Thomas Onwhyn’s Royal Sea Side Albums, 1860
In 1860 Britain, artist Thomas Onwhyn published in small fold-out albums, comic postcards of a family’s summer trip to the beach. Beach vacations were still a relatively new concept at this time. Many people eased their way out into the strange, exotic waves, with the aid of wagons, and workers, who helped people down into the frightening open ocean water, and watched over them so they were safe. In one of the below pictures, we see that “Mama is so venturesome!”, for having gone just slightly further out from shore.
Onwhyn’s The Queen’s Album of Sea Side and The Prince’s Album of Seaside, had no actual association with the Royal Family. Both contained the exact same set of images. Those pictures below which have a red border, were scanned from the Queen’s Album; those with the brown borders were scanned from the Prince’s Album. Enjoy!
Click on any picture, to see an enlarged version.
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SummerVacation
— Doug
