Kmflett's Blog

Marx & Engels summer holidays: The Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight remains a popular holiday destination in 2026 but it has been visited by holidaymakers since the 1850s, amongst them Marx and Engels.

Queen Victoria began staying at Osborne House from 1845 (check detail) and stayed there for several months in the Spring and early Summer of 1848. The threat of revolution from the Chartists on 10^th April 1848, following a pattern of European revolutions, was felt to be sufficiently serious for the Royals to evacuate from London.

There is no evidence that the Chartists planned to seize the Isle of Wight and it remains a short distance from the naval base of Portsmouth.

It is not recorded but probably unlikely that Victoria knew that from the 1850s both Marx and Engels were visitors to the Island.

Tourism was boosted by the opening of the Ryde to Ventnor railway between 1864 and 1866. In the early 1880s Marx wintered in Ventnor which has a micro-climate favourable to those with chest conditions. Marx and Engels mostly took separate holidays but over the decades both could be found staying in Ryde.

In September 1857 Engels stayed in Ryde, Isle of Wight for some weeks while also visiting Portsmouth.

Engels often had multiple reasons for seaside stays. Sometimes, Ryde being an example, he was recovering from a health issue. In 1857 he combined this with a regular correspondence with Marx and work on articles. He was also interested in the geology of the Island and finally, underlining his name of the General, he made time to inspect the forces in Portsmouth.

Engels wrote to Marx from Ryde on 8^th September 1857:

I finally arrived today at my new lodgings in the middle of a frightful downpour and tomorrow shall at once get down to the army again. Yesterday in Portsmouth I noted what was worth seeing on the military side, so all that now remains is the navy, which at this moment looks distinctly sparse. My health continues good and if the weather improves I hope I shall soon be completely cured. It takes half an hour to get here from Portsmouth and it’s a very aristocratic little spot.

Engels was not impressed with what he had observed in Portsmouth noting: The chaps lack drill. Still very poor at the double. Shoot as though half-asleep.

By contrast Engels was impressed with the Isle of Wight writing to Marx on 17^th September 1857 The climate here is really marvellous and the vegetation, except for things needing very hot sunshine, is so southern one might almost be in Naples

Engels stayed in Ryde until the last week of September writing to Marx that he was then off not to Manchester but Jersey via Brighton

On 15th July 1874 Marx was in lodgings also in Ryde. He wrote to Engels who was in Ramsgate.

Marx noted that one of his daughters Laura had been to stay and he had accompanied her to the Portsmouth ferry when she had to leave:

When we went down to the pier to see her off we witnessed the arrival from Brighton of a temperance gang back from an excursion. Half of them were drunk. As an old Englishman next to me remarked ‘it was the worst lot he had ever met with in his life’ and neither have I ever encountered such a mob of stunted, loutish and smutty-minded idiots all at once…For foreigners this sample of Freeborn Britons would have been an amazing sight

There is a plaque where Marx stayed in Ventnor but otherwise the Isle of Wight as a summer holiday spot for Marx and Engels has been largely overlooked

This post originally appeared in the Morning Star