‘Did Babel e’er rise faster?’: the changing image of Brighton, 1820–50

Contemporary accounts of Regency Brighton celebrated its transformation, largely thanks to the presence of George IV, from a ‘dirty little fishing town’ to ‘the most fashionable resort in the kingdom’. Post-1830, with the King now dead and the onset of economic crisis, Brighton’s pre-eminence came under threat. This paper will consider Regency Brighton, a time of ‘exuberance’ pictured by artists such as Turner and Constable, in relation to the period that followed. It will consider the ways in which decay, development and the advent of the railway combined to both complicate and consolidate Brighton’s relationship with the metropolis, produce new ways of visualising the seaside town in the process.

Image credit: George Cooke, 1781–1834, Brighthelmstone, Sussex, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection