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Semester 2

Leisure and the Rise of Industrial Society in Britain C.1780-1880 (ECSH10004)

Subject

Economic and Social History

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 3 History courses at grade B or above, and please note that we will only consider courses with a specific focus on History (not including History of Art) towards these pre-requisites. We will only consider University/College level courses. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

The course uses leisure, the manner in which free time was used and organised to investigate wider economic, social and cultural changes in Britain in the period from industrialisation to the later nineteenth century. In the process, the importance of differing experiences, according to class, age, gender, national and regional identities are also explored.

Course Description

Social and economic changes provide the essential context for the course. The period from about 1780 to 1880 marked the transformation of Britain from a largely rural society, structured around small towns and villages, to a substantially urban society, with a population increasingly located in large towns and cities. In terms of leisure, it witnessed a shift from what might be termed a 'traditional' to a recognisably 'modern' leisure culture- from a leisure calendar made up of occasional, mostly local events, to one in which events which were more national in scope and more regular, both in terms of the frequency with which they took place and the order by which they were conducted, bounded by formal sets of rules. By the 1880s, many of what we would think of as modern leisure forms were in place. Definite limits were placed on the length of the working week, providing increasingly fixed and predictable times for leisure. The same applied to leisure during year, with the introduction of fixed Bank Holidays across the country from the 1870s. It also saw the emergence of 'national' leisure forms: Music Hall; holidaymaking; the rise of national sporting events familiar today. Various themes may be seen to run through the topics, including the balance between change and continuity in society, the means by which change occurred, the impact of class differences, and the importance of continued tensions within as well as between the classes. The course thus offers a distinctive take on themes central to the social and economic history of modern Britain. WEEKLY TOPICS: 1: Introduction. 2: Pre-Industrial Leisure Culture. 3: Leisure and Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century. 4: Time, Work and Money: the material pre-conditions for leisure. 5: Middle-class Leisure: religion and respectability. 6: Guidance on essays: submission and assessment of essay plans. 7: Working-class Leisure: roughness and respectability. 8: Athleticism and the Rise of Organised Sport. 9: Holiday making. 10: The Music Hall: the rise of a commercial entertainment industry. 11: Guidance session on gobbets and essay returns.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 50%, Coursework 50%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a History or HCA exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in two 3rd year History courses each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. This includes courses in Economic History and Scottish History. Enrolment in a third course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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