Theorisations of leisure in inter-war Britain

The National Conference on the Leisure of the People in 1919 marked the emergence of a public discourse on the nature and purpose of leisure in inter-war Britain. One strand of this discourse saw leisure to be problematic as new forms of mass and passive entertainment, the enforced leisure' of unemployment and the right use of leisure became areas of social concern. Perceptive critics, however, conceptualised leisure as a social sphere in which a new and better post-war society could be built through a democratic new' leisure and the use of leisure as a vehicle for education in citizenship. Leisure was widely documented in contemporary social surveys and became valued by local councils of social service in developing social life and community identity on new housing estates. This paper argues that a new ontology of leisure was forged between the wars as the Victorian emphasis on rational recreation and private morality was superseded by an understanding of leisure as a social product of late modernity.