Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
THE 1840s
In historical analysis, this period is often characterised as a period of deprivation for the
urban working classes. Endemic poverty, associated with rapid urbanisation and
inadequate housing, poor living standards and limited infrastructure culminated in high
rates of mortality, disease and exploitation of the labouring classes through long hours of
work (twelve-hour, six-day weeks) (Page 1988). In terms of urban leisure and recreation,
the pre-industrial opportunities for pursuits decreased as did the legal outlets, with many
customary pastimes suppressed so that popular culture was conditioned through
legislative changes. For example, the New Poor Law Act 1834 (Rose 1985) aimed to
control the movement of 'travelling balladeers', 'entertainers' and 'itinerant salesmen' all
of whom were deemed as vagabonds and returned to their parish of origin. Similarly, the
Highways Act 1835 was intended to remove street nuisances such as street entertainers
and traders while the Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 sought to suppress working-class
pastimes involving animals, thereby driving many activities underground and leading to
the emergence of a hybrid range of recreational activities including popular theatre,
pantomime and circuses. In the late 1840s, railway excursions pioneered by Thomas
Cook also developed. In addition, a range of rational recreation pursuits emerged in
purpose-built facilities made possible by Parliamentary Acts including the Museums Act
1845, the Baths and Wash Houses Act 1846 and the Libraries Act 1850. Social theorists
argue that such legislation may have acted as a form of social control (Donajgrodski
1978), to tame a new industrial workforce while demarcating recreation and work.
Furthermore, the 1840s saw the emergence of the Victorian concept of domesticity and a
bourgeois culture, with the use of a gender separation of male and female work.
THE 1880s
While the early Victorian period saw the establishment of urban recreational facilities,
improved working conditions and living standards in the mid- to late Victorian period
were accompanied by greater municipal provision (Briggs 1969). Yet as Clark and
Crichter (1985) argue, four processes were at work in the 1850s and 1860s which led to
significant changes in the 1880s:
• a rise of middle-class urban recreation which excluded the working classes
• the expansion of local government's role in leisure and recreational provision
• an increasing commercialisation and greater capitalisation of urban recreation, relying
upon mass audiences and licensing (e.g. the rise of football), which also required large
areas of land
• attempts by the working classes to organise urban recreation according to their own
aspirations.
By the 1880s, the pattern of urban conurbations had emerged in England which focused
on London, the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Merseyside and Tyneside (R.Lawton
1978). In addition to these trends in urban recreation, the rise of urban middle-class
recreational pursuits centred on religion, reading, music and annual holidays reflected a
more rational form of recreational activity. Nevertheless, the 1870s saw the growth in
