The Canary Islands
The British relationship with the Canary Islands goes back hundreds of years, but intensified during the nineteenth century with the rise of health tourism (one popular book was called The Canaries for Consumptives!) and the islands’ strategic position as a coaling station for British ships on their way to Africa and the Americas. This talk will explore how Victorian and Edwardian travellers experienced the Canaries: on the one hand, deliciously foreign and exotic, but on the other, full of English hotels, restaurants, churches and social clubs.