Much has been written about the history of resort visiting from both medical and cultural perspectives. From the mid-18th century onwards (but with earlier origins), it became an accepted leisure activity for the aristocracy and gentry and increasingly for the expanding middle ranks, the 'polite and commercial' but competitive and status-conscious people of an increasingly consumer-oriented society. It was always linked to health and the concept of healthy air was part of the range of attractions associated with resort visiting from an early stage, both in positive terms (the air at the destination having desirable and salubrious characteristics) and in negative ones (escape from the coal smoke and miasmatic effluvia of the growing towns). The selling of air built on existing medical discourses about the environment and the health of different places (Mosley, 2001). It was not the same as the marketing of a health-giving climate, which dealt in the statistics of sunlight, rainfall, humidity and prevailing winds: this was a qualitative issue, dealing with the perceived characteristics of the air (as opposed to the atmosphere) of particular places and its alleged capacity to invigorate, rejuvenate or sustain those who breathed in copious doses of it. A literature on the healthiness of the seaside atmosphere was in existence by the late 18th century and, by the early 19th century, such positive statements about the qualities and capacities of (especially) seaside air were commonplace.

Seaside visiting began as 'an adjunct to the spa season' (Walton, 1983: 9), but, by the late 18th century, it had a life of its own. Desires for health, self-improvement and fashionable recognition were all conveniently satisfied by a trip to the seaside. The pursuit of health, in particular, provided a perfect 'moral legitimation of seaside pleasure' in other forms, especially as the seaside became a fashionable destination in its own right (Funnell, 1983).