SS 2004 Victoria 1837 Visitors: 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: . Paintings: 1838 Visitors: . Travel
Book: . Accommodation: . Transport: 1839 Accommodation: 1840 Visitors: . Sport
/ Mountaineering: 1841 Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Accommodation: . Visitors: . Paintings: 1842 Accommodation: 1844 Transport: . Paintings: .. Visitors: . Travel
Book: 1845
Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Visitors: 1846 Visitors: 1847 History
/ Politics: Transport: 1848 History
/ Politics: . Visitors: 1849 Visitors: . Transport: 1850 Transport: 1851 Visitors: 1852 Transport: . Paintings: . Visitors: . Music: 1853 Visitors: . Literature
on Switzerland: . Accommodation: . Transport: 1854 Accommodation: . Sport
/ Mountaineering: 1855 Accommodation: 1856 Painters: . Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Accommodation: 1857 History
/ Politics: . Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Accommodation: . Travel
Book: 1858 Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Visitors: 1859 Accommodation: . Sport
/ Mountaineering: 1860 History
/ Politics: . Accommodation: 1861 Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Visitors: 1862
Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Visitors: 1863 History
/ Politics: . Visitors: . Tourism: . 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: 1864 winter
sports: . Visitors: . Accommodation: 1865 Sport
/ Mountaineering: . Paintings: . Visitors: . Accommodation: . Transport: 1867 Travel
Literature: 1868
Visitors: . Accommodation: 1869 Visitors: 1870 Accommodation: 1871 Traffic: . Literature
on Switzerland / Sport /
Mountaineering: 1872 Visitors:
Henry James returns to Switzerland. (The
opening chapter of Daisy Miller is
set in Vevey) . Sport
/ winter sports: . Accommodation: . Transport:
Gotthard
Tunnel project 1873 Visitors: . Accommodation: 1874 First
major revision of the national
constitution (Revision der
Bundesverfassung) . Accommodation: 1875 Transport: . Paintings: . Visitors: . Accommodation: 1877 Transport: . Sport
/ winter sports: 1878 First
electric light in Switzerland (St.
Moritz) . Visitors: . Literature
on Switzerland: 1879 Sport
/ winter sports: . New
Tellskapelle (Tell's chapel) erected,
(with fresco paintings by Ernst
Stückelberger) 1880 Visitors: . Sport
/ winter sports: . Accommodation: . Literature
on Switzerland: 1881 Sport
/ Mountaineering: .. Sport
/ winter sports: .. Visitors: 1882 Transport: . Sport
/ winter sports: 1883 Visitors: . Transport: . Sport
/ winter sports: 1884 Literature . Visitors: . Accommodation: 1885 Sport
/ winter sports: 1886 The
proprietor of the Schweizerhof Hotel at
Neuhausen am Rheinfall builds a small
English church for his English and
American guests. Visitors: . Literature 1888 Decree
against Salvation Army issued in
Berne. 1889 Transport: 1890 Transport: . Sport
/ winter sports: 1891 Charles
Eugen Brown and Walter Boveri found Brown
Boveri & Co in Baden. Visitors: . Literature: . Transport: . Sport
/ winter sports: . Accommodation: 1892 Accommodation: . Literature: 1893 Transport: . Visitors: 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: 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: 1897 Visitors: 1898 History
/ Politics: . Transport: 1898 Sport
/ winter sports: . Visitors: 1899 The
Boer
War
leads to anti-British feelings in
Switzerland. . Literature
on Switzerland: . Accommodation: . Transport: other
timelines: Last changes: 2013
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)
1837-1901
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.
"Stadt Luzern": First steamboat on the
Lake of Lucerne.
Robert Burford exhibits a panorama: A
View of Mont Blanc. (cf. 1852)
(Barker/Burford Panorama, off Leicester
Square).
Florence
Nightingale:
Geneva.
John Murray. A Handbook for Travellers
in Switzerland, one of the earliest
British tourist guides.
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)
Fast coach services (Eilwagenkurse) Genf -
Fribourg - Bern - Zürich
("Transhelvetica") and Bern - Biel -
Delémont - Basel
("Vélocifère").
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)
Mary
(Wollstonecraft)
Shelley
pays a nostalgic visit to the shores of
Lake Geneva.
John Ball, first president of the Alpine
Club, climbs the Grauhaupt.
J. D. Forbes, "the father of British
mountaineering", makes the first ascent of
the Stockhorn.
Wengneralp: Hotel Jungfrau
Michael Faraday (also in 1814, 1835),
John
Ruskin,
J. M. W. Turner
J.M.W.
Turner:
The Pass of Splügen; Mont Righi,
morning, Mont Righi, Evening, Lake Lucerne
from above Brunnen.
Hôtel
des Trois
Couronnes
established in Vevey in Switzerland
Kleine Scheidegg: Hotel
Bellevue
The first railway on Swiss soil from
Strasbourg (France) to Basel.
J.
M. W.
Turner:
Views of Lucerne and the Rigi, Lake of
Zurich, Geneva, Fribourg, Gotthard
Pass
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.
Baedeker's Switzerland
Stanhope Templeton Speer ascends the
Mittelhorn (Berner Oberland) with two
Swiss guides.
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)
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.
"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.
Zürich-Baden: First Swiss railway
line ("Spanisch Brötli
Bahn")
The new constitution (Bundesverfassung)
gives more authority to the federal
government. Neuchâtel omits any
reference to the King of
Prussia.
Matthew
Arnold
(1822-88) visits Thun and falls in love
with Marguerite.
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.
Asphalt tested as pavement for streets at
Val de Travers (NE)
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.
W.
M.
Thackeray:
Basle, Berne, Lucerne, Gotthard,
Bellinzona, Locarno.
Regulars: John
Ruskin,
Richard Wagner
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.
Robert Burford exhibits a new panorama of
Switzerland A View of the Bernees Alps
(Barker/Burford Panorama, off
Leicester Square).
Bernard (p. 96) estimates a 25% increase
in visitors since 1844
Franz Liszt conducts Robert Schumann's
Manfred, Dramatic Poem in Three Parts by
Lord Byron
in
Weimar. (see Byron, 1817)
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
Matthew
Arnold
: Cycle of lyric pomes on
Switzerland.
Kandersteg: "Gasthaus zum Ritter" renamed
"Victoria"
The English community of Geneva get its
own church.
The Hauenstein tunnel, built by Thomas
Brassey, is the longest railway tunnel in
Europe.
Communication: Electric telegraph between
Britain and Switzerland in
operation.
Jardin Anglais opened in
Geneva.
Alfred Wills climbs the
Wetterhorn.
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)
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)
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)
Gasthaus Niesen Kulm
The King of Prussia renounces his rights
over Neuchatel.
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)
First guesthouse in Mürren: Hotel
Silberhorn
John Murray's A Handbook for Travellers
in Switzerland, is in its 7th edition
(26 000 copies sold). (see 1838)
Richard Barrington (with Swiss guide
Christian Almer) ascends the Eiger, John
Tyndall the Finsteraarhorn, J. Llewelyn
Davies the Dom.
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.
First guesthouse in Wengen: Lauenerhaus
provides Accommodation for 30
guests.
F. F. Tuckett (Aletschhorn), William
Mathews (Eigerjoch) Leslie
Stephen
(father of Virginia Woolf):
Bietschhorn.
Annection of Savoy by France. Although the
British foreign minister, Lord Palmerston,
is sympathetic to the Swiss case, Savoy
goes definitely to France.
Hotel Bellevue (Pilatus)
Leslie
Stephen
(Schreckhorn, Blümlisalp, Alphubel,
Oberaarhorn). Edward Whymper makes the
first attempt on the
Matterhorn.
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.
A.W. Moore (Jungfraujoch, Fiescherhorn);
T. S. Kennedy and William Wigram (Dent
Blanche).
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.
Founding of the International Red Cross in
Geneva. Dickens publishes Dunant's work in
Britain.
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...
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
Founding of the Swiss Alpine Club
(SAC).
Aletschhorn and Jungfrau climbed by Mr.
and Mrs Winkworth (first ascents by an
English lady)
Johannes
Badrutt
offers free stays at the Kulm Hotel in St.
Moritz. First winter tourists in
Switzerland.
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.
Montreux: L'Hôtel
du Righi Vaudois
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)
Elija Walton (1832-80) books of
reproductions of his Swiss paintings
become popular for the next 20
years.
Christina
Rossetti
makes a long tour through Switzerland:
Basel, Lucerne, Fluelen, Altdorf,
Andermatt, Gotthard, Bellinzona, Lugano,
Como, Splügen, Thusis, Chur,
Winterthur, Schaffhausen.
Geneva: Jacques Mayer opens
Hotel
Beau-Rivage.
Montreux / Clarens: L'Hôtel
des
Crêtes
Axenstrasse
completed.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
Rigibahn Vitznau-Rigi
(cogwheel, Niklaus Riggenbach).
Railway thorugh Mont-Cenis.
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
First ice skating competition (St.
Moritz)
Mürren: Hotel des Alpes
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)
Montreux: Hôtel
d'Angleterre
(48 beds)
Gambling forbidden (closure of casinos in
Saxon, Lucerne, Interlaken, Montreux,
Baden)
Montreux: Le
Grand-Hôtel des
Avants
Flüelen: Hotel Urnerhof am
See
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.
The painter Edward Compton becomes a
specialist in Alpine scenes (Bernese
Oberland)
Walter
Pater
calls the Alpine lakes "horrid pots of
blue paint"
St.
John's
Church
in Terittet, Montreux
Hotel
Saratz
in Pontresina.
Ouchy-Lausanne:
Funicular (Geschichte
der Seilbahnen in der
Schweiz)
First (natural) ice rink at
Davos
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)
J.
A.
Symonds:
"Davos in Switzerland"
John
Addington
Symonds
and Chistian Buol build a toboggan run in
Davos.
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."
First Curling match on the continent in
St. Moritz.
The St. Moritz Curling Club is
founded.
"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..
Mark Twain: A
Tramp
Abroad
(on Switzerland: ch. 25ff)
William Martin Conway (1856-1937)
publishes The Zermatt Pocket Guide,
the first climbing guide.
Theodore Roosevelt climbs the
Matterhorn.
Gerald Fox introduces skiing into
Grindelwald.
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)
Gotthardbahn
completed (Louis Favre).
First European ice skating Championships
in St. Moritz
The Salvation army "invades" Switzerland.
Miss Booth, the daughter of the founder is
imprisoned in Neuchatel and then expelled
from the country.
First sleeping cars in trains (Orient
Express)
Davos Tobogganing Club founded.
Johanna Spyri's (1829-1901) Heidi
published in English.
Aubrey de Vere (1814-1902) To A
Mountain in Switzerland
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
Maloja: Hotel Maloja Palace opened
Zermatt: Alexander Seiler's
Hotel
Riffelalp
completed. Altitude: 2300 m. above sea l.,
200 beds (280 by 1898)
British sportsmen organise the Cresta Run
in St. Moritz.
Johannes Badrutt, hotelier of St. Moritz,
imports curling into
Switzerland.
J. A. Symonds (Soglio)
Alphonse Daudet: Tartarin sur les
Alpes.
Pilatus-Bahn (cogwheel)
Rhätische
Bahn:
Landquart-Davos
BOB
(Berner Oberalp
Bahn)
inaugurated as a steam railway
Construction of Wengnernalpbahn
(Wengnernalp Mountain Railway)
Edward Knocker introduces skiing into
Meiringen.
Wilson Smith introduces the bob-sleigh
into St. Moritz.
James William Sullivan visits the social
democrat Karl Bürkli in Zurich (see
1893).
J.
A.
Symonds:
Swiss
Athletic Sport
Opening of Visp-Zermatt-Bahn
(for summer)
Brienz-Rothorn
railway
BLB
(Lauterbrunnen-Mürren)
inaugurated
summer sports:
St. Moritz Golf
Club
founded.
Alexander
Seiler
dies (owner of the hotels Mont Cervin,
Riffelalp, Riffelberg and Zermatterhof in
Zermatt)
Montana-Crans: Grand Hôtel de Crans
(soon renamed Hôtel du
Parc)
J.
A.
Symonds,
Our Life in the Swiss Highlands
Stans-Stanserhornbahn
Wengnernalpbahn
(Wengnernalp Mountain Railway)
completed
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..
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.
British sportsmen at St. Moritz play Davos
at cricket on skates.
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)
Assassination of Emperess Elizabeth
(Sissi) in Montreux (while waiting for the
steamer to return to Territet)
Nationalization of the main railway
lines.
Gornergratbahn
(Zermatt) transports 10.590 passengers in
its first (summer) season.
First bob-sleigh race held in St. Moritz,
won by Lord Hemsley.
Oscar
Wilde
in Geneva and Gland: "I don't like
Switzerland. It has produced nothing but
theologians and waiters."
Hardwicke
Drummond
Rawnsley:
Sonnets in Switzerland and
Italy
Montana: Sanatorium Beauregard and
Sanatorium le Clairmont
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)
American History: Colonial
America
/ 1789
- 1901
/ 1901
- 2003
British History: History
of Great Britain
