The Dawson Turner Collection of Printed Ephemera and Great Yarmouth

This article provides an introduction to an important collection of printed ephemera held at the British Library and created by Dawson Turner (1775-1858). This ten-volume collection was acquired by the British Museum in 1859 and 1873 and is significant as it includes a wealth of material relating to life at Great Yarmouth between 1732 and 1862 and covers a wide range of subject areas including entertainment, politics, science and transport. After providing a brief introduction to the history of the collection this article explores its contents by considering how the ephemera collected by Turner sheds light on four particular aspects of nineteenth-century life at Great Yarmouth, namely, politics, religion, science and transport.