History of holidays

Before the sixteenth century people did not go on holiday. It was only people on pilgrimage who could really be described as travelling for reasons other than work, and in a very limited way provision for accommodation was made for pilgrims along the routes they travelled, and at their popular destinations. In the seventeenth century, sons of rich families would undertake a tour of Europe, known as the Grand Tour.  However, in general, there were no places for visitors to go, so no one travelled; and because no one travelled there were no places for visitors to go.

The spa towns of Bath and Buxton were mentioned in the Poor Law Act of 1572 as places popular with the sick. Slowly provision was made for the amusement of patients visiting these spas. Top London acting companies started to visit Bath, games were organised, and by the late sixteenth century spas were beginning to develop into pleasure resorts. The healthy as well as the sick started to visit. In 1705, Richard "Beau" Nash turned Bath into a first class tourist resort. He improved facilities, installed street lights, improved roads and organised top quality entertainments. However, these were for adults only, and were quite exclusive.

In 1752 Dr Richard Russell suggested that sea water was beneficial to health, overcoming deeply ingrained prejudice against sea bathing which went back to Roman times. Brighton, being close to London and favoured by Dr Russell, became Britain's premier seaside resort.

In the 19th century, with the rise the Industrial Revolution, factory workers were able to afford holidays, and would often disappear for a few days after pay day.  To organize this, the Bank Holiday Act of 1871 turned a number of religious festivals into secular holidays, and the 1936 Annual Holiday Bill made paid holiday a statutory right.

The word "pilgrim" actually means stranger, or foreigner. Pilgrims would belong to a faith and their pilgrimage would take them to a place central to it. Perhaps in our rather fragmented modern world, there is a desire to find somewhere that confirms a sense of belonging. National boundaries come and go, divisions between people come and go, and history shows how changeable these divisions really are. Perhaps holidays ultimately teach us that none of us are strangers.

From The History of Holidays on infobritain.co.uk