percy’s Day on Bournemouth Beach Circa: 1901

April 13, 2020 Stories One Comment

Around the beginning of the 20th Century Percy’s family visited Bournemouth in Hampshire, and here are the holiday photos from that day over 100 years ago.

Family Group on Bournemouth Beach

Percy his Mum, brother and Sister on the beach. — In this wonderful picture, we see Percy, his Mum, and two siblings. Left to right: Constance, Percy, Florence, and his older brother Freddy.

View with Bournemouth Pier in the Background

Steve:

Sandcastle and Percy - My interpretation. — The sandcastle Percy and family – My interpretation.

The follow Freddie’s spade down and I think you can just see the sandcastle they have made complete with upturned buckets to make the ramparts!

What do you think? Did I get it right?

Bournemouth beach, from the Pier Looking West Towards Highcliffe

Bournemouth Beach Looking West from the Pier

Evans Family on Bournemouth Beach with Bathing Machines, from the Pier Looking East

Bournemouth beach circa 1901 — Notice the Bathing Machines in the distance. This photo was presumably taken around about the start of the 20th century. I think it would have been taken by my great Grandpa (Percy’s Father). I’m not sure which group is our family. My best guess is that Evans’ boys are standing posing for their Dad to the left of a long “sandcastle” in the middle distance. Their Mum is sitting on the sand just to the right of that “excavation”. Constance has her dress tucked into her swimming pants, (giving her rather a large “rear-end”!) and I think she is busy building a wall of sand in the “excavation” closest the camera.

Bournemouth Beach looking east from the Pier.

Setting Out on A Donkey Ride

I think that this is (left to right) Percy, Constance and Freddy just about to start a donkey ride being led by some local lads. Judging by the boy’s caps and white shirts it could be that this was taken during the same Bournemouth holiday,

(Percy’s Father), Richard Henri Evans (1865 – 1952 ) was a schoolteacher and a dog lover. He was also an amateur photographer, and remarkably good at it judging from the quality of these images!

He was certainly an “early adopter” of new technology at a time when photography was still very new, and the equipment was very expensive. The 3″ glass slides which we copied to make these images would have been developed at home, in a dark-room.

Bathing machines were very popular on the English South Coast resorts such as Bournemouth and Brighton at that time. Find out more about them, why they were used, and how they were used on Wikipedia here.

Tags: Bathing machines, Beach, Bournemouth, Percy

Elizabeth Woodham nee Andrews 1904 Mother of Annie Maud Norah & Florence

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