Themes

During the long nineteenth century Britons played, watched, and gambled on sports, drank, went to music halls, read titillating novels, shopped for luxuries small and large, and even went on holiday (vacation). Of course, the options depended on many things, including class, gender, and religion. Before 1870, the working-class majority usually had very little money or time for recreation, though of course there were good times when pocket money for drink, extra sets of clothes and the like, were more plentiful. From the 1870s a combination of rising wages and falling working hours led to the rise of a rich culture of working-class recreation and consumption, including mass-produced fashionable clothing, evenings at the music hall, and even holidays at the seaside. In contrast, wealthy people enjoyed expensive discretionary shopping and leisure options such as opera, theatre, large wardrobes, and long trips, throughout the period. Men spent more time on recreation than women did, and their recreation was often done through clubs, teams and associations; as a result, we know far less about women’s leisure. Some middle-class evangelicals frowned on theatre and novels as immoral and eschewed them, especially before about 1840. Throughout the period middle- and upper-class observers worried about the quality and morality of working-class leisure and sought to control it.

Consumption—the purchasing of goods that are on some level discretionary, such as fashionable clothes, decorations for the home, or supplies for hobbies—was beyond most people’s means until the mid-nineteenth century. From the late eighteenth into the mid-nineteenth century, the elites and the growing middle class shopped in small stores where the merchandise was kept behind the counter; working-class people shopped for extras only very rarely. From the 1850s, a retail revolution centered on the rise of the department store, changed shopping, with goods displayed for leisurely browsing, and mass-produced, ready-made merchandise, at price points for people at all socioeconomic levels. Then from the 1870s discretionary shopping for clothes, furniture, souvenirs, books, and pianos became a feature of working-class culture.

One important form of both recreation and consumption throughout the period was drinking. British alcohol consumption rose from the eighteenth century and reached its peak in the mid-1870s, declining thereafter (but remaining high). Gin was cheap. Beer was widely-consumed. Whisky was the national drink of Scotland, and from the 1820s spread to the rest of Britain. Brandy was popular among the wealthy. Another major form of recreation was sports. Women and girls did not participate in sports until very late in the period, but for men and boys, sports were often central. Men of all classes played, watched, and bet on sports (with variations depending on class and time period), especially after 1885. Football (soccer) was most popular; boxing and rugby were too, with amateur boxing slowly moving from the middle to the working class as a pastime. Gambling on sports was widespread, in spite of constant fears that it was immoral and for the poor, financially ruinous. In fact, in spite of organized anti-gambling efforts, from 1870, gambling grew. A third form of recreation was entertainment, especially music halls, which emerged in the 1850s and attracted people of all classes. Novels emerged in the mid-eighteenth century, and became popular across Britain, which had relatively high literacy rates. They also became cheaper and more accessible over the period. Genres included not only the classics we know today, but sensation novels and penny dreadfuls (action-packed crime stories that were serialized, illustrated, and cheap).  Holidays (vacations) became more common during the long nineteenth century, aided by the development of the railway system, which from the mid-nineteenth-century made both days in the countryside and weekends or weeks at the seaside possible.

This Routledge Historical Resource contains several excellent collections of primary sources on aspects of recreation and consumption, including Clothing, Society and Culture in Nineteenth-Century England and The History of Sport in Britain, 1880-1914.

There is also a wealth of critical materials here covering many aspects of leisure and consumption. They include Leisure and Class in Victorian England, Leisure and Recreation in a Victorian Mining Community and Victorian Spectacular Theatre 1850-1910. 

Articles of interest include “Household Inventories Reassessed: A ‘New’ Source for Investigating Nineteenth-Century Domestic Culture in England and Wales,” and “The children’s toy industry in nineteenth-century Britain.”