Yorkshire Tourists: The Beginnings of Middle-Class Travel in Georgian Britain

Abstract

This article addresses a gap in travel writing scholarship between studies of eighteenth century Grand Tourists and of Victorian day trippers. Its focus is on Yorkshire men and women from the middling ranks and professional classes who created tour journals, letters, and paintings recording tours of Scotland between 1796 and 1811. Five case studies carefully contextualise these historical sources within the reading, writing, record-keeping, and travel practices of their families. In doing so I demonstrate that studying these documents offers valuable insights and, when they are considered together, highlights how travel (and recording travel experiences) contributed to a sense of an emerging middle-class identity.