In the final decades of the nineteenth century modernizing interpretations of leisure became of interest to social policy makers and cultural critics, producing a discourse of leisure and voluntarism that flourished until the Second World War. The free time of British citizens was increasingly seen as a sphere of social citizenship and community-building. Through major social thinkers, including William Morris, Thomas Hill Green, Bernard Bosanquet and John Hobson, leisure and voluntarism were theorized in terms of the good society. In post-First World War social reconstruction these writers remained influential as leisure became a field of social service, directed towards a new society and working through voluntary association in civic societies, settlements, new estate community-centres, village halls and church-based communities. This volume documents the parallel cultural shift from charitable philanthropy to social service and from rational recreation to leisure, teasing out intellectual influences which included social idealism, liberalism and socialism. Leisure, Robert Snape claims, has been a central and under-recognized organizing force in British communities. Leisure, Voluntary Action and Social Change in Britain, 1880-1939 marks a much needed addition to the historiography of leisure and an antidote to the widely misunderstood implications of leisure to social policy today.

In the final decades of the nineteenth century modernizing interpretations of leisure became of interest to social policy makers and cultural critics, producing a discourse of leisure and voluntarism that flourished until the Second World War. The free time of British citizens was increasingly seen as a sphere of social citizenship and community-building. Through major social thinkers, including William Morris, Thomas Hill Green, Bernard Bosanquet and John Hobson, leisure and voluntarism were theorized in terms of the good society. In post-First World War social reconstruction these writers remained influential as leisure became a field of social service, directed towards a new society and working through voluntary association in civic societies, settlements, new estate community-centres, village halls and church-based communities. This volume documents the parallel cultural shift from charitable philanthropy to social service and from rational recreation to leisure, teasing out intellectual influences which included social idealism, liberalism and socialism. Leisure, Robert Snape claims, has been a central and under-recognized organizing force in British communities. Leisure, Voluntary Action and Social Change in Britain, 1880-1939 marks a much needed addition to the historiography of leisure and an antidote to the widely misunderstood implications of leisure to social policy today.

This book shines a light on the meaning of happiness and how public perceptions of it have changed over time. A question that has engaged philosophers from the days of Aristotle, happiness is a subject of growing academic interest, and its recent integration into government policy is provoking increased debate into its definition and nature. Sandie McHugh and her associates build on the work of social anthropologist Tom Harrison’s ‘Worktown’ Mass Observation study from 1938, repeating the original study today. Together these accounts show how perceptions of happiness have changed over the years for the people of Bolton, UK, and reveal major difference between its definition then and now. This unique study is a useful tool in the understanding and study of happiness, offering invaluable insights for scholars and practitioners working in the fields of social psychology, positive psychology, health psychology and wellbeing. With chapters by Martin Guha and Jerome Carson; John Haworth; Robert Snape; and Matthew Watson and Linda Withey.

Why has the 'people's war' been such a durable and attractive myth? Creating the people's war examines how civil defence personnel engaged with this narrative during the war and in the following decades to answer this question. Civil defence was the most significant voluntary organisation of the Second World War, involving millions of men and women of every class, generation and locality in Britain. This book shows how local communities of civil defence personnel co-developed narratives about the value of their work which challenged hierarchies of war service. In their social groups volunteers wrote themselves into the 'people's war' and invested it with meaning, creating national identity from the bottom up. Community was both central to these representations and vital for their production.

This study of British amateur theatre in the inter-war period examines five different but interwoven examples of the belief, common in theatrical and educational circles at the time, that amateur drama had a purpose beyond recreation. Amateur theatre was at the height of its popularity as a cultural practice between the wars, so that by 1939 more British people had practical experience of putting on plays than at any time before or since. Providing an original account of the use of drama in adult education projects in deprived areas, and of amateur theatre in government-funded centres for the unemployed in the 1930s, it discusses repertoires, participation by working- class people and pioneering techniques of play-making. Amateur drama festivals and competitions were intended to raise standards and educate audiences. This book assesses their effect on play-making, and the use of innovative one-act plays to express contentious material, as well as looking at the Left Book Club Theatre Guild as an attempt to align the amateur theatre movement with anti-fascist and anti-war movements. A chapter on the Second World War rectifies the neglect of amateur theatre in war-time cultural studies, arguing that it was present and important in every aspect of war-time life. Don Watson builds on current scholarship and makes use of archival sources, local newspapers, unpublished scripts and the records of organizations not usually associated with the theatre. His work explores the range and diversity of amateur drama between the wars and the contributions it made to British theatre.

This book explores the rich history of voluntary action in the United Kingdom over the past 100 years, through the lens of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), which celebrates its centenary in 2019. From its establishment at the end of the First World War, through the creation of the Welfare State in the middle of the twentieth century, to New Labour and the Big Society at the beginning of this century, NCVO has been at the forefront of major developments within society and the voluntary movement. The book examines its many successes, including its role in establishing high-profile charities such as Age Concern, the Youth Hostels Association, and National Association of Citizens’ Advice Bureaux. It charts the development of closer relations with the state, resulting in growing awareness of the value of voluntary action, increased funding, and beneficial changes to public policy, tax and charity law. But it also explores the criticisms NCVO has faced, in particular that by pursuing a partnership agenda and championing professionalisation, it has contributed to an erosion of the movement’s independence and distinctiveness.

This innovative book challenges many of the widely held assumptions about the place of religion in Victorian society and in London, the world's first great industrial and commercial metropolis. Against the background of Victorian London it explores the religiosity of Londoners as expressed through the dynamic renewal of traditional faith communities, including Judaism and the historic churches, as well as fresh expressions of religion, including the Salvation Army, Mormons, spiritualism, and the occult. It shows how laypeople, especially the rich and women were mobilised in the service of their faith, and their fellow citizens. Drawing on research in social, economic, oral, cultural, and women's history Jacob argues that religious motivations lay behind concerns that subsequently preoccupied people in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. These include the changing place of women in society, an active concern for social justice, the sexual exploitation of women and children, and provision of education for all classes and all ages. By examining religion broadly, in its social and cultural context and looking beyond conventional approaches to religious history, Religious Vitality in Victorian London illustrates the dynamic significance of religion in society influencing even the expression of secularism.