Coloured postcard showing a view in the esplanade gardens in Skegness. Pencil: [personal message] [address in Hull supplied]. Skegness began to be developed as a centre of tourism in the 1870s, by Viscount Lumley (later Earl of Scarborough); the Tower Gardens, pier (1881-1978), golf course (1895), racing, and other attractions were established before the First World War, and famously promoted by the Jolly Fisherman poster by John Hassall (1908). The Earl finally sold the entire foreshore to the Council in 1922; Rowland Jenkins produced a development plan for the esplanade, which was completed by the Second World War, and included the Embassy Ballroom Gardens and Compass Gardens. The area was much revised in the 1990s after the completion of new sea defences