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

Queen Victoria began staying at Osborne House from 1845 — its extension was completed in 1851 — and was there for several months in the spring and early summer of 1848.

The threat of revolution from the Chartists on April 10 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. It is 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 late August 1857 Engels was in Waterloo, a north-west England seaside resort, for health reasons. Feeling better, he wrote to Marx on August 26 1857:

“As soon as I’m completely recovered and no longer require such regular sea-bathing I intend to take a sea trip, probably by STEAMER via Dublin to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight, where we could hold a council of war together. But that will depend on circumstances.”

By September 1857 Engels was staying in Ryde, Isle of Wight for some weeks while also visiting Portsmouth. Marx clearly had other plans.

Engels often had multiple reasons for seaside stays. Sometimes, Ryde being an example, he was recovering again 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 nickname of the General, he made time to inspect the forces in Portsmouth.

Engels wrote to Marx from Ryde on September 8 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.”

Engels was impressed with the Isle of Wight, writing to Marx on September 17 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 July 15 1874 Marx himself 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 location for Marx and Engels has been mostly overlooked.