ABSTRACT
Charles Kingsley's hopes that leisure might serve the social function of bringing the classes together seemed to receive some confirmation as the Great Exhibition of 1851 ushered in a period of relative social harmony. Certainly, there was a colossal investment of time and effort in the attempt to bring the classes together in leisure, an investment of such an extent that it constituted the dominant ideology of leisure in the mid-Victorian years; an investment, too, whose chances of success were all the greater because the sponsors were now willing and anxious to include physical recreation amongst the respectable leisure activities. The hostility to physical recreation, the notion that there was a split between mind and reason on the one hand and body and animality on the other, remained strong at mid-century. This kind of instinctive distaste for physical recreation owed much to the history and associations of sport.
