Legitimate Idleness: Victorian Travel for Health

The ATOM Society brings you a fascinating talk by Prof. Sally Shuttleworth at 19:30 on Tuesday (new weekday this year!) 16^th May 2023 in Abingdon United Football Club, Northcourt Rd, OX14 1PL, Abingdon.

Middle-class Victorians had always travelled in Europe, but from the 1860s there was a huge rise in the numbers travelling in winter explicitly for their health. This talk focuses on the ‘invention’ of Mentone, on the Riviera, and Davos, in the Swiss Alps, as winter health resorts. Professor Shuttleworth will explore the medical and cultural dimensions of these developments, as well as the lives of some of the more famous invalids who wintered there.

Sally Shuttleworth is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she was previously Head of the Humanities Division. She works on the inter-relations of medicine, science and culture.

For more information, please see atomsociety.org.uk.