ABSTRACT
In the eighteenth century and earlier, the distinction between groups was increasingly blurred, since a higher proportion of the population owned some property, as small farmers or tradesmen, but also did manual work. Although the share of the middle class in the total population had not altered much, its composition was changing. Equally, agricultural workers, although badly paid, might exercise more skill than factory workers. Black Country nailer worked under a variation of the domestic system, with an ironmonger providing his raw material and selling the finished product. For middle-class women there was a new leisure activity, associated with the increased production of consumer goods: shopping for nonessentials. By the late nineteenth century, urbanisation and transport improvements had made shopping a major social leisure activity, as shown by the rise of department stores. Apart from human nature, leisure pursuits were shaped by custom as much as by technical innovations or by entrepreneurship.
