In the 1830s Brighton had already become the most fashionable seaside resort in Britain, accommodating approximately 2,000 visitors a week. The resort was opened up to a wider spectrum of people after the opening of railway links from London in 1841. The railway company initially concentrated on first-class travellers but soon offered cheap third-class tickets to increase numbers.

This produced an explosion in visitors to Brighton, which was sustained throughout the nineteenth century and into the next. Cundall depicts what was, by the 1930s, a typically crowded scene at Brighton during a bank holiday.