Bournemouth's Founders and Famous Visitors

Bournemouth was known as a health resort long before it became a holiday destination. W.H. Smith was one of the first patrons of the town’s National Sanatorium for the treatment of chest diseases, including tuberculosis. Here ‘invalids’, including Robert Louis Stevenson and D.H. Lawrence, came to rest and recuperate, assisted by the beneficial breezes from the sea and soothing emanations from the pine trees, for which the area was famous. Others came for different reasons: Guglielmo Marconi transmitted wireless signals across the bay to the Isle of Wight, and Lillie Langtry, whose love letters have only recently been discovered in the attic of a farmhouse in Jersey, spent many years in the area. Bournemouth also attracted many notable twentieth-century visitors and residents, including Winston Churchill and Flora Thompson. From Tregonwell to Tolkien, this book celebrates the town’s founders, and also its notable visitors during the last 200 years. Written by established local author Andrew Norman, this new title is ideal for anyone who wants to explore the tale of Bournemouth and its key figures.