Post Industrial Britain notes PDF

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Detailed notes into pre industrial british sport...

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Post Industrial Britain In Post Industrial Britain, sports and pastimes were affected by several factors. These included: social class, gender, availability of time, availability of money, education, transport and law and order.

Social class In Pre-Industrial Britain, there were two clear social classes: the upper class, and the working class. However, during the Industrial revolution, the cities became much more densely populated, and so, more working-class people were working in factories. The upper class often owned these factories and employed the working class as low wage workers. Due to the increase in staff numbers, more management was needed, and therefore, highly skilled lower-class workers were promoted to manager status. With this, they were given a pay rise making them considerably wealthier than the working-class, but much less wealthy than the upper-class. As the middle-class and upper had more disposable income than the working-class they could perform in sporting activities regularly without needing to be paid to play. This was known as amateurism and was widely regarded as ‘gentleman’s sport.’ The lower class could not do this however, and often had to be paid to play in regular sports. This was known as professionalism and was often frowned upon by the gentry. The Amateurs and professionals often had different teams and competitions for sport. This was seen in Rugby where amateurs and professionals disagreed so much that the sport had to be split into Rugby Union (amateur) and Rugby League (professional) in 1895. However, this was not always the case. In cricket, the amateurs and professionals often played in the same team, with the amateurs doing the noble jobs like batting, and the professionals doing harder jobs like bowling and cleaning the kit. However social distinction was preserved through the use of separate changing rooms.

Gender

For the majority of Post-Industrial Britain, social expectation was that women marry, have children and are bound to their husband. This meant that education for women was often frowned upon. Schooling for girls was very limited and women were often refused work in many professional sectors. Therefore, sporting opportunities for women were very limited. However, at the end of the period, the role of women began to change. Due to fighting across the world, and easier emigration, there were more women than men in the country. Therefore, some women began to work and find some sporting activities. Also, the pioneering campaign by women following the 1868 Taunton report led to better educational provisions for women. When at school women participated in regular P.E. lessons and so the participation rates amongst women rose.

Law and order In Post-Industrial Britain, the upper class held power in both houses of parliament. Therefore, they could easily control which sports the lower class participated in. The lower class often participated in brutal blood sports such as cock fighting and bare-knuckle boxing. These sports were banned under new laws set by the gentry. However, their most brutal sports such as fox hunting were still allowed as they saw it as entertaining and acceptable.

Education The lower classes had very poor educational provisions at the start of the |PostIndustrial period in Britain, because very few lower-class children were in education. This was because families were desperate for money and so sent their children off to work at very young ages. This lack of education caused lower-class sports to often have simple or no rules and often be based around the public house. An example of this is bare-knuckle boxing. However, towards the end of the period, this started to change when the government commissioned three reports into education. The first was the Newcastle report in 1861 which, alongside the 1970 Elementary Education Act, made provision for school for all. The second commission was the Clarendon report of 1864, which analysed the best public schools and influenced the 1868 public schools act (which regulated

public schools.) The final report was the Taunton report of 1868 which restructured the grammar school system. These reports increased the number of working-class children in school, which led to the eventual increase in rules in lower class schools (due to higher education levels). Upper and middle class children often went to public schools. These were paid schools exclusive to the wealthy. At these schools students performed regular PE lessons and sport became engrained in the culture of the institutions. However, this sport was often cruel, with younger students being bullied by the older students. This caused Dr. Thomas Arnold of the Rugby School to develop regulated schools and abolish the fagging system (bullying). He linked the idea of sport to religion through his Muscular Christianity concept and use sport to develop the morality of his students (Cult of Athleticism). He then wrote rules for his schools sport, which of course developed into Rugby. Students from public schools went off to university where they found that other schools had different rules to their sports. This caused them to write detailed rule books for sport such as the Cambridge rules, used today in football.

Availability of time The upper class were factory owners, and so had lots of free time to participate in long sporting activities such as fox hunting which often took a whole day. The working class and middle class, however, spent much more time at work and so couldn’t participate as often. When the factory owners began giving their employers a half day on Saturday, participation rates in sports shot, with factory teams emerging to play one another in this time.

Availability of money The upper-class were extremely wealthy and so could afford expensive equipment such as horses for fox-hunting. The middle class were moderately wealthy and could afford some expensive equipment such as boats for rowing. The workingclass were extremely poor and couldn’t afford equipment so played sports like football which required little equipment.

Transport In Post-Industrial Britain, railways and canals were connecting the country together. This enabled sporting teams to travel further to participate in competitions. Also, it enabled spectators to follow their team further causing sporting attendances to rise, and sport to begin to become a commodity good....