ABSTRACT
Beginning with the Ten Hours Act in 1847, the working class had slowly clawed out periods of free time from their employers. In many areas 'Saint Monday', whereby workers would simply not go into work or not work at full capacity on Mondays, was an informal method of reducing the heavy burden of long hours of factory work on working people, but the needs of disciplined, ordered production meant that such informal practices were gradually suppressed and, in effect, replaced by the Saturday half-holiday. In 1850 textile workers were granted a two-o'clock-end to work on Saturdays, which was further reduced to one o'clock in 1874. A year later the August Bank Holiday was institutionalised by an act of parliament. The Saturday half-day holiday became the norm for most, but not all, trades during the economic boom of the early 1870s.1 This upturn in economic fortunes also saw working-class standards of living begin to rise, providing working-class people with not only the time but also the means to enjoy it, effectively laying the basis for the growth of most modern forms of working-class leisure over the following years.2 Along with the music hall and seaside trips, football of both varieties became a focus of interest for those with new time to spend, as Moses Heap, a Lancashire cotton spinner, wrote: Tor a while we did not know how to pass our time away. Before it had been all bed and work; now in place of 70 hours a week we had 55/4. It became a practice, mostly on Saturdays, to play football and cricket, which had never been done before.'3
