Leisure

1871 saw the introduction of the Bank Holiday Act, which initially gave only bank employees the single privilege of taking Boxing Day as a paid holiday.

But the Holiday Extension Act of 1875 spread this to more of the population, especially among government employees, adding to the gains the Factory and Workshops Act of 1867 had made, when it regulated for a 60-hour week.

Now days off were promoted by publications like the Birmingham Saturday Half-Holiday Guide, which in 1871 detailed to the newly liberated workers the many delights to be experienced within a small radius of the city: boating, bathing, fishing, sightseeing and more.

Sports, spectating and playing, too became more popular. Publishers leapt on this new market. John Wisden, a cricketer, had been publishing an annual on his passion since 1864, taking over from Frederick Lillywhite, a sports journalist and son of the cricketer known as the ‘Nonpareil Bowler’, who had produced an annual Guide to Cricketers. Lillywhite’s brother and cousin also produced cricketing books, while yet another cousin opened Lillywhite’s, an early sporting-goods store that continues to trade today.

Others wanted more than an afternoon watching others and, as the railway extended across the country, seaside days out became more and more popular, not only with the city folk, but with the local populations whose towns rose to prosperity on the visitors. Some towns, like Brighton, fretted about their loss of exclusivity, but the entire prosperity of others depended on this new industry.

In Bournemouth, the new town corporation stepped in to ensure the provision of better services, better entertainment, new theatres, orchestras and bands, improved shops, hygiene regulations for restaurants and hotels, and, most important, advertising campaigns to ensure that their town remained a focus for holiday-makers.

In other seaside towns the great era of pier entertainment began. The piers had originally been constructed for the docking steamers; as the railways made steamers redundant, ‘pleasure piers’ became common. It was, for many towns, a way of keeping entertainment select.

Instead of having to mix with all sorts on the promenade, visitors were charged 6d or so for the privilege of select company on the pier. Refreshment rooms were the next step, then a tramway out to the end of the pier so that ‘promenaders’ didn’t even have to promenade. Soon there were theatres, variety programmes, concerts and more. Seaside and entertainment were now synonymous.

Judith Flanders