Working class lives in Edwardian Harrogate

Summary

Edwardian Harrogate was a nationally and internationally renowned spa resort. It was also an important regional shopping centre and permanent home to an affluent middle-class population. But both townspeople and visitors could not have enjoyed their pleasures and comforts without the labours of its working class. It is those people, hitherto neglected in studies of resort towns, who form the subject of this book: the servants, laundry workers, hotel staffs, shop assistants, builders, cabmen, railway workers and the rest who kept the town going. It explores not only their work and how they made ends meet, but also the homes and neighbourhoods in which they lived, their family lives, their schooldays, pastimes and religion. It is a fascinating and readable portrait of working men and women in the decade often described as Harrogate's heyday.