For those who have spent a lifetime living in a seaside town, passing many sunny hours investigating the shoreline and shallow sea, there can be little more joyous an event than discovering an old book expelling the beauty and adventure of that same place. As beach and reef are introduced, some long since washed away by stormy seas, but others, instantly recognisable and known better to the reader than the visiting author, a lifetime of memories are prompted to flood through the mind.
    Such a book was published for me in 1854, by the eminent Victorian naturalist P. H. Gosse entitled The Aquarium; an Unveiling of the Wonders of the Deep-Sea; describing in detail, the very shoreline I have investigated and searched so often.
    It was L. S. Brightwell who led me to Gosse's book; after I picked up a copy of his Sea-Shore Life of Britain, a "not quite so old book", published in 1947, I could not help but follow up his intriguing opening  passage -

 “On a summer’s day in 1855 an earnest-looking gentleman embellished with the abundant facial ornaments, tight-strapped trousers, flying frock tails, and stove-pipe topper of his period, set forth upon the Paignton sands, wet and shining from the retreat of a long spring tide. He was followed by other gentlemen similarly attired, and ladies wearing spoon bonnets and such extravagant skirts that any modern beholder would have wondered how they proposed to negotiate the weed-draped rock pools for which they were obviously bound. But reach them they did, and in the reaching wrote world history.
    For this cavalcade, so grotesque in garb and stilted in speech by modern standards was the first sea-shore study class ever held, and at its head was Phillip Henry Gosse, Plymouth Brother, evangelist and naturalist.”

    Being a regular visitor to Paignton I immediately pictured the scene in my mind, the group assembling under the arch cottage on the harbour wall, the excited chatter as they awaited the arrival of Gosse, and then setting off towards the rocks and ledges of Roundham Head and on towards Goodrington Sands.
     Although I was initially interested only in Gosse’s seashore work, his very personal style of writing soon aroused my curiosity, and, upon learning of his aquarium experiments, I soon began duplicating them using modern equipment. Overcoming practical aquarium problems similar to those he had encountered, encouraged me to read more of his books and visit those places he did; trying to imagine both his situation and circumstances and how they would have influenced what he saw and wrote.
    Although my articles pay scant attention to Gosse’s obviously strong religious beliefs, I have not ignored them, but simply accepted them for what they were. By treating them in this manner I feel I am more able to comprehend and accept them as an indication of his strength of character, rather than question them as aspects of a religious belief beyond my understanding.
    Although I have chosen only to publish articles concerning Gosse’s seaside years and his trilogy of books which cover it, I hope these and the other information I have presented on aquarium history, will awaken a curiosity in others of the simple style and beauty of the Victorian marine aquarium and a long forgotten lifestyle.

Bob Alexander. 2003.