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The Shire of Sea Kings (3rd ed.)

London, Great Western Railway Co. (1912) 233 pp.

Prepared by Michael Steer

The Great Western Railway (GWR) linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, The GWR was called by some "God's Wonderful Railway" and by others the "Great Way Round" but it was famed as the "Holiday Line", taking many people to English and Bristol Channel resorts in the West Country as well as the far south-west of England, for example to Torquay and Minehead in Devon and Newquay and St Ives in Cornwall. It promoted itself from 1908 as "The Holiday Line through a series of posters, postcards, jigsaw puzzles, and books. These latter included Holiday Haunts, describing the attraction of the different parts of the GWR system. The Shire of Sea Kings is one of these cheap, reasonably accessible guide books for holiday-makers. There is an extensive appendix of local amenities. This rare and much sought-after book was produced digitally by Google from a copy in the University of Illinois (Urbana, Champaign) Library collection and can be downloaded from HathiTrust. Google has sponsored the digitisation of books from several libraries. These books, on which copyright has expired, are available for free educational and research use, both as individual books and as full collections to aid researchers.