Bournemouth's Founders and Famous Visitors

Bournemouth was known as a health resort long before it became a holiday destination. W.H. Smith was one of the first patrons of the town’s National Sanatorium for the treatment of chest diseases, including tuberculosis. Here ‘invalids’, including Robert Louis Stevenson and D.H. Lawrence, came to rest and recuperate, assisted by the beneficial breezes from the sea and soothing emanations from the pine trees, for which the area was famous.Others came for different reasons: Guglielmo Marconi tr…