April 30, 2025|Reports

“Southampton: Gateway to the Empire” – Andrew Negus

Andrew Negus returned to speak to 82 of us for his second talk on the history of Southampton. This covered the period from medieval Southampton to the early twentieth century, fitting in Jane Austen, the king of the pixies and origins of Southampton Football Club.

From listening to Andrew’s previous talks, it was fascinating to see how different the fortunes of Portsmouth and Southampton were in this period, with Portsmouth benefiting from the growth of the navy while Southampton’s commercial fortunes suffered during much of this period, primarily due to the decline of the wool trade.

It wasn’t until the eighteenth century, when Southampton became a Spa Town, that the town’s fortunes improved with significant new building and then the Victorian period sparked a new prosperity with the arrival of the railways. It was the London and South Western Railway which revitalised trade, building new docks and vital railway connections at about the same time as Brunel and the Great Western did at Bristol, earning Southampton the title Gateway to the Empire.

Andrew will return with one final talk following the growth of Southampton as a commercial port.