No description available.

This thesis sets out to investigate gardens, gardeners and gardening practices in early modern England, from the mid-sixteenth century when the first horticultural manuals appeared in the English language dedicated solely to the ‘Arte’ of gardening, spanning the following century to its establishment as a subject worthy of scientific and intellectual debate by the Royal Society and a leisure pursuit worthy of the genteel. The inherently ephemeral nature of the activity of gardening has resulted thus far in this important aspect of cultural life being often overlooked by historians, but detailed examination of the early gardening manuals together with evidence gleaned from contemporary gentry manuscript collections, maps, plans and drawings has provided rare insight into both the practicalities of gardening during this period as well as into the aspirations of the early modern gardener. By focusing on the ‘ordinary’ gardens of the county gentry rather than the ‘extraordinary’ gardens of the aristocracy and courtly elite, this study seeks to answer such questions as who was gardening, why they were gardening, how they were gardening and how, ultimately, they viewed the spaces they had created, offering a new perspective on the defining of status and identity in early modern society.

The thesis takes as its subject the development of cultural forms and institutions, exploring constraints on the exercise of choice in the use of non-work time in an evolving capitalist society. By means of a local study, it aims to describe relationships between aspects of popular recreation, especially those involving working class participation, and to relate these to economic and political circumstances. The study focuses upon individuals and organisations providing facilities and creating institutions in which non-work time was spent outside the home. The body of the thesis consists of discrete but interrelated studies of themes in the development of recreation in Leicester. These concern the relationship between recreation and the workplace (ch.1), the role of religious organisations as providers and critics of recreational activities (ch.2), initiatives by the municipal authorities (ch.3) and licensing magistrates (ch.4), the bases of commercial provision in the drink trade, theatre and sport (chs.4-6) and the engagement of the labour movement (ch.7). The thesis is written from a critical standpoint which acknowledges as fundamental to the understanding of 19th century recreation the uneven distribution of free time, power and money within capitalist society. But while social control and hegemony are exploited as pointers to appropriate areas of study, they are found wanting as explanations of complex historical reality. In its empirical conclusions, the study confirms the significance of relationships between work and culture, identifying ways in which the economic development of Leicester constrained recreational provision. Commercial agencies are shown to have been relatively weak during much of the period whereas municipal and religious organisations were of considerable importance from the 1860s until the end of the period of study.

The popular perception of the years 1945 to 1960 is that they constituted a transitional period from austerity to affluence. Material gains in the post-war years gradually increased, enhanced by full-employment, the establishment of the welfare state and a growing quantity of consumer goods. At first glance, it seems that working-class people's nonmaterial life, too, greatly changed. 'Traditional' leisure such as cinema-, pub- and football-going declined, replaced by more consumption-oriented, home- and family-centred leisure, such as television watching, do-it-yourself and pleasure motoring. Critics have seen this was symptomatic of the erosion of 'traditional' working-class-life styles, underlined by more communal and solidaristic social relationships. A close examination of post-war leisure in two workingclass towns questions the above dichotomy, and shows the significant continuity and diversity of people's leisure patterns. These were often deeply divided according to gender, age, life-stage and locality. Despite the rapidly changing trends of commercial leisure, and the increased intervention of the public sector in social life, the selfdetermined nature of working-class leisure does not seem to have been eroded. On the contrary, the general affluence of post-war Britain seems to have contributed in a modest way to increased leisure opportunities in which people could express their personal and social identity with less hesitation than before.

This thesis explores what impact thirteen years of Britain’s New Labour government’s (1997-2010) social exclusion policy agenda had on the representation of non-white communities within England’s authorised heritage narrative, told through the places, objects and ‘things’ given heritage value by ‘experts’. This thesis finds that certain mainstream heritage organisations in England perceive there to be an ‘established’ heritage that is agreed, therefore cannot be challenged even as we uncover more about the diverse realities of the county’s past. Two ways are considered by which to understand the hegemony of this heritage and how it might be ‘used’ to the benefit of a more diverse national narrative: the first by accepting Laurajane Smith’s assertion that there is an authorised heritage discourse (AHD) in England and seek ways to harness it rather than subvert it. The second follows on from the first in proposing how communities of interest might participate equally in the process of heritage making. The first way is drawn out through an interrogation of heritage sector policy and practice – from organisations such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage, national museums, amongst others – to decipher the meaning of heritage in England and who it is for, according to those mainstream organisations that create and manage it. The second utilises case studies of major heritage projects in England that have sought to engage with non-white audiences to understand the methods mainstream heritage organisations have used to do so. It is concluded that the model for heritage making in England acts as a barrier to a diverse heritage. Using the work of Rodney Harrison, an alternative ‘dialogic’ heritage is suggested that encourages it to be seen as fluid and contested and challenge the notion of any heritage being perceived as 'established'.

This thesis examines how early cinema’s social function was mediated by local and national institutions as well as civic agencies in Scotland between c. 1896 and 1933. It proposes a social-historical approach that is based on extensive archival research of documents such as local newspapers, town council minutes, education authority minutes and Scottish Office records. As an empirical and historical study it focuses attention on the social-historical circumstances of cinema exhibition and reception as proposed by New Cinema History. The thesis’ main argument is that institutional responses fell into two categories – constraining and constructive strategies to negotiate cinema’s role in Scottish society. Parts 1 and 2 discuss strategies of control which sought to limit cinema’s social impact as a commercial institution while the third part is concerned with attempts to redefine cinema’s social purpose through the creation of alternative film cultures and exhibition practices. The first part identifies for the first time the specificities of the legal and administrative framework within which cinemas were allowed to operate in Scotland before 1933. It contends that the legal basis of the framework was determined by the Scottish Office’s relationship with Britain’s central government, and that its application by local licensing authorities depended also on the dynamics of municipal power structures. A further argument is that Scottish licensing authorities were more resistant than their southern counterparts to interfere with the content of film shows and exercised control mainly through the regulation of the cinema space and negotiations with local cinema trade bodies. Part 2 analyses British national debates about the legitimacy of cinema as well as film’s potential for education, providing a discursive context for the practices explored in the first part. Centring on the 1917 and the 1925 Cinema Commissions, it focuses especially on the perceived link between cinema-going and juvenile crime and film’s usefulness as a teaching aid. These themes are explored from a Scottish perspective incorporating local debates from Edinburgh and Glasgow. This part maintains that the discourse about the negative effect of children’s cinema-going and the debate on the potential teaching value of films were connected in that they both constructed the child as an impressionable spectator that required institutional guidance and protection. Part 3 considers two constructive endeavours to shape early cinema’s social role in Scotland. It engages with the field of Useful Cinema and argues that this must not be confined to particular films or technologies but must include cinema exhibition practices that were religiously-, educationally- or politically motivated. First, municipal cinema is discussed as an alternative exhibition practice that tried to expand the role of the municipality as public service provider and match the ambitions of its organisers with the taste of local audiences. Second, the diversity of attempts to mediate cinema’s social role is once more illustrated in the case of the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society’s cinema and film work. This is explored diachronically and demonstrates that the Society’s engagement with cinema corresponded to broader contemporary debates discussed throughout the thesis. This part illustrates that the boundaries of cinema’s social function were constantly shifting during the period under consideration and that constructive strategies to define it anticipated characteristic strands of cinema culture emerging in Scotland subsequently.

This thesis is concerned with the character of popular recreations in late pre-industrial England, their place in society, and the changes they experienced during the period 1700-1850. The first chapter presents a descriptive survey of popular recreations in the eighteenth century. It focuses on two main themes: first, the principal events of the holiday calendar - parish feasts, pleasure fairs, hiring fairs, November the 5th, Christmas, Plough Monday, Shrove Tuesday, Easter, May Day, and Whitsuntide;and second, the most significant sports and pastimes of the common people - bull-baiting, cock-fighting, throwing at cocks, football, cricket, boxing, wrestling, cudgelling, and several other diversions. The second chapter examines the relationship between popular recreation and the larger society. It looks first at the social contexts of recreation and, in particular, draws attention to (a) the independent plebeian basis of some festivities, (b) the support which was often provided by genteel patronage and assistance, and (c) the recreational role of the public house. The second section of this chapter discusses some of the functional attributes of sports and festive occasions for the common people: the emphasis here is on recreations as outlets for tensions and hostile sentiments. The last two chapters are concerned with problems of change. Chapter III discusses the various attempts to suppress traditional recreations during the century before 1850. Special attention is paid to the attacks on animal sports, feasts, fairs, and football, and consideration is given to the motives and class biases underlying these attacks. Chapter IV is concerned more generally with the decline of popular recreations between the mid seventeenth and the mid nineteenth centuries. It concentrates in particular on some of the major trends which militated against the traditional practices: Evangelicalism, the increasingly rigorous attitudes concerning labour discipline, the enclosure movement, the decline of customary rights, and the breakdown of paternalistic habits. An effort is made here to relate the decline of recreations to some of the larger processes of social Change. Throughout the thesis, and especially in chapters II to IV, persistent emphasis is placed on the social relations which entered into, and gave shape to, the conduct of recreational affairs, most notably the relations between gentlemen and the common people. Recreations are seen, not in isolation, but in the context of the culture as a whole.

This study addresses the history of the static holiday caravan site in Britain. Commercial holiday camps, such as Butlin’s and Warner’s, have been seen by many to be the epitome of UK post-war working-class holiday making. But despite some shared characteristics and developmental roots, it is argued that static caravan sites were and are essentially a separate phenomenon, and this study analyses how they quickly became a significant and substantial aspect of post-war domestic tourism. This study also demonstrates that unlike commercial holiday camps, they spawned organically as a result of the agency of the post-war working-class, who were empowered by a growing sense of confidence, assertion and economic security, against the vision of the state-approved holiday camp model. Arising as they did as an affordable and more individualistic alternative (despite strict planning legislation that in its formulation had no concept of their future development), it is shown that static caravan sites continued to develop (with the benefit of key legislation) in a way that was not in many respects typical of other aspects of UK domestic tourism in the second half of the twentieth century, but did reflect wider patterns of working-class consumerism. This study also argues that as a major aspect of domestic tourism, static caravan parks did not follow the well-documented pattern of decline experienced by many domestic resorts and holiday forms, but exhibited a distinct tendency to adapt and change in a way that allowed manufacturers and parks to offer an up-to-date and enticing product in times of economic growth as well as times of recession. This has resulted in the static holiday caravan park becoming a significant aspect of British domestic holiday making.