‘”It is a pity but what bad men could be turned inside out sometimes”: Victorian Scandal on the Kent Coast‘

Why is the seaside associated with bad behaviour? Can literary heroines hope to cross the channel with their virtue intact – or even get as far as the Cinque Ports? And what can local bye-laws tell us about the Victorian sexual revolution? From naked bodies in Margate to ‘penny translations of Parisian pruriences’ read by old maids in Ramsgate, the Lock Hospital in Chatham to the raucous amusements of day trippers – not to forget the overpowering smell of fish and chips - this talk unravels some of the scandals of the Victorian coast.