Southend seafront crowds for August Bank Holiday 1955

One of the British Pathe films currently available on YouTube and Facebook is a newsreel about Southend during the August 1955 Bank Holiday.

The black and white short film shows throngs of daytrippers  descending on the seafront during the hottest Bank Holiday in nine years.

Soaking up the sun - two sunbathers on the beach in Southend in August 1955 (Image: British Pathe)

As you can see from some of the scenes from the film, there’s literally not a space left on the town’s beaches as swarms of people came from all over, especially London, to escape from work for the day and soak up some seaside sun.

In the aftermath of the great influx, some six tonnes of rubbish was collected by council workers left with the unenviable job of cleaning up Southend’s roads and beaches.

You can watch the film via youtube.com/watch?v=5KqvDxVUq7g

As big as these crowds were in 1955, however, they were a mere drop in the ocean compared to the record-breaking number of visitors who came to town during August Bank Holidays during the Victorian era.

On the Sunday evening of the August Bank Holiday of 1887 Southend saw such an influx of visitors on ‘St Lubbock’s Day’ that every hotel and B&B room was taken and people had to sleep in the open air - on the beach and in the fields. 

Barely room to breathe - deckchairs crowd Southend seafront on the August Bank Holiday in 1955 (Image: British Pathe)

One woman, it was reported at the time, was so desperate for a roof over her head that she was content to bed down in a public toilet for the night.

“Houses were so full that the ordinary inhabitants subjected themselves to sad shifts, one good lady being content to roost in the WC,” one newspaper report described.

Sweating much? Despite the scorching heat, plenty of men are wearing suits and shirts on the beach, as was the norm back then (Image: British Pathe)

“In all the adjacent corn fields there were sleepers. Also in railway carriages and tramcars, while young men whiled away the time by serenading more fortunate visitors with snatches from recent music hall ditties.

“Altogether there were hundreds unable to obtain sleeping accommodation. “Fortunately, Monday was pleasantly fine, with the tide at its height in the morning.”

That weekend the pier was packed with people from one end to the other and over the three day period 35,000 people arrived by rail compared to 10,000 the previous year.

In search of fun - as well as the beach, visitors flocked to the Kursaal, the Pier and the town’s numerous cinemas and theatres (Image: British Pathe)

There were 32 constables on duty to keep the peace in the town and all in all things went well, with only a few minor disturbances.

There was one ugly incident, however, which saw a brawl break out in what was then known as ‘the Lower Town’, near the Castle Hotel and involved a mob attempting to lynch a sailor.

The sailor, named ‘Robinson’, was apparently trying to stop a group of visitors from illegally taking cockles from the seafront A fight ensued and the sailor pulled a knife to defend himself.

The mob then tried to lynch him but he managed to run off to safety at nearby Scott’s Villas.