Scarborough History : The Holidaymaker's Resort 1866 - 1966

Scarborough's greatest days as a commercial port and ship building centre came in the early years of the nineteeth century, but the larger iron and steam ships spelt the death of Tindall's shipyard. The demand for fish, on the other hand, increased as Yorkshire's population grew, and the Lowestoft, Yarmouth, Penzance and Scots fisher boats joined Scarborough's own, following the shoals down the coast. But the town's continued growth meant that the harbour and the fish trade assumed a less important role in its affairs. No longer were local elections a matter of wooing 'the shipping interests'.

The railway visitors in ever greater numbers continued to force changes in the character of the resort. New lodging and boardings houses spread over North Cliff and South Cliff, and joined Falsgrave and Scarborough together. Many shops from the older parts of the town moved into Newborough Street and Westborough, where on enlarged sites, they grew upwards and outwards in three and four storey building. The elegant quarter of South Cliff became briefly a semi-aristocratic preserve as the middle classes, and by the end of the century, the West Riding trippers took over much of the middle town.

New diversions were necessary for the changing clientele. While the great hotels installed Burroughs and Watt's billiard tables, and built coffee rooms, smoke rooms and huge dining rooms for the table d'hote meals that were replacing the older 'ordinaries', so the smaller boarding establishments hung up oleographs, bought the cheaper newspapers, and installed pianos