Thomas Cook, women travellers, and the gender dynamics of Victorian leisure, 1855-1902

Thesis

It is widely acknowledged that female participation on Thomas Cook’s mid- to late-nineteenth-century holiday excursions was considerable, yet very little is known about female participants. This thesis offers the first full-length study of the British women who travelled on Cook and Son’s early excursions, examining both their experiences and the wider phenomenon of female participation. Excursions were mixed-sex and challenge a variety of established beliefs about middle-class women and Victorian society. Throughout the period, excursions to continental Europe, the Holy Land, and the Nile were most popular, a geographical scope that the analysis reflects. Excursion parties were generally twenty or more in number, and men and women who were otherwise strangers often spent significant portions of their holidays together. Although Cook and Son’s excursions were guided and followed pre-determined itineraries, women fashioned these holiday tours to suit their own desires, leaving and joining parties as they wished. This thesis examines female excursionists’ motivations for travel, as well as their social interactions, physical experiences, perceptions of people and places abroad, and financing of excursions. The final chapter broadens the focus to consider how female participation in Cook and Son’s excursions was represented in the press and regarded by wider Victorian society. Analyses draw extensively from the unpublished diaries and published travelogues of fifteen female excursionists, as well as promotional literature Cook and Son produced, British census returns, and contemporary periodicals. Female excursionists demonstrated significant agency in Britain and abroad, the exploration of which yields new insight into middle-class women’s lives and the gender dynamics of Victorian leisure.

Authors: Zmrzel, J

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-zbdzpp0za
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: leisure; Victorian Britain; women; gender; travel
• Subjects: History