ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to contribute to our knowledge of Labour culture by presenting a general overview of the Labour approach to leisure and by enlarging upon the cultural forms of the working-class movement. The working-class or Labour Movement was a diverse entity consisting of trade unions, political groupings, co-operative societies and various cultural organizations. Labour Socialists were all agreed that the working class should have more leisure time and more facilities in which to enjoy that leisure time. In the opinion of many Labour Socialists, the role of the workers’ organizations was to fight for a fair share of leisure, to extract benefits from the Capitalist system. The Labour Socialist aim of improving the quality of working-class leisure was accommodated within the logic and the constraints of the prevailing economic and social order.
