The story of Southend's growth as a town and resort in the Victorian and Edwardian periods is told here in this new history of Southend. As the nearest seaside resort to London, the town's development has been determined in large part by the impact of its seasonal visitors. Yet it was the year-round movement of people from other parts of Essex, England and from the European continent in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-centuries that was to have a lasting effect on the character of the town.

Richly illustrated and drawing from original sources, this volume offers new perspectives on the developments that laid the foundations of Southend as we know it today. Its thematic chapters chart the physical expansion of housing in the period and the development of the resort's infrastructure and economy, among other topics. Although concentrating on Southend and its resort, chapters on agricultural depression and land speculation, education, clubs and societies and unemployment expand the book's regional focus to neighbouring areas, making this valuable reading for anyone interested in the history of Essex and the UK's seaside towns.