SS 2004

Department of English, University of Basel
Literature and Culture Studies: Seminar M. Marti


British and American Visitors in Switzerland:

History of Tourism in Switzerland

till 1789 / The Romantics (1789 - 1837) / The Victorians / 20th century


course programme (provisional)

Victoria
1837-1901

1837

Visitors:
Prince Albert (the future husband of Queen Victoria) and his brother make a trip through Switzerland. Albert sends the queen a small book containing views of the places he had visited, an alpenrose from the Rigi and a scrap of Voltaire's handwriting from Ferney. The visit includes the full programme: Basel, Moutier, Biel, Ile St. Pierre, Elfenau, Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Brienz, Brünig, Alpnach, Lucerne, Rigi, Brunnen, Fluelen, Andermatt, Furka, Gletsch, Grimsel, Meiringen, Faulhorn, Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen, Fribourg, Lausanne, Geneva, Chamonix, Martigny, Sion, Brig, Simplon, Domodossola.

Other visitors: Henry Martin Atkins ( Ascent to the Summit of Mont Blanc on the 22nd and 23rd of August, 1837), Augusta Becher, Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-49), Miss Drinkwater, Henry Herbert, John Murray (see 1838), George Ticknor.

.

Transport:
"Stadt Luzern": First steamboat on the Lake of Lucerne.

.

Paintings:
Robert Burford exhibits a panorama: A View of Mont Blanc. (cf. 1852) (Barker/Burford Panorama, off Leicester Square).

1838

Visitors:
Florence Nightingale: Geneva.

.

Travel Book:
John Murray. A Handbook for Travellers in Switzerland, one of the earliest British tourist guides.

.

Accommodation:
Joseph Lauber opens the first Guest House (with three beds) in Zermatt (Hotel Mont Cervin, today Monte Rosa)
Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich opens. (Bernard, p. 100)

.

Transport:
Fast coach services (Eilwagenkurse) Genf - Fribourg - Bern - Zürich ("Transhelvetica") and Bern - Biel - Delémont - Basel ("Vélocifère").

1839

Accommodation:
Lauterbrunnen: Hotel Staubbach. (the main attraction being the spectacular Staubbach Falls rather than the mountains,. the hotel is built at the far end of Lauterbrunnen's main road)

1840

Visitors:
Mary (Wollstonecraft) Shelley pays a nostalgic visit to the shores of Lake Geneva.

.

Sport / Mountaineering:
John Ball, first president of the Alpine Club, climbs the Grauhaupt.

1841

Sport / Mountaineering:
J. D. Forbes, "the father of British mountaineering", makes the first ascent of the Stockhorn.

.

Accommodation:
Wengneralp: Hotel Jungfrau

.

Visitors:
Michael Faraday (also in 1814, 1835),
John Ruskin, J. M. W. Turner

.

Paintings:
J.M.W. Turner: The Pass of Splügen; Mont Righi, morning, Mont Righi, Evening, Lake Lucerne from above Brunnen.

1842

Accommodation:
Hôtel des Trois Couronnes established in Vevey in Switzerland
Kleine Scheidegg: Hotel Bellevue

1844

Transport:
The first railway on Swiss soil from Strasbourg (France) to Basel.

.

Paintings:
J. M. W. Turner: Views of Lucerne and the Rigi, Lake of Zurich, Geneva, Fribourg, Gotthard Pass

..

Visitors:
Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent, makes holidays in Switzerland.
Charles Dickens: Domodossola, Simplon, Brig, Sion, Martigny, Lausanne, Fribourg, Basel.
Regulars:
John Ruskin, J. M. W. Turner
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-49) settles in Basel.

.

Travel Book:
Baedeker's Switzerland

1845

Sport / Mountaineering:
Stanhope Templeton Speer ascends the Mittelhorn (Berner Oberland) with two Swiss guides.

.

Visitors:
Charles Dickens returns over the Gotthard from a stay in Italy. "The whole descent between Andermatt and Altdorf, William Tell's town, which we passed through yesterday afternoon, is the highest sublimation of all you can imagine in the way of Swiss scenery. O God! What a beautiful country it is! How poor and shrunken, beside it, is Italy in its brightest aspect!" (Wraight, p. 234f)

1846

Visitors:
Charles Dickens and his family rent the Villa Rosemont in Lausanne and stay there for several months. Dickens writes Dombey and Son and The Battle of Life there. His visitors: Wilkie Collins, Henry Hallam, Harrison Ainsworth, Alfred Tennyson.

1847

History / Politics:
"Sonderbund" War between Conservatives (Catholic cantons: Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Zug, Lucerne, Valais and Fribourg) and Radicals (Protestants). While Metternich is in favour of the conservative cantons, the British government under Lord Palmerston shows sympathy for the radicals.

Transport:
Zürich-Baden: First Swiss railway line ("Spanisch Brötli Bahn")

1848

History / Politics:
The new constitution (Bundesverfassung) gives more authority to the federal government. Neuchâtel omits any reference to the King of Prussia.

.

Visitors:
Matthew Arnold (1822-88) visits Thun and falls in love with Marguerite.

1849

Visitors:
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans, 1819-80) comes over the Simplon and stays for six months in Geneva.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61) stays at Interlaken.
Matthew Arnold (1822-88): Basel, Berne, Thun, Kandersteg, Gemmi, Leukerbad.

.

Transport:
Asphalt tested as pavement for streets at Val de Travers (NE)

1850

Transport:
The Swiss Confederation is recognised as the most heavily industrialised country in Europe after Great Britain.
Robert Stephenson (1803-59), son of George Stephenson (the inventor of the Rocket) and Harold Swinburne plan the layout of the future Swiss railway network. Olten is to become the central railway junction.
Road to Leukerbad.

1851

Visitors:
W. M. Thackeray: Basle, Berne, Lucerne, Gotthard, Bellinzona, Locarno.
Regulars:
John Ruskin, Richard Wagner

1852

Transport:
Alfred Escher's party wins against Stämpfli's project of a national railway system: Railway lines are planned and organized by the cantons and private companies: Suisse occidentale, Zentralbahn, Nordostbahn, Vereingte Schweizerbahnen.

.

Paintings:
Robert Burford exhibits a new panorama of Switzerland A View of the Bernees Alps (Barker/Burford Panorama, off Leicester Square).

.

Visitors:
Bernard (p. 96) estimates a 25% increase in visitors since 1844

.

Music:
Franz Liszt conducts Robert Schumann's
Manfred, Dramatic Poem in Three Parts by Lord Byron in Weimar. (see Byron, 1817)

1853

Visitors:
W. M. Thackeray (1811-63) writes part of his novel The Newcomes in Vevey.
Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Augustus Egg.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, , Herbert Spencer, Alfred Wills

.

Literature on Switzerland:
Matthew Arnold : Cycle of lyric pomes on Switzerland.

.

Accommodation:
Kandersteg: "Gasthaus zum Ritter" renamed "Victoria"
The English community of Geneva get its own church.

.

Transport:
The Hauenstein tunnel, built by Thomas Brassey, is the longest railway tunnel in Europe.
Communication: Electric telegraph between Britain and Switzerland in operation.

1854

Accommodation:
Jardin Anglais opened in Geneva.

.

Sport / Mountaineering:
Alfred Wills climbs the Wetterhorn.

1855

Accommodation:
Alexander Seiler builds the first hotel in Zermatt (Monte Rosa, 28 rooms).
St. Moritz: Johannes Badrutt acquires the Pension Faller, and directs it under the name "Engadiner Kulm Hotel". His continual activity and efforts make him one of Switzerland's leading hotel pioneers. (Running water on every floor, water closets)

1856

Painters:
Publication of Volume 4 of
John Ruskin's Modern Painters. The book influences British artists to come to Switzerland: William Callow (1812-1908), James Holland (1800-70), Myles Birket Foster (1825-99), Edward Lear (1813-88), William Leighton Leitch (1804-83), William James Muller (1812-45), George Price Boyce (1826-97)

.

Sport / Mountaineering:
Alfred Wills' book Wanderings in the High Alps gives a boost to mountaineering: "I am not ashamed to own that I experienced ,as this sublime and wonderful prospect burst upon my view, a profound and almost irrepressible emotion... We felt as in the more immediate presence of Him who had reared this tremendous pinnacle, and beneath the "majestical roof" of whose deep blue Heaven we stood, poised, as it seemed half-way between the earth and sky." (Wraight, p. 245)
British mountaineers: E. L. Ames (Allalinhorn) John Ball (Weisshorn), Robert Chapman (Jungfrau)

.

Accommodation:
Gasthaus Niesen Kulm

1857

History / Politics:
The King of Prussia renounces his rights over Neuchatel.

.

Sport / Mountaineering:
Founding of the
Alpine Club by E.S. Kennedy and W. and S. Matthews.
Revd. J. F. Hardy climbs the Finsteraarhorn, Eustace Anderson the Kleine Schreckhorn.
In the period 1852-57 there were 64 successful assaults on Mont Blanc. Only four parties were not British (Bernard, p. 37)

.

Accommodation:
First guesthouse in Mürren: Hotel Silberhorn

.

Travel Book:
John Murray's A Handbook for Travellers in Switzerland, is in its 7th edition (26 000 copies sold). (see 1838)

1858

Sport / Mountaineering:
Richard Barrington (with Swiss guide Christian Almer) ascends the Eiger, John Tyndall the Finsteraarhorn, J. Llewelyn Davies the Dom.

.

Visitors:
Matthew Arnold is again in Switzerland ("The Terrace at Berne").
The poet and political writer
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, visiting Zermatt, is nearly killed by an avalanche of stones.
Other visitors:
George Barnard, Charles Barrington, Thomas George Bonney, Stopford Brooke, Mrs. H. Warwick Cole, Edmund Thomas Coleman, Sir Joseph Fayrer, William Marcet, Edgar Quinet, Andrew Crombie Ramsay, Alexander Rivington, Abraham Roth,
John Ruskin, Leslie Stephen, Charles Sumner, John Tyndall, William Warren Vernon, Alfred Wills.

1859

Accommodation:
First guesthouse in Wengen: Lauenerhaus provides Accommodation for 30 guests.

.

Sport / Mountaineering:
F. F. Tuckett (Aletschhorn), William Mathews (Eigerjoch)
Leslie Stephen (father of Virginia Woolf): Bietschhorn.

1860

History / Politics:
Annection of Savoy by France. Although the British foreign minister, Lord Palmerston, is sympathetic to the Swiss case, Savoy goes definitely to France.

.

Accommodation:
Hotel Bellevue (Pilatus)

1861

Sport / Mountaineering:
Leslie Stephen (Schreckhorn, Blümlisalp, Alphubel, Oberaarhorn). Edward Whymper makes the first attempt on the Matterhorn.

.

Visitors:
John Ruskin discovers Switzerland in winter: "I have made up my mind that the finest things one can see in summer are nothing compared to winter scenery among the Alps."
George Meredith (1825-1909) visits Basel and Zurich. Thackeray visits Chur.

1862

Sport / Mountaineering:
A.W. Moore (Jungfraujoch, Fiescherhorn); T. S. Kennedy and William Wigram (Dent Blanche).

.

Visitors:
Fanny Kemble (1809-1893): Zermatt, Visp, Basel, Moutier, Solothurn, Lucerne, Rigi, Thun, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald. "Punctually on the first of June, every year, she went to Switzerland" (Henry James)
Other visitors: Henry Alford, Hans Christian Andersen, John Barrow,
Edward Burne-Jones, Philip Gilbert, Thomas Henry Huxley, Harry Jones, Thomas Kennedy, Andrew Crombie Ramsay, Alexander Rivington, Abraham Roth, John Ruskin, Leslie Stephen, J. A. Symonds, Isaac Taylor, John Tyndall, Edward Whymper, Woolmore Wigram, Charles J. B. Williams, Christopher Wordsworth.

1863

History / Politics:
Founding of the International Red Cross in Geneva. Dickens publishes Dunant's work in Britain.

.

Visitors:
George Meredith: Domodossola, Simplon, Geneva.
Sir John Dugdale Astley, G. F. Browne, Oscar Browning, Edward North Buxton, Fergus Ferguson, Mrs. E. A. Forbes, Joseph H. Fox, Douglas W. Freshield, James Hannington, Sir William Hardman, Augustus J. C. Hare, Lucy Anne Hare, Frederic Harrison, Rev. Harry Jones, Charles Lowder, Charles Martins, Alexander Rivington,
John Ruskin, J. A. Symonds, Francis Fox Tuckett, John Tyndall, Edward Whymper, Woolmore Wigram, Samuel Wilberforce...

.

Tourism:
Thomas Cook's first conducted tour to Switzerland: Paris - Geneva - Sion - Martigny - Leukerbad - Gemmipass - Kandersteg - Lauterbrunnen - Giessbachfall - Grindelwald - Interlaken - Brienz - Brünig - Sarnen - Lucerne - Rigi - Berne - Neuchatel - Lausanne. 21 days inclusive: £19.17.6

.

Miss Jemina's Swiss Journal: The First Conducted Tour of Switzerland (an account of one of the 130 participants of Cook's first tour.

.

Sport / Mountaineering:
Founding of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC).
Aletschhorn and Jungfrau climbed by Mr. and Mrs Winkworth (first ascents by an English lady)

1864

winter sports:
Johannes Badrutt offers free stays at the Kulm Hotel in St. Moritz. First winter tourists in Switzerland.

.

Visitors:
Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell writes Mothers and Daughters at Pontresina.
Other visitors: Alfred Henry Alston, Howard Payson Arnold, Thomas George Bonney, G. F. Browne, Charles Dehansy, Lady Elisabeth Eastlake, Henry Venn Elliott, Alexander Ewing, Douglas Freshfield, A. G. Girdlestone, Sir George Grove, Sir William Hardman, Frederic Harrison, Rev. Harry Jones, Charles Lowder, Robert McTear, A. W. Moore, Henry Carr Glyn Moule, Marianne North, Herbert Preston-Thomas, William Rossetti, William Smith, Leslie Stephen,
J. A. Symonds (engaged to Catherine North), Francis Fox Tucket, Lucy Tuckett, John Tyndall, David Urquhart, Edward Whymper.

.

Accommodation:
Montreux:
L'Hôtel du Righi Vaudois

1865

Sport / Mountaineering:
Edward Whymper (Matterhorn) with guides from Zermatt (Peter Taugwalder, father and son) and Chamonix (Michel Croz). Four people of his party, Lord Francis Douglas, Revd. Charles Hudson, Mr Hadow and Michel Croz fall to their deaths on their way down. "... For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downwards on their backs, and spreading out their hands, endeavouring to save themselves. They passed from our sight uninjured, disappeared one by one, and fell from precipice to precipice on to the Matterhorngletscher below, a distance of nearly 4000 feet in height. From the moment the rope broke it was impossible to help them." (Wraigth, 255)

.

Paintings:
Elija Walton (1832-80) books of reproductions of his Swiss paintings become popular for the next 20 years.

.

Visitors:
Christina Rossetti makes a long tour through Switzerland: Basel, Lucerne, Fluelen, Altdorf, Andermatt, Gotthard, Bellinzona, Lugano, Como, Splügen, Thusis, Chur, Winterthur, Schaffhausen.

.

Accommodation:
Geneva: Jacques Mayer opens
Hotel Beau-Rivage.
Montreux / Clarens:
L'Hôtel des Crêtes

.

Transport:
Axenstrasse completed.

1867

Travel Literature:
Mark Twain on a tour through Europe (but not yet Switzerland) and the eastern Mediterranean, sends his accounts to the San Francisco paper that sponsored his trip. The book The Innocents Abroad or The New Pilgrims Progress. gets sold in over 70,000 copies in the first year, and remains the best-selling of Twain's books throughout his lifetime.

1868

Visitors:
Queen Victoria spends a holiday in Lucerne at the Villa Pension Wallace (near Hotel Gütsch). Trip on the top of Mount Pilatus (on her own pony, escorted by her Highland attendants), for her journeys on the lake the steamer "Winkelried" is at her disposal. A number of hotels and tearooms in Switzerland have since been named after her.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) visits the Valais on a walking holiday in Switzerland from July to August

.

Accommodation:
Davos:
Dr. Alexander Spengler builds the "Curhaus", together with a Dutch sea-captain, W. J. Holsboer ( "Kuranstalt Spengler-Holsboer"). The climate of Davos is thought to cure tuberculosis.

1869

Visitors:
Queen Victoria's holiday in Switzerland stimulates more Britons. Mürren is now a fashionable place to go: "We did not stay long at Mürren as it was crowded to excess with English people, and there was hardly any acccomodation. It is a strange mania I think which drives crowds of English people to any one place which happens to be the fashion for the time." (George Butler, in Beer, 326)
Davos receives its first winter visitor, Arthur William Waters.
Other visitors: Samuel Butler, S. H. M. Byers (US Consul), W. A. B. Coolidge, Mountstuart E. Grant Duff, Julius Elliott, William Evill, Joseph H. Fox, A. G. Girdlestone, Asa Gray, John Richard Green, Frances Ridley Havergal, Walter Leaf, Emily Honoria Patmore,
Theodore Roosevelt, John Ruskin, Henry Sidgwick, Leslie Stepehen, J. A. Symonds, Alfred Tennyson, Cecil Torr, Thomas A. Trollope, Francis Fox Tuckett, John Tyndall, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, Charles D. Warner, Philippa H. Watson, Charles J. B. Williams, Yeo J. Burney.

1870

Accommodation:
Zermatt: English Church opened. Hotel capacitiy in Zermatt: Monte Rosa (60 beds), Mont Cervin (68) Riffelberg (48), averaging 4000 guests a season (Bernard, p. 102)
Mürren: Grand Hotel

1871

Traffic:
Rigibahn
Vitznau-Rigi (cogwheel, Niklaus Riggenbach).
Railway thorugh Mont-Cenis.

.

Literature on Switzerland / Sport / Mountaineering:
Leslie Stephen: The Playground of Europe, a book on mountaineering.
Eward Whymper, Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860-69

  St. Moritz: English Church consecrated

1872

Visitors: Henry James returns to Switzerland. (The opening chapter of Daisy Miller is set in Vevey)

.

Sport / winter sports:
First ice skating competition (St. Moritz)

.

Accommodation:
Mürren: Hotel des Alpes

.

Transport: Gotthard Tunnel project

1873

Visitors:
Joseph Conrad ,on a six-weeks' tour of Switzerland, has his first contact with spoken English in Andermatt, where a group of English engineers are working on the Gotthard tunnel. On the Furka pass he meets "an unforgettable Englishman" with red face, white moustache and knickerbockers, leading a party of tourists. The two episodes determine Conrad to go to England. (Wraight, 264)

.

Accommodation:
Montreux:
Hôtel d'Angleterre (48 beds)

1874

First major revision of the national constitution (Revision der Bundesverfassung)
Gambling forbidden (closure of casinos in Saxon, Lucerne, Interlaken, Montreux, Baden)

.

Accommodation:
Montreux:
Le Grand-Hôtel des Avants
Flüelen: Hotel Urnerhof am See

1875

Transport:
Rigibahn: Arth-Rigi. In this season the
Rigi Railway carries almost 110,000 passengers. It becomes the most successful mountain railway and makes its inventor, the Swiss engineer, Niklaus Riggenbach, world famous.

.

Paintings:
The painter Edward Compton becomes a specialist in Alpine scenes (Bernese Oberland)

.

Visitors:
Walter Pater calls the Alpine lakes "horrid pots of blue paint"

.

Accommodation:
St. John's Church in Terittet, Montreux
Hotel Saratz in Pontresina.

1877

Transport:
Ouchy-Lausanne: Funicular (Geschichte der Seilbahnen in der Schweiz)

.

Sport / winter sports:
First (natural) ice rink at Davos

1878

First electric light in Switzerland (St. Moritz)

.

Visitors:
Mark Twain
Leaving his family in Germany, Twain goes with his friend Joe Twichell ("Harris") on a trip to Switzerland. Basel, Lucerne, Rigi, Sarnen, Brünig, Brienz, Interlaken, Kandersteg, Gemmi, Leuk, Visp, Zermatt, Sion, Martigny, Chamonix, Geneva. cf.
A Tramp Abroad, ch. 25 - 48
Robert Browning (1812-89) stays with his sister at the summit of the Splügen pass, working on his Dramatic Idylls.
Other visitors:
Squire Bancroft, Thomas George Bonney, Eduard Burne-Jones, Samuel Butler, Martin Conway, Joel Cook, Clinton T. Dent, Newman Hall, Kirkwood Hewat, Luther L. Holden, John Richardson Illingworth, Fanny Kemble, Walter Macfarren, Sir Horace Rumbold, J. A. Symonds, Peter Iljitsch Tchaikovsky (working on his Violin Concerto and Don Juan's Serenade in Geneva, Lausanne and Zurich)

.

Literature on Switzerland:
J. A. Symonds: "Davos in Switzerland"

1879

Sport / winter sports:
John Addington Symonds and Chistian Buol build a toboggan run in Davos.

.

New Tellskapelle (Tell's chapel) erected, (with fresco paintings by Ernst Stückelberger)

1880

Visitors:
Robert Louis Stevenson spends the first of several winters at Davos, finishing Treasure Island. (Hotel Belvedere).
Matthew Arnold, Pontresina: "Mme Saratz knew my works perfectly well, and said she should give me the room she had given to Tennyson."

.

Sport / winter sports:
First Curling match on the continent in St. Moritz.
The St. Moritz Curling Club is founded.

.

Accommodation:
"Pension Wengen", a comfortably furnished hotel to accommodate nearly 100 guests. The hotel has its own power station. The Lauener family owns four hotels, including the Hotels Silberhorn and Alpenrose. They also build a chapel..

.

Literature on Switzerland:
Mark Twain:
A Tramp Abroad (on Switzerland: ch. 25ff)

1881

Sport / Mountaineering:
William Martin Conway (1856-1937) publishes The Zermatt Pocket Guide, the first climbing guide.
Theodore Roosevelt climbs the Matterhorn.

..

Sport / winter sports:
Gerald Fox introduces skiing into Grindelwald.

..

Visitors:
Alphonse Daudet: Basel, Berne, Thun, Interlaken, Grindelwald, Lucerne, Rigi, Fluelen. (see also 1884)
Squire Bancroft, Thomas George Bonney, Thomas Edward Brown, George Butler, Martin Conway, Emily Hornby, Hugh Price Hughes, C. A. Jones, Benjamin E. Kennedy, David R. Locke, A. F. Mummery, Lady Robertson Nicoll, Andrew Crombie Ramsay,
Theodore Roosevelt (picture), Samuel Smiles, R. L. Stevenson, J. A. Symonds, Richard Denny Urlin, Constance Fenimore Woolson...

  Accommodation:
"Pension Willy" (later Hotel Palazzo Salis) opened. (Some pictures here)

1882

Transport:
Gotthardbahn completed (Louis Favre).

.

Sport / winter sports:
First European ice skating Championships in St. Moritz

1883

Visitors:
The Salvation army "invades" Switzerland. Miss Booth, the daughter of the founder is imprisoned in Neuchatel and then expelled from the country.

.

Transport:
First sleeping cars in trains (Orient Express)

.

Sport / winter sports:
Davos Tobogganing Club founded.

1884

Literature
Johanna Spyri's (1829-1901) Heidi published in English.
Aubrey de Vere (1814-1902) To A Mountain in Switzerland

.

Visitors:
Alphonse Daudet: Geneva, Chamonix, Montreux. Most of Tartarin sur les Alpes is written at Montreux.
Squire Bancroft, Robert Browning, Viscount James Bryce, George Butler, John Ellerton, W. Warde Fowler, Mrs. W. Greg, Newman Hall, Augustus J. C. Hare, General Oliver Howard, Walter Larden, Mrs. Elizabeth Main,
J. A. Symonds, Duchess of Teck, Richard Denny Urlin

.

Accommodation:
Maloja: Hotel Maloja Palace opened
Zermatt: Alexander Seiler's
Hotel Riffelalp completed. Altitude: 2300 m. above sea l., 200 beds (280 by 1898)

1885

Sport / winter sports:
British sportsmen organise the Cresta Run in St. Moritz.
Johannes Badrutt, hotelier of St. Moritz, imports curling into Switzerland.

1886

The proprietor of the Schweizerhof Hotel at Neuhausen am Rheinfall builds a small English church for his English and American guests.

 

Visitors:
J. A. Symonds (Soglio)

.

Literature
Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin sur les Alpes.

1888

Decree against Salvation Army issued in Berne.

1889

Transport:
Pilatus-Bahn (cogwheel)

1890

Transport:
Rhätische Bahn: Landquart-Davos
BOB (Berner Oberalp Bahn) inaugurated as a steam railway
Construction of
Wengnernalpbahn (Wengnernalp Mountain Railway)

.

Sport / winter sports:
Edward Knocker introduces skiing into Meiringen.
Wilson Smith introduces the bob-sleigh into St. Moritz.

1891

Charles Eugen Brown and Walter Boveri found Brown Boveri & Co in Baden.

Visitors:
James William Sullivan visits the social democrat Karl Bürkli in Zurich (see 1893).

.

Literature:
J. A. Symonds: Swiss Athletic Sport

.

Transport:
Opening of
Visp-Zermatt-Bahn (for summer)
Brienz-Rothorn railway
BLB (Lauterbrunnen-Mürren) inaugurated

.

Sport / winter sports:
summer sports:
St. Moritz
Golf Club founded.

.

Accommodation:
Alexander Seiler dies (owner of the hotels Mont Cervin, Riffelalp, Riffelberg and Zermatterhof in Zermatt)

1892

Accommodation:
Montana-Crans: Grand Hôtel de Crans (soon renamed Hôtel du Parc)

.

Literature:
J. A. Symonds, Our Life in the Swiss Highlands

1893

Transport:
Stans-Stanserhornbahn
Wengnernalpbahn (Wengnernalp Mountain Railway) completed

.

Visitors:
Munro, Hector (Saki): Davos. (short story: Fur)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.: Leuk, Gemmi, Kandersteg, Meiringen, Davos.
Conan Doyle uses the Reichenbach Falls to finish off Sherlock Holmes by making him fall down during a fight with Moriarty.
Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck. Basel, Zurich, Chur, Thusis, Julier, St. Moritz, Maloja, Albula. The newly discovered glacier-mills on the Maloja Pass are named the "Princess Mary Adelaide mills" in her honour..

James William Sullivan: Direct Legislation by the Citizenship Through the Initiative and Referendum (The pamphlet influences Hiram Johnson in California and William U'Ren in Oregon, cf. A. Gross)

1894

Visitors:
Winston Churchill and L. S. Amery on holidays in the Valais. Amery writes "Among those in whom our fame kindled the flame of ambition - short lived in this direction at least - was our old school fellow Winston Churchill who, in spite of our efforts to dissuade him from what we urged was a long and tiresome trudge unworthy of his prowess, insisted on climbing Monte Rosa because it was actually the highest moutain in Switzerland." (Wraight, p. 276)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Davos, Arosa, Maloja. Conan Doyle lays out the golf links at Davos.

1895

Tell-Denkmal (Tell Monument by Richard Kissling) erected at Altdorf.

1896

Transport: Jungfraujochbahn: Building starts (Adolf Guyer); Tramway in St. Moritz (till 1932)


1896

Sport / winter sports:
British sportsmen at St. Moritz play Davos at cricket on skates.

1897

Visitors:

Mark Twain: Lucerne, Weggis (Pension Bühler). "I would as soon spend my life in Weggis as anywhere in the geography" (Beer, p.321)
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) visits Switzerland. Sonnets "Lausanne, In Gibbon's Old Garden" and "To the Matterhorn", about Whymper's triumph and tragedy (see 1865).
William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) studies for 2 years at Château de Lancy (Geneva)

1898

History / Politics:
Assassination of Emperess Elizabeth (Sissi) in Montreux (while waiting for the steamer to return to Territet)

.

Transport:
Nationalization of the main railway lines.
Gornergratbahn (Zermatt) transports 10.590 passengers in its first (summer) season.

1898

Sport / winter sports:
First bob-sleigh race held in St. Moritz, won by Lord Hemsley.

.

Visitors:
Oscar Wilde in Geneva and Gland: "I don't like Switzerland. It has produced nothing but theologians and waiters."

1899

The Boer War leads to anti-British feelings in Switzerland.

.

Literature on Switzerland:
Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley: Sonnets in Switzerland and Italy

.

Accommodation:
Montana: Sanatorium Beauregard and Sanatorium le Clairmont

.

Transport:
Zurich: Tramway fully electrified


till 1789 / The Romantics (1789 - 1837) / The Victorians / 20th century

full timeline (one page)

Bibliography:

de Beer, G. R. Travellers in Switzerland. London 1949
Bernard, Paul B. Rush to the Alps. New York 1978.
Jud, Markus. Geschichte der Schweiz,
Verkehr [http://www.geschichte-schweiz.ch/verkehr.html]
Müller Science:
Ausländer in der Schweiz [http://www.muellerscience.com/SPEZIALITAETEN/Schweiz/Auslaender_in_der_Schweiz.htm]
Wraight, John. The Swiss and the British. Salisbury: Russell:1987



course programme (provisional)

other timelines:
American History:
Colonial America / 1789 - 1901 / 1901 - 2003
British History:
History of Great Britain

Last changes: 2013