The Past and Present Society

The Decline of Saint Monday 1766-1876

Author(s): Douglas A. Reid
Source: Past & Present, No. 71 (May, 1976), pp. 76-101
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/650355
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THE DECLINEOF SAINT MONDAY1766-1876
8
IT IS AXIOMATICTHAT THE LONG-NEGLECTEDHISTORICALSTUDY OF
leisure must proceed from a firm understandingof work. In
recent years a more appropriateamountof academicattentionhas
been paid to the dimensionsand experiencesof leisuretime,l yet it
remainstruethatthe insightsderivedfromthe studyof workhavenot
bee1l systematicallyused to enhallcethe study of leisure.2 The
impositionof work-discipline hasbeentreatedfromthe pointsof view
of religiousideologyn3of the supply of labour,4as a problemfor
managers, a in its relation to consciousnessof time,6 and, most
recently, to drink.7 These approacheshave not been brought
togetherto illuminateeach other, nor has the questionbeen taken
much beyondthe earlystagesof the growthof industrialcapitalism.
This articleseeksto advancethese studieslryexplicatingthe history
of the custom of Saint Mondaywithin one importantlocalityand
withinthe dualperspectiveof workand leisure.

* Earlierversions of this paper have beneSted from being read to the Social
History SemiIlarat BirminghamUniversity and to the Society for the Study of
LabourHistory Conferenceat Sussex Universityin Autumn I975. In addition
I should like to thank Dorothy and Edward Thompson for their advice and
encouragement.
1BrianHarrison,"Religionand Recreationin Nineteenth-CenturyEngland"
Past and Present,no. 38 (Dec. I967)* J. A. R. Pimlott, Recreations(London
I968); R. W. Malcolmson, Popular RecreatiosIsin English Sociery I700-I850
(Cambridge,I973); J. H. Plumb, The Commercialisation of Leisurein Eighteenth-
Century England (University of Reading, I973)- Conference Report, "The
VZorkingClass and Leisure", Bulletin of the Societyfor the Study of Labour
History,32 (I976).
2 Except by Keith Thomas, "Work and Leisure in Pre-IndustrialSociety"
Past and Present,no. 29 (Dec. I964)* cf .ConferenceReport,"Workand Leisure
in IndustrialSociety",ibid.,no. 30 (Apr. I965).
3 Christopher Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-RevolutiozlatyEngland
(London, I969 edn.), pp. I2I-3, I42-9.
4 D. C. Coleman, "Labour in the English Economy of the Seventeellth
Century", in E. M. Carus-Wilson(ed.), Essaysin EconomicHistory (London
I962), i;, pp. 300-4; T. S. Ashton and Joseph Sykes, The Coal Industryof the
EigActeenth Centtlry(Manchester,I929), pp. I68-70; T. S. Ashton, An Economic
Historyof England:TheEighreenthCentury(London, I955), pp. 20I-35.
5 Neil McKendrick,"JosiahBredgwoodand FactoryDiscipline" Hist. 3r1.,iv
(I96I); Sidney Pollard, "Factory I)iscipline in the Industrial Aevolution,
Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xvi (I963-4); idem, The Genesisof ModernManage-
ment(London, I965), pp. I60-208.
6 E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism"
Past and Present,no. 38 (Dec. I967), esp. pp. 72-6 for Saint Monday.
7 r. R. Lambert, "Drink and work-disciplinein industrial South Wales
C. I 800- I 870", WelshHist. Rev., vii ( I 975) .
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766- I 876 77

Birmingham,like other eighteenth-centuryindustrial centres,

exhibitedpatternsof economictradiiionalismalongsideoutstanding
technicalprogress. As a matrixof smallworkshopsthe townformed
a conducive environmentfor the survivalof immemorialwork-
rhythms.8 The surroundingagricultural area includingcommons
andsmall-holdings-must havesustainedthe independenceof many
workers.: The water-millingof metals was centralto the town's
prosperitybut seasonalvariationsill the supply of watertended to
reinforce uneven patternsof applicationto work.10 Though the
"hardware village"roseto become"thegreatToy Shopsf Europe"11
the demandsof the clockwereyet oftensubordinated to the desirefor
sociability:
. . . the industryof the people was eonsideredextraordinary,their peeuliarity
of life remarkable. They Iived like the irlhabitantsof Spain, or after the
custom of the Orientals. Three or four o'eloek in the morning found them
at work. At noon they rested; many enjoyedtheir siesta; others spent their
time in the workshopseating and drinking,these plaees being often turned
into taproomsand the apprentieesinto pot boys; others again enjoyedthem-
selves at marbles or in the skittle alley. Three or four hours were thus
devotedtO <'play";and then came workagaintill eight or nine, and sometimes
ten, the whole year through.12

Within this context there arose the renowned custom of Saint

Monday:

s Birminghamandits RegionalSetting.A ScientificSurvey(BritishAssociation

Birmingham,I950; Wakefield,1970 edn.), pp. I44-58; VietoriaCountyHistory
(hereafterV.C.H.), A IIistoryof the Countyof Warwack, vii, W. B. Stephens(ed.)
The City of Birmingham,(London, I964), pp. 8I-IOI; on work-rhythmssee
Thompson, op. cit., pp. 60-I, 70-2
9W H. B. Court, The Rise of the Midbnd *ndustries,I600-I838 (Oxford
I938), p. 42; V.C.H., Op. Cit., p. 248; WilliamHutton, An Historyof Birmingham
(Birmingham,I78I), p. 6; M. A. Bienefeld, WorkingHo?wrs in British Indastry.
An EconomtcHistory (London, I972), p. I8.
l?V.C.H., op. cit., pp. 253, 8I-2. See also, S. Timmins, The Resources
Products and Industrial History of Birminghamand the Midland Hardware
District(London, I866), pp. 24I-3; John Lord, Capitaland Steam-power,I750-
I800, 2nd eM. (London, I966), pp. 94-5; Court,. cit., pp. 34, 24I, 251.
ll J. A. Langford,A Centuryof BirminghamLife)2 vols. (Birmingham,I868),
i, pp. Xii, 282.
1 2 Birmingham Sept. I855, CCHints
(hereafterB.ff.), 26
3roarna1 for a History of
Birmingham'. The writer evidently drew on tradition: cf. Hutton, An
History of Birmingham(Birmingham,I795 edn.), pp. go-l: "I eould not avoid
remarking,that . . . the people of Birmingham. . . did not sufferothers to sleep
in their beds; for I was each morning, bythree o'elock salutedwith a cirele of
hammers". The diary of a partnerin a buckle-makingbusiness severaltimes
recordedirl I787 that men arrivedat work drunk, or left irl the afternoon"to
spend the rest of the day drinking":R. A. Church, Kenricksin Hardware.A
Family BtsirlessI79I-1966 (Newton Abbot, I969), p. 24.
78 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I
When in due eourse, SAINT MONDAY wakes the day
Off to a Purl-hovsestraightthey haste away
Or, at a Gin-shop,ruin's beaten road,
Offerlibations to the tippling God:
And, whilst the gen'rous liquor damps their elay
Form various plans for saunt'ringout the day.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Perhapsat work they transitorypeep

But vice and lcztheare soon eonsigned to sleep:
The shop is left untenantedawhile,
And a eessationis proelaimedfrom toil.13
There is evidence that Saint Monday in Sheffield lasted longer as
a workshop-basedobservance,14and the earlierdissociationof the two
in Birminghamprobably reflected the earlier emergence of a stratum
of disapprovingmasters. But the situation was never clear-cut:
. . . people of all ranks, at times, obey
The festive orgies of this joeund day.
It is probablethat some putting-out of work was done on Mondays as
"reckoning-time"was late on Saturday,and this too would encourage
a day out of work.15
The prime supporters of Saint Monday were the better paid.
High piece-rates could provide good wages for skilled men, but they
more often elected to take a moderate wage and extensive leisure.16
Tuesdays, and even Wednesdays, were someiimes their holidays.l
For such "playing away" followed not merely from weekend drinking
but from deeply held traditionalattitudes towards a potential surplus
of wages: C4themen . . . [are] regulated by the expense of their
families, and their necessities; it is very well known that they will not
go further than necessity prompts them, many of them''.l8 Even
"the lowest class" of workmen who received "the second rate wages"
13 George Davis, Saint Monday; or, Scenesfrom Low-Life (Birmingham,
I790), pp. 7-8*
14 The Songs of ffoseph Mather (Sheffield, I862), pp. 63-4, 88-9. Cf.
M. Dorothy George, LondonLife in the EighreenthCentury(Harmondsworth,
I966 edn.), p. 383.
15 Davis, op. cit., p. 7; cf. A. Temple Patterson,RadicalLeicester(Leieester,
I954)n pp 42, 48-9.
16Minutes of evidencetaken beforethe Committeeof the WholeHouse. . . to
considerof the severalpetitions. . . againstthe ordersin Council,P[arliamentary]
PEapers],I8I2 (2I0), iii, pp. 6, 35-6, 56. For wages see Ashton, An Economic
Hzstoryof England,p. 232.
17 Minutesof evidence. . ., pp. 35, 56-7. In t792 John Byng visited Henry
Clay's papiermaehemanufaetoryon Tuesday, 3rd July, "but the workmenwere
absent": The TorringtonDiaries, ed. C. B. Andrews, 4 vols. (London, I934-8),
iii, p. I49, and ef. i, p. 49, Wednesday,4 July I78I; C[hildren's]E[mployment]
C[ommission] (TradEeand Manufactures),Appendixto the SecondReport of the
Commissioners, pt. I, Reportsand Evidencefrom Sab-Commissiorzers, P.P.n I843
[432], xv, p. fI36; London, MorningChronicle,7 OCt. I850; Timmins, op. cit.,
P 479
18 Mlinutesof evidence. . ., p. 35. Cf. Hutton, An History of Birmingham
(I78I edn.), p. 69: "if a man ean supporthis family with three days labour, he
will not work six"; and Pollard,"FactoryDiseipline", p. 254.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766- I 876 79

would try to observe the custom.ls As late as I842 "the masters"

stated "that they often have great difiiculty in getiing their men to
work on Mondays, unless by that time they have expended the
earnings of the previous week".20 In these circumstancesthe pawn-
shop was the unavoidableresort.
Teiz'd with the head-ache,the mechanic groupe,
On Tuesdaymorning,seek the greasy shop;
And if deadhorsebe not yet clear'daway
But hangs on hand, - how heavy wears the day! -
Their pockets empty, and their cupboardstoo,
Their wardrobegoes (not knowingwhat to do,
By hunger urg'd, and deeply sunk in hope,)
To where grim Ruin keeps a retail shop-
Till all life's necessariesoft are gone
To pledge for food-at FULLER'S two-to-one.21
And the hardest work was undertaken on the emptiest stomachs on
Friday nights.
Of course Monday observance was also affected by the state of
trade, "the lowest class" being most vulnerablein times of depression.
In I 822) however, when "the revival of trade . . . diffused cheerfulness
and contentment" among "the great body" of artisansits concomitant
was "idleness and dissipation" on "each succeeding Monday".22
Cyclical economic depression proved to be no inducement to the
development of financial prudence and to the exercise of forethought
in the family economy.
A sweeping survey of the recreations to which Saint Monday was
patron in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries reveals the
ale-house as the primaryvenue, and drink, bar-games, and entertain-
ment of various sorts as the primary pasiimes. Out-of-doors the
nzost prominent sports were pugilism and animal fights. The poem
Saint Mondaywas dedicated to '<SirBenjamin Faulkner Puissant
Pugilist !>':
Accept my panegyric,-tis your due;
For you, the most of all I ever knew,
Have honour'dgreat ST. MONDAY'S noisy cause;
And gain'd the mobs unbounded,loud applause.
Up until the late I830S "dog-fights used to be got up every Monday",
a degenerate pugilisnl survived, and "there used to be some cock-
fighting carried on almost every Monday afternoon in public-houses

19Minutesof euidence. . ., pp. 285 3Si and see below, note 87.
ao Local Reports on the Sanitary Conditionof the LabouringPopulationof
EngZand,P.P., I842, H.L., xxvii, p. 2I6.
21 Davis, Saint Monday,p. I9)'dead-horse": work left over from Saturday
to be finishedbefore the new "piece"could be begun; "FULLER'S two-to-one"
was asterisked by Davis as "a pawnbroker'sshop". Cf. Birmingham Ref.
L}b., 2567I2, "Ballads* . . printed in Birminghamc. I820", p. 74: s<Fuddling
Day, or Saint Monday"*this has been reprinted(from a Norwich source) in
Roy Palmer,A Touchon the Times(Harmondsworth,I974)) p. I44.
24 Aris's Birmingham Gazette(hereafterA.B.G.), 8 Apr. I822.
 AND PRESENT 7I
NUMBER
80 PAST
Society meetings and
inand around the town". Only Friendly
this somewhat limited recreational
summertheatricals relieved appearance:
nevertheless encouraged a care for personal
scene.23It beard on
by a black
"Thisindustrious race are distinguished
Saturday night, and a white shirt on lVlonday morning".24
Monday (and all it
Not surprisingly, entrepreneurs found Saint not to say,
an irksome,
representedin irregularity and insobriety) year I766
force. Before the
aruinous characteristicof the labour Pans in
his chemical works to Preston
SamuelGarbett transferred Birming-
because the
Scotland;partly for technical reasons but partly turn of the
ham workers evidently did not have the same "obedient
Boulton and Watt went through with
Scotch".2 5 The troubles which well known.26
were drunk when needed are
skilledworkmen who
nearly suffered
AtSoho Manufactoryin I773 Boulton and Fothergill the
partly as a consequence of the difficulty of supervising
bankruptcy were but
Boulton's problems
largenumbers of the workforce.27
Many must have
thoseof nurnerousaspiringsmall men "writ large".
Kenrick felt about the
experiencedthe frustration that Archibald
irregularwork of his six men and one apprentice:
Some plan must be laid down and strictly a&ered to to prevent the incon-
venience of loss of time in the workmen a present evil must be preferredto
obviate a constant one.... I told them in the afternoonthat I would not
have any loss of time, that if they neglectedmy businessthey might go to those
whowouldputupwithit.28
the situation; the
Necessity, however) compelled him to adjust to to such
as yet uneconomic
costs and processes of supervision were of
Julius Hardy, joint-owner
men, the resistance too widespread. to ignore
it politic
a small buttoll-nlaking business, apparentlyfound down strongly
his men played away; on the other hand he came
it if
for Thursday, January I789,
on the apprentices. His diary entry
22

reads: House in
This evening EdwardLingard'smisconduct in going tO the Public
for drink, contrary to my inclination and notwithstandingI had
the afternoon this, I say, and meeting him on his
forbiddenhim from it only yesterday
me hastily to strike him. With which my middle finger
way back, induced
vas so stunned as to give me much pain.

8-II * MorningChronicle, 3 hlar. I85I. For Monday

''3 Davis, op. cit., pp. iV,
The Maki?g of the English
recreationsin Spitalfields, see E. P. Thompson, and George, London Life,
WorkingClass (Harmondsworth, I968), p. I57,
pp. I9I-2, 200.
(I795 edn.), p. 94.
24 Hutton, An Historyof Birmingham
26 E. Fitzmaurice,Life of William,
Earl of Shelburne,3 vols. (London, I875-6),
"FactoryDiscipline", p. 255.
i, p. 404. This has also been quoted byp.Pollard, H. W. Dickinsorl and Rhys
26Lord, Capital atld Steam-power, I96;
pp. 267, 280-I;
Jenkins, 3ramesWatt and the Steam Engine (Oxford, I927),
Experiment in Ind1lstrial Organisation, being a History of
Erich RolI, An Early pp. 6I, I9I.
thefirmBoultonand Watt, I775-I805 (London, I930),

2 7 Pollard,"FactoryDiscipline",
p. 264.
98 Chllrch, Kenricksin Hardware,
pp. 23-4.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT 1WONDAYI 766- I 876
8I
On anotheroccasion,Hardy"causedJosephLangstonean appreniice
to be securedin the dungeonforneglectof service",withthe wishthat
it "may reformhis conduct on his return".29 Nevertheless,such
examplesdid not deterfutureapprenticesfromworshippingat Saint
Monday'sshrines.30

II
Thus, in I840n Mondaywas "generallykeptas a holidayby a great
portionof the workingclasses",and when a correspondentalleged
that the workershad "not an hour to sparefor educaiionwithouta
sacrifice"he wasgreetedwithincredulity.
This . . . is so far from being the case, that I only wonderhow an inhabitantof
Birminghamcould have assertedsuch a thing in a public journal. You must
certainly, sir, have been greatly misled.... Do you not know it to be a
notorious fact, that the Birminghammechanic will not in general, if ever,
work more than five days a week? Does he not too frequently spend the
blonday in the ale-house, greatly diminishing his hard-earnedwages- and
indeed, when trade flourishes,and labouris abundant,it is not an uncommon
occurence to find him but four days only at his customary employment.
There is not a manufacturerin this importanttown, but will affirmmy state-
ment to be strictlycorrect.3l
Evenby I864 it wasreportedthat "In Birmingham. . . an enormous
amountof time is lost, not only by wantof punctualityin comingto
workin the mornlingandbeginningagainaftermeals,but stillmoreby
29 Birmingham Ref. Lib., "The lDiary of Julius Hardy, Button-makerof

Birmingham(I788-I793)", transcribedand annotatedby A. M. Banks (I973):

entry for 22 May I789. That Hardywas not averseto using the Magistracyto
correctother faults in his men is demonstratedby the diaryentries for I6 May
I789 and I9 July I790.
30 For example, B. ., 30 July I836; Birmingham,ThePhilanthropist,I Sept.
I836. Courtcases againstmen (vis-a-vis apprentices)were conspicuousin their
isolation, as that against a gun stocker who was charged with "absenting
himself from the service of his master without leave", and was punished by a
month's hard labour and a Magisterialhomily about idlerless:A.B.G., g Dec
I8 I I . This is prima facie ratherpuzzling, especiallyin view of the use made of
the I823 Master and Servant Act in the Potteries in the I850S: Thompson
"Time, Work-Discipline,and IndustrialCapitalism",p. 75, note 67*cf. another
isolated example, from I862, quoted by J. E. Williams, The DerbyshireMiners
(London, I962), p. 60. The explanation appears to lie partly in the wide
prevalenceof BirminghamMonday observance,partly in the earlierdecline of
annualhirirlgin the "hardwarevillage", and perhapsmainly in the indispensa-
bility of the skilled man. See, Minutes of evidence..., pp. 58, I08, and
below, pp. 9I-2. On the Masterand ServantAct, see Daphne Simon, "Master
and Servant",in J. Saville (ed.), Democracyand the LabourMovement(London
I954). Simon appears to have been misled by the category, "Servants
Apprentices, or Masters, Offences relating to", in the ffudicial Statistics.
She states (p. I95) that Birminghamhad 2,35I Masterand Servantprosecutions
in the years I868-75, but accordingto the BirminghamClerk to the Justices
only four cases were heard in the town in I868-75: LabourLaws Commission
First Reportof the Commissioners appointedto inquireinto the workingof the
Master and Servant Act, I867, P.P., I874 (C. I094), XXiV, pp. I03-5.
31 B.3ff.,I5 Feb. I840, 22 Dec. I838.
 7I
NUMBER
82
AND PRESENT
PAST
of the
generalobservanceof 'SaintMonday'", 32 The popularity
the
appearedto be undiminished.
festival survivedinto
Moreover,as the old frameworkof leisuretime had adapted to suit
mid-nineteenthcenturyso recreationshad been cheaprailway
the
timesby the workingpeople.33 The first
the recorded
An
excursion from Birminghamwas in the summer of I84I.
of the patternof excursionsafter five years development
examination had been
providesclearevidenceof the wayin whichthe newpursuit leisure.
into the customaryframework of working class
integrated did not leaveon
Oftwenty-twoexcursionsin I846 only six of them wasthat they were
aMonday. The significantfeatureof thesetrips of the working
mostlyorganizedor sponsoredby the organizations Unity, the
class- the Friendly Socieiies. The Manchester
Wolverhampton Unity, the Druids, the Foresters,and the London
to the better
andIndependent,as "affiliatedorders",wereattractive most capable of
paidworkingmen, preciselythe social stratum
keeping SaintMonday.34 Mechanics'
A similarprocessis illustratedby attendancesat the an "intellectual
Institutefund-raisingexhibitionof I840-I. It was
treat"saidtheffournal:
in ancient and modern
Comprising three hundred thousand specimens,philosophical apparatuss
paintings, sculpture and carvings; interesting
300 cases of rareand beautifulbirds).
collectionsin naturalhistory, (including specimenof an EgyptianMummy.
Antiquitiesand Curiosities,includinga fine
his trial, and on the morning of his
The chair in which Charles I sat duringconnected with the French Revolu-
execution .... Interesting documents Illustrations of
tion.... Models of the Guillotine, the Tuileries....
Machinery....
British Manufacturesand Models of Engines and
into the recreationallife
At6d. a headthe exhibitionwasincorporated in February
of manyworkingpeople. On the secondMonday In May I84I,
I840

"the rooms were visited by about 2,500 persons".sunshine,to fill

nothingwas wanted"exceptinga few daysof settledthey alwaysareon
the roomseverydayin the week)as completelyas
Monday .35 quiteunexcep-
Hence,by this period,SaintMondaywaspatrontointroducedto a
tionablerelaxations. Cricketand archeryhad been
the firm'sannual
set of I20 "steeltoy" workersby theiremployeron
P.P., I864 [34I4-I], XXii,
92 C.E.C., I862, Third Reportof the Commissioners,
P 57 of the nineteenth century "reformatiorx of manners"
S3 The complex causes

among the common people lie beyond Victorian the scope of this paper; for a useful
Prelude:A Historyof English
preliminaryinquiry, see M. J. Quinlan,
MannersI700-I830 (New York, I94I, repr. London, I965). I8I5-75 (Manchester
34 P. H. J. H. Gosden, TheFriendly
Societiesin England
pp. 75-6. For excursion trains,
see B. T., 28 Mar.-I7 Oct. I846 -
I96I),
commerciallyorganizedtrips had a similarprice range, and also left mainly on
Mondays.
35 B. F., I5 Feb. and 7
Mar. I840, 8 May I84I.
 THE DECtINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766- I 876 83
outing, and soon Saint Monday was again being utilized to indulge
changed recreations:
the men possess bats, wiekets and balls, bows and arrows and targets in
eommon; In summer . . . [they] turn out to play two or three iimes a week,
and often saerifieea Mondayafternoonto the exereiseof these sports,whieh,at
all events, is better than drinkingawaythe Monday.3 6
In I845 there was a notable addiiion to the town's recreational
facilities when the Edgbaston Botanical Gardens were opened to the
"workingclasses" at Id. a head on Mondays: "on . . . which day their
habits lead them more than any other to seek for amusement".37 It
was an experiment to see "whether the working classes would avail
themselves of their advantages" the increasingly enthusiastic
j38

response is indicated by the following Table.*

Year "Mondayperambulators"
I 847 7)445
I848 1 I,I I6
I 849 22,353
I 850 28,463
I85 I 4I5639
I852 3I,725
I853 45)5?9

* Figures eompiledfrom the Snnual Reportsof the BirminghamHoriicultural

Soeiety for I847-53. I am grateful to the BirminghamBotaniealand Horti-
eultural Soeiety Ltd. for permissionto inspect and quote from these and other
reports.
To an observer in I85I the gardens "were literally swarming with
a well-dressed, happy and decorous body of the working classes. All
appeared to be luxuriating in the glories of the objects presented".
The consequence in I853 was that "if the summer had not come to an
end the lawn certainly should".39
By mid-cenXcurySairlt Monday was well on the way to being
internally transformed. A symbolic moment occurred in I 852 when
the Magistrateswere astonishedto discoverthat not one case requiring
summary jurisdiction had arisen "from Monday morning till
Tuesday afternoon.... White gloves were presented to the
gentlemen on the occasion".40 Friendly Societies had held their
"club-feasts" on Mondays in the I780S) but their descendants of the
I 840S were never reported as allowing "the social glass" to make their
members "mad with liquor" until "Loud Tumult" and "Uproar"
characterizedthe meetings.4l By the I840S the BirminghamOrderof
3G MorningChronicle,20 Jan. I85I.
37 Ibid., 3 Mar. I85I, B.ff., I9 Apr. I845.
38 Ibid.,26 Nov. I853
39 Ibid., 26 July I85I, 24 Dee. I853.
40 Ibid., I8 Sept. I852.
41 Davis, Saint Monday,pp. 8-9.
84 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I

FriendlySisters,the Wolverhampton Unity and otherswereholding

galas and fetes in Birmingham'sXrauxhallGardens, at wElich
thousands peaceably enjoyed their Monday evenings.42 The
traditionalMondayholidaywas also utilizedfor the great Chartist
rallies. The famousHollowayHeadmeetingof 6 August I838 had
been organizedon a Monday, and in I 839 the Conventionwas
welcomedon the samespot, on the sameday. JohnFllssell'sspeech
to the latternoteda trendin politicsbut also a changein the uses of
SaintMonday:
He was proud to say that without any display of music, or those other
incentives which usually collected them together, they had congregatedin
their immense masses, to give a gloriousreceptionto the delegateswho were
endeavouringto work out their salvation....43
At the Theatre Royal every Monday saw a "heaped-upgallery"
crammedwithproletarian life.44
Here,if anywhere,was surelyprogress. Yet despiteall this there
wasa notablecontrastbetweenthe Reportsof the Children'sEmploy-
ment Commissionersof I843 and of I864. In the former, Saint
Mondaywasmentionedonly a few timesin passing it hadbeenan
acceptedfactof life but in I 864 it waswidelynotedandthoroughly
condemned.4liThe fundamentalreason for this contrastwas the
applicationof steam-powerto hardwareproduction. Only in the
mid-nineteenthcentury did Birminghamsignificantlyemulate the
cottonindustryin its use of steaIrs,and only then did SaintMonday
become truly vulnerable. In Birminghamin I800 appliedsteam-
poweramountedto only I27 h.p.; in MaIlchesterin the same year
there was perhapsten times as much. But thereaftersteam-engine
powerin Birminghamincreasedin a geometricratio: 2,700 h.p. in
I835, S,4??h.p. in I851) IIn272 h.p. in I870.46
The capitalistwished for the most efficientemploymentGf his
investment. The workerwished to defend his way of life. This
42For example,B.ff., 28 June and 5 July I845, 30 July I849.
43Mark Hovell, The ChartistMoveme?t(Manchester, I9I8), p. I07; B.T.,
I8 May 1839.
44 B.3t., 24 Jan. I846.
46 C.E.C., SecondReport, I843, pp. fI3I, fI33, fI36, fI45, fI69. For I864
see below, passzm.
46 Birmingham Philosophical Institution, The Report presented by the
Committeeof Managers. . . togetherwith. . . a Statemcet of the Steam Povzer
employedin Birminghamfrom I780 to I835 (BirIningham,I836)' BirmillgkAS
Mercury, I6 May I89I: BirminghamRef. Lib., 286526, nenvspapercuttings-
Robert Rawlinson, Report to the GeneralBoard of Health on. . . the SaitGry
Condition. . . of . . . Birmingham(London, IS49), p. 43; J. R. Immer, "The
development of production methods in Birmingham I760-ISSI' (Univ. of
Oxford D.Phil thesis, I954), p. 9I. For Manchester see A. E. Musson and
Eric Robinson, Scienceand Technology in the IndustrialRevolution(Manchester
I969), pp. 406, 423, 426. The contrast in I838 iS much less striking
Manchesterand Salfordused 9,924&h.p. by then: J. H. Clapham,An Economic
Historyof ModGern Britain, 3 vols. (Cambridge,I926-38), i, pp. 442-3.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766-I 876 85
elementalconflictwas epitomizedin the events relatedby Charles
Iles, a hook-and-eyemanufacturer.
When we starteda steam engine, I told the people that it would be necessary
to begin at a fixed hour, insteadof the irregularitywhich had been usual. The
men objectedvery much, and said it could not be done, and only gave in when
I said it was of such importanceto me, that if they would not agree to it
I would not keep them. Even then, some of those holdingthe best situations,
and who thought they were the most valuable, left, though they were glad
enough to returnwhen they had been out of work some time.47
In I835 follr thousandmales and thirteen hundredfemales were
employedin the workingof steam powerin Birmingham;by I849
betwefon eightand ten thousandpeoplewereso employed. They all
hadto cometo termswiththe logic of the situationas definedby the
masters:"In all placesusingsteammachineryand manyhandsthere
will of necessitybe a certainregularity".
48
Of coursethis issue had been raisedearlierin the century,and
employers likeG. F. Muntz,ownerof steam-powered meta1-rolling
rlmills-had begtlathen to operatea tight regime,as his answersto
the followingquestionsshow:
NVhatdo you mean by full employment; how many days a week are they
[Birminghamworkers]employed nos^r?
It depends upon the nature of the work.
BIhat do you call a full w-eek'swork?
Workingall the week.
Do they do it now?
Some of them do.
Do they work Mondays and Saturdays?
Aly men do always.49

No doubt Muntz used the conventionalsanctionof fines, as did

Ryland and Company,screw-manufacturers, to deter "late atten-
dance" in their largely female workforce.50 But the significant
featureof the mid-centuryperiodwasthe swiftnesswith whichsteam
power was now being extendedthroughoutthe town. In conse-
quence,there was a rapidreductionof opportllnitiesof alternative
employmentfor the contumacious. In I835 therewere I69 engines
in Birminghaul;by I870 therewere8I4.
A furtherinducementto employersto achievea disciplinedwork-
forcewasthe investmentin largeplantwhichmightbe associatedwith
the installationof steampower. Thus in the gold- and silver-chain
trade"roomyand substansialbuildings"wereconstructedin I853 to
hc)usethe four hundredworkersof l9Wessrs. Goode and Bolland.5l
In some other trades large factorieswere developedfor different
technicalreasons. Elkingtons'selectro-platingbusinesshad grown
47 C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,p. I06.
48 Ibid.,p. II2-
49 ThirdReport from the Select Committeeappointedto inquireinto the State of
Agriculture,P.P., I836 [465], Viii, pt. ii, QQ. I6657-60. I am gratefulto Mr.
Clive Behaggfor drawingmy attentionto this reference.
50 C.E.C., SecondReport,I843, p. fI55.
51 London, The LeisureHour, no. 62, 3 Mar. I853.
 AND PRESENT 7I
NUMBER
86 PAST
trade had
one thousand workers by I864; the railway rolling-stock
to in
(in to over three thousand workers
developed from nothing I838)
at Saltley, and, of the four firms
I864. The latter was concentrated
thirteen hundred
there,the largest employed between twelve and work; with
on "carpentry and smith's
boysand men, "chiefly" but
workshops,
painting". They had been drawn from Birmingham not make a
does
themanager could state: "Monday probably against
differenceof 30 out of the whole number. We set our faces
any one persisting in it would be discharged".
anyirregularity, and
businesses being
Furthermore and this may well apply to the large "Being a
at this time
foundedin Smethwick and King's Norton the force of
we are more free from
mileor so out of Birmingham,
customin this respect".52 of 1lnemploy-
At first glance then it would appear that the threat Such an
mentwas sufficientto achieve the required work-discipline.
over-simplify the transition in social
analysis would seriously was eroded
which took place in this period,for Saint Monday
behaviour
asmuch as it was demolished.
move-
The chief agent of erosion was the Saturday half-holiday in textile
ment. There had been a statutory Saturday half-holiday
to assume that the holiday
millsfrom I850, and historianshave tended
osmosis.53 But
wasextended elsewhere by a kind of inevitable social
demonstrates that an area had to generate its
Birmingham'shistory
the differing
own dynamic, and only this proposition will explain in I843, in
datesat which the half-day was instituted: in Manchester
Nottingham around
Sheffieldin the I840S, in St. Helens in I857, in
I86I, in Barrow-in-Furness only in the late I860S.54

C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,pp. I22, I32* for G. new locationsof industry,see

52
C. Allen, The Industrial
V.C.H., The City of Birmingham,pp. I32-3. (London, Ig29),
Developmentof Birminghamand the Black CountryI860-I927
expounds the view that, by I860, "there had been no 'industrial
p. II3,
revolution'in Birmingham and distriet. Its great eeonomie developmentwas
the number of produeing units ratherthan by a
markedby a vast increase in the faetory remained unrepresentative
growthin the size of the existing few, and
of the majority of the eoneerns produeing finished goods". This has been
eritieized-with some justiee - by Immer, "The developmentof produetion
I85t Birmingham"was a city of large
methods", pp. 294-6, who asserts that in but attentionmust be drawn
industries". It is partlya questionof definitions, their numbers-which largemanu-
to the influenee-far out of proportion to
faeturingunits eould exert. Modern Britain, ii, pp. 448-So;
63 Clapham, An Economic History of I97I), p. 305, Bienefeld,
Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians (London,
WorkingHoursin British Industry, p. 94.
64 J. S. Hodgson, "The movements for
shorter hours, I840-75" (Univ. of
Oxford D.Phil. thesis, I940), pp. 2I3-5; G. I. H. Lloyd, The CutleryTrades
(London, I9I3), p. I8I: Sidney Pollard, 24 History of Labour in SheM7ield
pp. 6I-2; T. C. Barker and J. R. Harris,A MerseysideTown
(Liverpool, I959), (Liverpool, I954), pp. 4I7,
in the Industrial Revolution. St. Helens I750-I900
Chureh, Economic and Social Change in a Midland Town, Victorian
46I; R. A. D. Marshall,F?lrnessand the
NottinghamI8IS-I9OO (London, I966), p. 3759 J.
(Barrow-in-Furness, I958), pp. 247, 3I5-6, 40I.
IndustrialRevolution
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766-I 876 87
In Birmingham, John Frearson hook-and-eyemanufacturer and
"generalmachinist"of Gas Street wasfirstto closedownhis works
at .oo p.m. on Saturdays.55This examplewas followedby John
Hendersonof the LondonIron-works,Smethwick.
Having alreadyconeeded to the men an hour and a half on the Saturday,by
allowingthem to leave at four o'cloek,he found that if they gave up the dinner
hour, and left at two, there would be nominallyonly an hour saerificed,and
virtually only half an hour; but when he eame to take everything into
consideration,he came to the conclusionthat it was no sacrificeat all.
He sawno conflictbetweenphilanthropy
andsoundbusinesssense.
He believed that everythingwhich was done to induee the workingelasses to
be more steady, to promote temperanceamongst them, to spread education
amongstthem, to give them the meansof lawfulrecreation,must be eventually
of advantageto the employer.5 6
A campaignwas generatedby pressreportsand agitationby working
men who wroteto thanktheir employersand therebypublicizethe
reform. It quicklybecameapparentthat these spokesmenrejected
the traditionalpatternof work and leisure. To John Frearson's
workersSaint MoIldaywas an "evil practice". They lookedto the
Saturdayhalf-holidayto stop it, for "Howseriousmustbe the loss to
the employerand how ruinousto the happinessand welfareof the
workingmanand his family''.57 "A workingman"wroteto recom-
mend his fellowsto abstainfrom Saint Mendayeveryweek as that
would be the best argumentin favourof the half-holiday.58Thus
alreadythe suggestionof a rationalization
of hourshadarisen from
a most unexpectedquarter. It was a short step frornthis to the
manipulationof the half-dayby manufacturersso as to shift the
leisureemphasisfromMondayto Saturday;fromirregularunapproved
"playingaway"to recognizedand much-laudedSaturdayafternoon
holidays.
The movementbecameorganizedunderthe aegisof ReverendG. S.
Bull Oastler'sold colleague. A committeewas formed,although
its workingclassmemberswereratheroverwhelmed by the Reverends
on the one hand,and the Hendersons,Wrights,and Winfields all
large manufacturers on the other. Town Hall meetingspassed
resolutionswhichstressed"thecomfort,improvement andelevationof
the IndustriousClasses"consequentuponthe holiday,andespecially
congratulated
. . . the females who are so relieved,becausethey are thus enabledto attendto
many importantduties, soeial and domestie,which must otherwisehave been
negleetedor else so postponedas to hindera due preparationfor the approach-

55 B.ff., 24 May I85I-

56 Ibid., II June I853.
57Ibid.,24MayI85I.
68 Ibid., I5 Jan. I853; see ibid., I3 Nov. and 25 Dee. I852, 30 Apr. and
I I June I853 for similar opinions.
88 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I
ing Sabbath day, and also because the comfort of the domestic circle, to
husbands,wives and childrenis thereby greatlyenhanced.69
Subsequently, two large railwaycarriagefirms and the Eagle Foundry,
Winfield's the brass and Osler's the glass firms announced their grant
of a Saturday half-holiday. By June I853, between ten and twelve
thousand workers froIn "thirty of the largest manufactories in the
town and neighbourhood"were emancipatedfrom Saturdayafternoor
toil;60such a Eguremust have closely correspondedwith the numbers
of those who were employed in the workingof steam power in the town
by this iime. Advocacy of reduced hours by large employers was a
strikingphenomenon. Severalmanufacturershad consciously sought
or else acted upon reports from their Manchester and Glasgow
counterparts.61 It appeared that an age of enlightened labour
policies was at hand. Yet employers could not help being awarethat
the prosperity of the early I850S made them liable to labour dis-
content.62 Neither could it have escaped notice that large firms might
consolidate their position if small traders were induced to cut back
their output in a period of booming trade.63
By I854 the cIergy had withdrawn, and the leadership of the
campaign had passed over to the dominant figures in local politics.
CouncillorJ. W. Cutler spoke from the chair: "He believed it was not
only the duty, but the interest of the employer to contribute to the
comforts, enjoyments and intellectual development of the employed".
Councillor Joseph Allday proposed the "moral and social advantages
which might accrue" from a general adoption of the holiday) and a
committee "representing the mercantile and carrying interests was
formed. A deputation to the merchants and factors of the town was
"to urge them to the adoption of a 1lnanimouscourse of action".64
69 Ibid., II June I853. G. S. Bull, George Dawson, J. C. Miller (St.
Martins), G. M. Yorke (St. Philips) were present interalia at the Town Hall
meetings. Miller voiced the mainstreamof clericalopinion, that the Saturday
afternoon leisure should be supported because from it "a better spirit would
arise in the heart,and a greaterdesirebe evincedrighteouslyto observethe Holy
Sabbath":B. ., II June I853. For Miller'sevangelism,see David E. H. Mole,
"John Cale Miller: a Victorian Rector of Birmingham",Tl. Eccles.Hist., xvii
(I965). For the forcefuland independentGeorgeDawson, see E. P. Hennock
Fit and ProperPersons.Ideal and Reality in Nineteenth-CenturyUrbanGovern-
ment(London, I973), pp. 63-77.
60 B.3ff.,I3 Nov., It and 25 Dec. I852, I4 May and II June I853; A.B.G.,
2 May I853.
61 B. X.,3O Apr. I853; RichardTangye, TheRise of a GreatIndustry(London
rgoS edn.), pp. 48-9; C.E.C., I86X, ThirdReport,p. IO6.
62 B.ff., 3O Apr., I4 and 2I May, 4 Je I853, for wages' and hours' claims by
shoemakersand various building trades. For the nationalcontext, see Biene-
feld, Working Hours,pp. 84-6, I9O.
83 Ibid.,pp. 48, 78, 5I; and the letter from W. A. Adams, Midland Works
Saltley,complainingof the advantagetakenby Wright(the leadingmanufacturer
of rolling-stock),in B. ., 25 June I853.
64 B.ff., Ir Mar. I853. For Allday and Cutler, see Hennock, op.cit., p. 32.
The deputationwas apparentlysuccessfulwith regardto the button tradewhere
a Io.OO p.m. Saturdayfinish gave way to an "early"s.oo p.m.: C.E.C.,I862,
ThirdReport,p. 98.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766- I 876 89
By I864 it had become clear that the Saturdayhalf-holidayhad
beenusedas a spratto catcha mackerel;a Saturdayreductionof three
hours(usually)in returnfor a Monday'slabourof ten or elevenhours.
Some employersimpliedthat the sequencewas accidental. Charles
Iles wasone of these:
I have found it extremely. . . [beneficial]myself, for the men as well as for
the young. Men will have some recreation,and it is very likely to be better
by day than by night. It has diminishedirregularityin the early part of the
week, and the hands are more ready,if wanted, to work extraat othertimes.
But a coercivenote crept in: "Punctualityand disciplineare very
essential. I alwaysinsiston my wishesbeingcarriedout. Thereis
no intermediatestage betweenthis and disorder". He concluded:
"Formerlythe workpeoplewere apt to conle in at a11times, but the
half-holidayenablesme still morestronglyto insiston regularity,and
say, 'No, you have hadyourSaturday,andmustbe regularnow'X.6S
However employeeslike Josiah Metcalfe, twenty years a button
worker,were in no doubt that the half-holidaywas a quidpro quo:
"A greatmanyusednot to comeon Mondaysat all; butthey arernore
regular now, since the employershave given a half-holidayon
Saturdayand insisted that in returnthe people should not be so
irregularon Monday".6fiThis appearseven moreplausiblewhenit
is realizedthat, in mostcases,workersachievedno net gainin leisure
hoursthroughthe grantingof the half-holiday. In the Children's
EmploymentCommissionReportof I 864 ten firmsmentionedgiving
a Saturday half-holiday. Only three of these enlarged their
employees'total weeklyleisure:one by three hollrs,the second by
two, the thirdsuffered"a slightloss of workingtime".67 Two otEler
firms re-arrangedthe workinghours without affectingthe total.68
Four firmsactuallygainedtime fromtheir employees.69The most
glaringcasewas that of tinplatemanufacturer, Mr. ThomasBeckett,
an enlightenedcapitalist,who believed:
the greatmeans for bringingabout a generalimprovementin the conditionof
the workingclasses, are healthy comfortablework-places,properrules and
discipline in their work, and a half-holidayon Saturday,with any additioxlal
helps such as readingrooms and libraries.
These measures,he thought,would bring the workingclasses"as
earto perfectionas is likelyto be obtained". Actingon the second

65Ibid., p. I06.
66Ibid., p. 95.
67 Ibid., p. 80 (May and Co.-engineering), p. I32 (MetropolitanRailway
Carriage and Waggon Co., Saltley formerly Messrs. Wright), p. I08
(Edelstonand Williams- wire-drawingand pin-making).
68 Ibid., p. IIO (Nettleford and Chamberlain - screws), pp. I22-4 (Elking-
tons).
69Ibid., pp. 84-5 (Beckett tinplate), p. 9I (Cope buttons), p. I26
(Schlesingerand Co. glass- and emery-paper),p. I28 (Lander spectacles).
9o PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I
part of his programme,Beckettcut two hours off Saturday'swork,
but then addedhalf-an-hourto each weekday,and reducedboth the
tea breakand dinnertime by ten minuteseach,so that altogetherhis
time-accountgainedtwo hoursandtwentyminutes. "Wehavenow
. . . laid down our systemas above,with printedrulesfor the work-
people,showingthemtherulesanddisciplinewhichmustbe observed,
and whichare strictlyenforced".70So the half-dayconcessionmay
be morecorrectlydescribedas a rearrangement of workinghours. In
this contextit seemsunlikelythatemployersremainedunawareof the
bargaining counterplacedin theirhandsby the Saturdaycampaign.
Nor did these possibilitiesgo unnoticedelsewhere. At Notting-
ham the half-holidayhad been granted"insteadof certainirregular
holidaysat the races, fair, etc. It answersbetter for business".l
No doubtproximityto textilemillswasa factorbehindthe institution
of the half-dayin Lancashiremetaltrades,West Ridingengineering,
and Belfastand Bradfordtextilewarehousesby the I860S,72but what
history lay behind each particularcase? The interconnectionof
mechanizationand half-holidayswas unmistakeablein the boot
factoriesof provincialEngland,and in the largemechanically-aided
potteries.7 3 The employerswerere-fightingthe battlesof Wedgwood
andArkwrightin an alteredandfundamentally favourableera.
Despitethis, someemployerscontinuedto adoptcoursesof action
which hadthey beenadoptedgenerally couldhavecausedgreat
social tension. At least two Birminghamemployersresorted to
lock-outs,saying"If you will not comeon Monday,you shallnot on
Tuesday".74 Elkingtons,the electro-platers, adoptedanothertactic.
The managerconfessed:
It is a pity that females should work in factoriesat all, as it interfereswith
their properlife, the domestic. They are, however,very useful .... Indeed
we have employed them upon a branchof work which was formerlydone by
men, because the latter were so much more difficultto keep steady at their
work.76

7U However (in another context) Beckett mentioned the state of housing as

"a great drawbackto any general improvement of the people"; also he had
recently moved his works into "spacious and ventilated buildings". Ibid.,
Pp. 84-5.
71 C.E.C., I862, First Reportof the Commissioners, P.P., I863 [3I70]) XViii,
p. 267 (I owe this reference to Church, Economicand Social Changein a
Midland Town,p. 375). Other references to the Nottinghamhalf-holidayare
to be found on pp. 209, 2I7, 223, 237, 268-9, 282 of C.E.C., I862, First Report.
72 C.E.C., I862, Third Report, p. I80- C.E.C., I862, Fourth Reportof the
Commissionersn P.P., I865 [3548,xx, p. s9; C.E.C., I862, Fifth Report of the
Commissioners, P.P., I866 [3678],xxiv,pp.I69, I73.
73 C.E.C., I86X, FirstReport,p. viii; C.E.C., I862, FourthReport,p. I24.
74 C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,pp. 57, I26.
t Ibid., p. I23.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766- I 876 9I

III
Saint Monday survived into the second half of the nineteenth
century (and sometimes into the twentieth) where there obtained
several specific work situations. Wherever unmechanized small
workshop production remained then Saint Monday might accompany
it: in Birmingham, iIl the gun trade, in pearl-button making, and
among tool-makers; in Leicester workshops; among Scottish hand-
loom weavers and Whitby jet-ornamentmakers; among woodworkers
and tailors everywhere.76 On the other hand, certain heavier trades
were noted for playing away at the beginning of the week, sometimes
despite the presence of steam engines or other substantial capital
investment: in Birmingham, wire-workers and heavy steel-toy
workers; elsewhere, in Sheffield's metal trades, in South Wales
ironworks,in Black Country iron, glass and sheet-metal works, irl the
Potteries, in brickfields and in the mines. 7 It appears that the
unanimicyof the nzen in upholding the customary ways was sufficient
to overcome the opposiiion of the owners. Though steam engines
operated tilt-hammers and drew wire in the aforementionedBirming-
ham trades chey did not dominate the productive process. In
Sheffieldand in the mines the owners made the best of the situation by
using Monday as a repair day.78
In all work contexts the skilled men were the most capable of
observing Saint Monday. Brass-castersmight earn 30s. to 40s. a week,
and the custom with many of them was neatly summed-up by the boy
who helped one brass candlestick maker: <'The caster very seldom
comes to work on Monday; not follr times a year perhaps'. Even
those who did go seldom arrived by IO.OO a.m. and left by five in the
evening.79 Elkingtonshad abolished irregularityby utilizing women,
76Ibid., pp. IOI-2; BirminghamMorning News, 26 June I87I; Paul de
Rousiers, The Labour Q7lestionin Britain (Paris, I895; London, I896 edn.),
p. 6; Report of the Commissioners appointedto inquireinto the workingof the
Factory and WorkshopActs, P.P., I876 (C. I443-I), XXX, pt. ii, Q. 7I4I;
C.E.C., I862, SecondReportof the Commissioners, P.P., I864 [34I4], ii, pp.
2I7, 228; C.E.C., I862, Fourth Report, p. I27; C.E.C., I862, Fifth Report,
pp. II8, I96-7- Charles Booth, Life and Laboar of the People in London
I7 vols. (London, I902-3), ISt ser., iv, p. 202 (I am grateful to Dr. Hugh
McLeod for this last reference).
77 C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,pp. 79, I I5; Pollard,Labourin Sheffifield, p. 2I I;
Lambert, "Drink and work-discipline",p. 306- Report. . . into . . . Factoryand
WorkshopScts, QQ.6064, 685In 6gr I; E. Hopkins, "Small Town Aristocratsof
Labour and Their Standardof Living, I840-I9I4", Econ.Hist. Rev., 2nd ser.,
XXViii (I975), p. 233; C.E.C., I862, First Report,p. xxvii; C.E.C., I862, Fifth
Report, p. I3I; Rhodri Walters "Labour Productivity in the South Wales
Steam-Coal Industry, I870-I9Ii", Econ. Hist. R., 2nd ser., xxviii (I975),
pp. 293-4; Williams,DerbashireMiners,pp. 60, 274, 532-3, 79I, 846, 848.
78 Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism", p. 74,
note 65.
79 MorningChronicle,6 Jan. I85I; cf. C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,pp. 66, 68.
Brass casting was so unhealthy that Saint Monday was almost a physical
necessity. An employer noted: "in our old casting shops we reckoned four
days in the week as much as the men could stand".
92 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I

but one or two of their workerscontinued to be absent on Mondays-

the explanation offered was that they were "superior workmen".80
In a toolmaker'sworkshop a small master complained of irregularities
in time-keeping but bore them nonetheless "in order to keep his men"
for they were "skilled workers, and not to be replaced by the first
comer'?.8l The essence of the skilled worker's position was his
indispensability to the employer, and his payment at piece rates.
A gun-furniture manufactureraverred:
In gun work they are very irregular,as they work so much for themselves at
home, and even when they workin factoriesthe men workchieflyby the piece
and come when they please. We have scarcelyany controlover them in this
respect.82

Inasmuch as the observance of Saint Monday by the elite of the

working class represented a confirmation of their status then the
potential for a successful defence or extension of Monday playing time
for the majoritywas diminished. Nevertheless, examplesof unskilled
Saint Mondays may be found where mechanization had not yet
replaced the custom of the trade. An employer in the glass- and
emery-papertrade complained: "We can get the lads on Monday but
not the women and the girls who are more giddy".83 For wives and
mothers such "giddyness" was in fact very sensible if their wage only
supplemented the family income and they needed the Monday to
perform domestic tasks. In a button "factory"little work was done
on Mondays "as the women reckon to make enough on the other
five days". Mary Anne Field, a press-woman there, appreciatedlax
time-discipline: "Coming late in the morning suits me best, because
of getting the children's breakist".a4 On Mondays, Mrs. Field and
other Birmingham working women doubtless did as Elizabeth
Pritchard, a Black Country woman: "Don't work much on Monday,
don't play, but do washingand fetch coals".85
A generational cycle helped perpetuate Saint Monday. Daniel
Thompson, aged eight, was alreadyat workin a brassfoundry shop -
except, that is, on Mendays: "Don't work on Mondays, nor does
father, at least its a long time since. But Mondays you don't work".fi6
Young working boys soon caught the attitude, for as in spoon-
making
As the boys work under the men they are liable to the same irregularities
thus if they do not work on Monday or Tuesday, which is generallythe case,
whether their trade is good or bad, the boys are idle and playing about the
streets.87

MorningChronicle,I7 Feb. I85I.

80 81 Rousiers, op. cit., p. 6.
C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,p. 76.
82 83 Ibid, p. I26-
84 INid.,pp. 98-9. The "factories"of the button tradewere not paced by the
steam engine but (as in gun work)consistedlargelyof centralizedworkshops.
85 Quoted by Ivy Pinchbeck, WomenWorkersin the IndustrialRevolution
I750-I850 (London, I930), p. 280. Cf. C.E.C., SecondReport,r843, p. fI33.
86 C.E.C., s862, ThirdReport,pp. 64-5.
87 C.E.C., SecondReport,I843, p. f I69.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766-I 876 93
The young were subject to great temptations, as in the pearl button
trade where masters drinking with their men was said to be "very bad
and brings up the boys to the habit".88 Again, the frantic working at
the end of the week to make up for lost time was harmful to the
children: "It was as common as possible to work all night on
Fridays".89
Astonishingly, cultural attitudes which had sustained the Saint
Monday of the eighteenth century survived in some measure into the
I860S and beyond. It seemed that the "inward notation of time" of
heavy steel-toy workers of the I860S was still oriented to the task (or
to leisure) rather more than to the clock. These piece-workerswould
come "what time they please; perhaps in summer they will come at 5
and leave by dinnertime". On Mondays very few went at all.90
Nor is the evidence confined to one trade. As late as the I870S,
It was no uncommon thing to see batches of workmen standing at street
corners with dirty aprons all hours of the day and the public house well
patronised.... Instead of working during the day they resorted to their
small workshopafter hours.91
Even in the last decades of the century wage incentives had not begun
to take eSect with some toolmakers: "as soon as they feel they have
a few shillings irl their pockets they leave off work".92
These groups of skilled workers must obviously have contained
a fair proportionof the "naturalleaders" of the working class. Yet it
11RS already been noted that working men prominent in the half-
holiday cafilupaign were the first to suggest giving up Saint Monday.93
How is this crucial split within the natural leadership of the workin^,
class to be explained? By what means was an important section of
the working class brought to accept time-discipline as a fair and
admissible basis for work?

IV
E. P. Thompson has rightly stressed the role of Puritanism and its
"marriageof convenience" with industrialcapitalismin the conversion
88 C.E.C.,I862, ThirdReport,p. IOI.
89 MorningArews,
Ibid.,p. I3I, II5; Birmingham 26 June I87I.
90C.E.C.,I862, ThirdReport,p. 79.
91 Birmingham GazetteandExpress,I9 Sept. I907: BirminghamRef. Lib.,
2I7750, newspapercuttings.
92 Rousiers, op.cit., p. 6.
93 See above, notes 57 and 58. Also cf. B.ff. I8 Je I853, letter from the
pseudonymous"L.W.A." replying to a suggestlon by "A Workman"that the
Saturday half-holiday should be a real extension of leisure, and not involve
re-organizationof hours in lieu: "As one of the working class . . . I have ever
been an ardentand strongadvocateof the half-day . . . but . . . neitheremployers
or employed ought to suffer in any pecuniary matter by its adoption. If
masters are willing to concede this half-day . . . thanks should be given . . . we
ought not to expect them to pay for that for which they will never get any
return".
94 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I
of men to new valuationsof time.94 Yet men had to wish to be
convertedand unlessthey did evangelismwas not boundto succeed.
In I790 a Birminghambutton manufacturerinvited "such of my
workmento meetat my houseas choose,to hearsomeedifyingportion
read,an hymnsung, and prayers". Significantly,the readingswere
mostly from Richard Baxter's works, beginning with "'Saints'
EverlastingRest', wherehe recommendsour reprovingthe ungodly
and inviting them to return to Christ"95 Five men came on a
Tuesdayevening,but a fortnightlater Hardyunwiselybroughtthe
day forwardone. There had been an initialperiodof "curiousity",
but HardyrealizedthatMonday,"beinga sortof 'holiday'so called",
had affectedthe numbers. A fortnight after he blamed further
declineon a "Foot-Ale"being drunkfor a fresh workman. From
the heightof nine, out of his thirty-strongworkforce,the attendance
droppedto two,andthatwasthe lastof his proselytizing.9 6 However,
the Hardysof Birmingham weresoonto be reinforcedby those"steam
enginesof the moralworld" the schools. MichaelFrosthasfound
evidencethat therewas indeedan importantemphasison "habitsof
industry"in the schoolsof the areain the earlynineteenthcentury.97
By mid-century"time-thrift"had been inculcated into several
generationsof children- most notably,the childrenof artisans.98
Employersmarkedthe correlationbetweenschoolingand working
habits:
The best educated are the most valuableworkmen, they are generallymore
attentive to their business, do not so much neglect it in the beginning of the
week; and take more pride in it. . . the more ignorant on the contrary,will
neglect their work in the beginning of the weeknwith the notion that by
overworkingtowardsthe end, they will make up the lost time.99

Onthe one hand,"time-thrift";on the other,politicalmoderation.

Rfter Chartism,politically-activeworkingmen were almosttotally
integratedintothe systemof justificationandexplanationsurrounding
the localcapitalistindustrialstructure. Someof the reasonsfor this

9 4 Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline and IndustrialCapitalism",pp. 83, 95.

95BirminghamRef. Lib., "The Diary of Julius Hardy", I2 and 25 Jan.
8 and 22 Feb. I790. On Baxter'sinfluence,see Thompson, The Makingof the
EnglishWorkingClass,p. 393.
96 BirminghamRef. Lib., "The Diary of Julius Hardy", I2, I9, 25 Jan., I, 8,
I5, 22 Feb., I, 8, I5 Mar. I790.
97 Michael Frost, "Working Class Education in Birmingham, I78I-I85I "
(Univ. of Birmingham M.A. thesis, in progress). Cf. Thompson, "Time
Work-Disciplineand Industrial Capitalism",pp. 84-5, and also M. W. Flinn,
"Social Theory and the IndustrialRevolution",in Tom Burns and S. B. Saul
(eds.), Soeial TheoryandEconomicChange(London, I967), pp. 9-34.
9 C.E.C., SecondReport,I843, pp. fI29-30, fI45, fI68-9.
99 Ibid., p. fI3I, also pp. fI26, fI2g-30, fI32, fI34, fI46, fI48, fI68; cf.
P fI45*
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766- I 876 95
have been explored by Briggs and Tholfsen,l?? but another point
must be added here which is directly related to both time-discipline
and the lack of any political opposition to the employers.10l It is
that the sub-letting of steam power was an important factor in the
disciplining in regularity of many of the potential leaders of working
men. Birmingham's equivalent to the handloom weaver the
independent worker in metals often imposed time-discipline on
himself:
. . . the mere workingman, who has saved a triflingsum, is enabledby renting
a room and power, in some extensive rolling mill or other eonsiderable
establishment,to pursue on a small seale, an oecupation,whieh would other-
wise be out of his reaeh.102
"Independence" was in fact qualified by the necessity of attending on
the steam engine's motion, in marked contrast to the experience of
earlier Birmingham artisans who had needed only hammer, file, vice,
or perhaps a foot lathe. For one family the transition in working
modes took place in the I820S. George Jacob Holyoake's mother
was "an entirely self-acting, managing mistress" of a horn button
workshop attached to their house; she simultaneously made time to
raise her family. But young George was entrusted with some newly-
invented machinery "for turning buttons" and required to attend on
the "steam-power" which his father hired for him "at the Baskerville
Mill''.l03 In the early I860S a Children's Employment Commis-
sioner gave an example of such a mill: "a nest of small shops on

100Asa Briggs, "Soeial Strueture and Politics in Birminghamand Lyons,

I825-I848", British3rl.of Sociology,i (I950); idem, VictorianCities(Harmonds-
worth, I968),pp. I68-9; T. R. Tholfsen, "The Artisanand the Cultureof Early
Vietorian Birmingham", Univ. of BirminghamHist. 3tl., iv (I953). Also see
Hennoek,Fit and ProperPersons,pp. 99-IOI.
101It appearsthat sueh politically artieulateopposition as there was to the
exploitationassoeiatedwith steam power disappearedwith Chartism;cf. "The
Steam King" by EdwardP. Mead of Birminghamwhieh was published in the
NorthernStar, I I E7eb.I843 (quotedby F. Engels, The Conditionof the Working
Classin England[London, I969 edn.],pp. 2I3-4):
There is a King, and a ruthless King,
Not a King of the poet's dream;
But a tyrant fell, white slaves know well,
And that ruthless King is Steam.
. . . . . . . . . . .

Then down with the King, the Moloeh King,

Ye workingmillions all;
O ehain his hand, or our native land
Is destin'd by him tO fall.
102 William Hawkes Smith, Birmingham and its Vicinityas a Manufacturing
and Commerczal District (Birmingham,I836), pt. iii, p. 9. Cf. JenniferTann,
The Developmentof the Factory (London, I970), p. 27; Chureh, Economicand
Social Changein a Midland Town,p. 85; John Prest, The IndustrialRevolution
in Coventry(Oxford, I960), pp. 94-6, IOI; Dunean Bythell, The Handloom
Weavers(Cambridge,I969), pp. 38-9, 43-4, 75, II6-7, I3I-2, 259.
10sG. J. Holyoake, Sixty Yearsof an Agitator'sLife, 2 vols. (London, I892),
i, pp. II, 23.
96 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I

different floors, in which steam power is let off from an adjoining gun
and sword factory, and used for various purposes". Of the seven
tenants, three were silver and electroplate polishers, and there was
a pearl-shell grinder, a glass cutter, a razor grinder and a tube drawer.
The hours worked by these men were dependent Ox1the steam power
of the mill. They commenced work at 7.oo a.m. and-beginning on
Monday-the dailyclosing hours were 6.oop.m., 7.oo p.m., 8.oo p.m.,
g.oo p.m., 7.oo p.m., and 2.00 p.m.l04 Clearly thle millowner had
made a token obeisanceto Saint Monday but takengood careto recoup
that hour and the Saturday half-day. In this way C'inde:sendent"
workers came voluntarily to associate themselves with the time-
discipline of the earliest factory workers.
Underlying these changes there lay the perhaps even nlore
fundamental alteration in the economic horizons of the majority.
Consumer demand, or acquisitiveness vis-A-vis subsistence wage
earning, was becoming the pattern of popular economic aspiration.106
The development of the building society movement in Birmingham
by the I790S indicated in bricks and mortar that some exceptional
artisans had greatly raised their economic sights.l06 Once this
evolution took place then foresight became a popular economic
virtue and regularity of wages became an important consideration.
The process of transition must have been greatly retarded by the
cyclical unemployment ofthe years I790-I850, but became established
once the relativelysunny 1lplandsofthe I 8Sos and I 860s were reached.
In those years regularwages necessitatedregularityof attendance, but
employers who insisted on such regularityacted as magnetic poles for
men who had come to accept economic progress. At the veryleast, they
might be attracted by the promise of stability in such firms and the
diminished threat of unemployment. At the Midland Railway
Carriageand Wagon Company in I864, "piece-workersengage boys
subject to [managerial]. . . approval. The youngest are mostly
brought in by parents or relatives . . . as it is considered a prirrilegeto
the boys, affording them the opportunity of becoming regular
10 4 C.E.C., I 862, ThirdReport,p. I 29.
105E. wW.Gilboy, "Demand as a Factor in the Industrial Revolution", in
R. M. Hartwell (ed.), The Causes of the Industrial Revolutionin England
(London, I967), pp. I2I-38; D. E. C. Eversley, "The Home Market and
Economic Growth I750-I780", in E. L. Jones and G. E. Mingay (eds.), Land,
Labourand Populationin the IndustrialRevolution(London) I967), pp. 206-59-
Neil McKendrick, "Home Demand and Economic Growth A New View of
the Role of Women and Children in the Industrial Revolution", in
N. McKendrick (ed.), HistoricalPerspectives.Studies in F,nglishThoughtand
Society in honourof 7. H. Plumb(London, x974), pp. I52-2IO, esp. pp. I83 ff.
Cf. V.C.H., Cztyof Bzrmzngham, pp. 9 I-3, IOI -4.
108S. D. Chapmanand J. N. Bartlett,"The contributionof Building Clubs
and FreeholdLand Society (sic) to Working-ClassHousing in Birmingham",in
S. D. Chapman(ed.), The History of VEorking-Class Housing(Newton Abbot,
I97I), pp. 235-8.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I766-I876 97
workmen''.10' Such attitudes help to explain the complete absence
of Saint Monday in the trade which, next to guns, was most suited
for it, namely jewellery, with its highly paid artisans inhabiting
hundreds of small workshops.l08 "Staid, quiet, respectable", the
jewellery trade had developed extremely rapidly in the I850S and
I860S and was probably the trade with the most stable employment
prospects in the town. By contrast, the gun trade was subject to
"extreme fluctllations in. . . demand", and gun men were reckoned
"a good deal like sailors; the transition from a life of hardship and
privation to a short reign of plenty induces a recklessness which is
fatal to good economy''.l09
Stating the problem in terms of a rift between artisans instead of
employing the model of a unitary labour aristocracymay also aid the
analysis by directing attention to a dialectic of social alternatives.
Low economic horizons seemed to make less and less sense in an age
when railway excursions and cheaper newspapers opened up the
woIlders of the British Isles and the world. Each year the rift
between the supporters and the abjurers of Saint Monday was
intensified. Each year the devotees of Saint Monday grew less and
less reasonable in their persistent refusal to acknowledge progress.
The more that leading artisans rejected Saint Monday, the more the
unfortunateadherents of the Saint came to light. The less that Saint
Monday was a central working class tradition, the more it became
associated in fact as well as in imagination with that part of the class
who bore "the taint of Bohemianism'';1l0 that area where social
delinquency appeared to be caused by moral deterioration, where
Saint Monday was less a positive custom, more an expression of
heedless resignation. An attitude notoriously held by casual
labourers and by members of declining trades: sword-makers,
Willenhall locksmiths, Black Country nailers.1ll An attitude
prevalentperhapsamong garretmastersin the pearl button trade, who
were,
for the most part men who are not "in society",and one inducementfor some
of them to set up for themselves in this way is the liberty it enables them to
take of playing at cards in beershops, and drinking stld smoking away the
Morldayand Tuesday, which they cannothave in a regularshop.112
Moreover such attitudes directly aroused the enmity of trade society
men, because, in the peculiar circumstances of industrial relations in
small workshop trades, the garret master who might undercut the
standard prices-was seen by the skilled worker as his greatest
107 C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,p. I32.
108 Timmins, The Resources,Productsand IndustrialHistory of Birmingham
and theMidlandHardevareDistrict,pp. 452-62.
109 BirminghamMorningNews, 3 July and26 June I87I. llo Ibid.,5 June I87I.
1ll MorningChronicle,30 Dec. I850; Timmins, op. cit., p. 88; Courtv Rise of
MidlandIrzdustries, pp. I98-2I I.
112 MorningChronicle, 4 Nov. I850; C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport, pp. I01-2.
98 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I

enemy.ll3 In these circumstancesthe distinctiverecognitionof

"SaintMonday"gavewayto the pejorativeterm"shacklingday''.ll4
Morewidely,being"shackled"or befuddledby drinkcameto be seen
as a poorbasisfor the organization of labour.lls
Thus a blend of economicpressuresand the potent image of
progresscombinedto createa divisionwithinthe naturalleadership
of the workingclassand ensuredthe eventualtriumphof those who
rejected Sant Monday. In the moral atmosphereof Victorian
Englandit thereforebecameeasy to see Saint hlonday as an "evil
practice"and be blind to the internaltransformation of the festival.
Even so sympathetican observeras Thomas Wright thought it
"fairlyquestionable"whetherSaint Mondaywas beneficialto "the
Great Unwashed". He remarkedon the widespreadMonday
patronageof excursiontraills,of pleasuregardens,of publicparks,of
"runninggrounds",and he observedthe familynatureof much of
this leisure,yet in the final analysishe allowedthe combativeSaint
Monday of the Black Country, and the "lushingtons"and the
"loafers" to tip the scales of his argument.ll6 Similarly, the
Secretaryof the Scissors'GrindersUIiion observedthat "half the
men in Sheffieldkept Saint Mondayby their own folly". It was
only as an afterthoughtthat he did justiceto the situation:"those
peoplewho keep Saint Mondaywe must not put them all down as
gettingdrunk. I takeit for grantedthat some of them aregoingout
of town . . . tripping. . . Sheffieldersare noted for going to other
places on Monday''.l17 In I853) it was an unnoticedirony that
excursionswerethe chosenmeansof the BirminghamSaturdayHalf-
holidayCommitteein theireffortsto providesuitableactivitiesto fill
the new leisure.ll8
V
The tenorof middleclassopinionwasexpressedby the commentof
Aris'sGazettethat " 'St. Monday'is not an institutionwhichmeets
with our general approval''.1ls Saint Monday posed a cultural
problemwhich went to the heart of the ruling order. A London
llaAlan Fox, "Industrial Relations in Nineteenth-Century Birmingham",
OxfordEconomicPapers,new ser., vii (I955), pp. 63 andpassim.
114 Cf. MorningChronicle,7 Oct. I850; Birmingham MorningNews, I7 July
I87I.
Cf. "An Old Potter" cited in Thompson, "Time, Work-Disciplineand
116
IndustrialCapitalism",p. 75, and W. Hamish Praser, TradeUnionsand Society.
The Struggle for Acceptance 18f O-I880 (London, I974), pp. 208-25, esp.
pp. 2I4-6.
116 [T.
Tright], SomeHabitsand Customsof the WorkingClassesby a3rotlrney-
manEngineer(London, I867), pp. I08-30.
7 Report. . . into . . . Factoryand Workshop 24cts,QQ. I2,I44-6, also I2,08I.
118 B.3t., 25 June I853. Also see Reportfrom the Select Committeeon Pablic
Houses,P.P., I854 [367], XiV, Q. 26I: "Mondaywas the day on which working
men went to . . . [HamptonCourt] Palace", and cf. QQ. 8I5-6, 3,II7.
1 19 A.B. ., 4 Apr. I863*
 THE DECLINE OP SAINT MONDAY I 766- I 876
99
journalist acknowledgedthat the opening of the Edgbaston Botanical
Gardens on Mondays fulfilled a crying need, but, nonetheless, it
encourages the working classes in the bad habit of keeping "Saint
Monday".... They are already well enough disposed to do so, and to
waste a day that should be devoted to honest labour. They need no fUrther
inducementof this or any other kind.l20
The ideology of 'Chonestlabour", of the "rational" use of time, of
moral conformity to the steam engine's constant regularity had no
intellectual opponent at this time. Knowledge of the agreeable and
harmlessacovities which had replaced most of the brutality and much
of the drinking was repressed, even by radical working men. A gulf
was opened up between Saint Monday and their profferedalternative
- <'rational amusements". In I846 they sponsored threepenny
Saturday-eveningmiscellaneous concerts at the PeopleXsHall, which
failed to attract support. The disappointed reformers diagnosed the
cause to be that "the working classes did not appreciate even such
a cheap and rational amusement as that". They could not conceive
Saint Monday as an admissible alternative. "Rational amusements"
were seen to be morally superior, partly because they refreshed the
mind vis-a-vis sensual pleasure, partly because they accordedwith the
perceived dominant economic and social directions. They con-
trasted with the non-intellectuality of the pub; they were in the
cultural forms approved by the leaders of "Culture". Since the
application of power represented progress and moral improvement
was also progress, amusements which were an adjunct to both were
especially desirable to reformers whose "great object" was "the
educational, moral and political improvement of the people''.l2l
The idealism embodied in the concept of "improvement" and its
counterpart"progress"incorporatedbut transcended the ideology of
the rational use of time.l22
By I853 the Saturdayhalf-holidaymovement was alreadybeginning
to affect the pattern of mass leisure. In I840 and I84I there were
20 Mornig Chronicle,I4 OCt. I8S?@
121 B.3t., 28 Mar. I846. Temperanceopinion, per se, must have helped to
erode Saint Mondayby strikingat the main traditionalcustom of observance;a
processapparentlyexemplifiedin the observationof "anintelligentjourneyman"
in the cabinet brassfoundrytrade that: "if one of the workmenabsents himself
from work for drunkenness,he returnsto the manufactoryamidst the ridicule
and hootings of his comrades"(MorningChronicle,6 Jan. I85I). However,this
quotation deserves to be viewed sceptically (pace Harrison, Drink and the
Victorians,p. 305) as it is by no means unlikely that the reporterwent to the
establishment of J. Bourn the most prominent Cabinet Brassfounderin
Birmingham as an earlierinvestigatorhad done, who had been told: "Has
always been very carefulin preventingdrunkennessand encouragingregularity
of conduct and work. As the workpeopleknow his feelings on these subjects
they conform to his wishes" (C.E.C., Second Report, I843, p. fI44). For
Bourn as Birmingham's High Bailiff encouraging Temperance, see B..T.,
29 Mar. I845. For brasscasting,see above, notes 79 and 86.
122 On "progress", see J. F. C. Harrison, Learningand Living I790-I960
(London, I96I5, pp. 39-40, 75; Fraser, TradeUnionsand Society,pp. 55 ff.
 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 7 I
IOO
only nine Saturday performancesat the
Birmingham Theatre Royal,
but in October I853 a theatre Saturday was
said to be "the com-
mercially busiest night of the week".123 Two major
yet to be passed before the main recreational landmarkswere
accent
Satllrday. The I867 Factery Act brought Birmingham shifted to
the textile districts by insiituting a mandatory into line with
Saturday half-holiday
for women; by I876 "the bulk of . . . factories
under the I867 Act"
"especially those where women are employed"
2 00 p.m. on Saturdays l24 The
closed at X oo or
second stage was the great wave of
reductionsin workinghours achievedby the "Nine Hours
of the prosperous years I87I-2.125 The Movement"
Newcastle engineers' strike
of I87I assumed the nature of a test case, and,
following its success,
employersthroughoutthe countryreactedsimilarlyto the
Tangye Brothers: "when whirlwindswere about, it Birmingham
was better to ride
and directthem, than to be overwhelmedby them".
hourweekwasgrantedvirtuallybefore the men had a
12 6 The fifty-four
acampaign;and this patternof concession was chance to organize
followed in other major
trades, such as guns, tin-plate, railway rolling-stock,
and screws.127
Sincea I*00 p.m. Saturdayfinish was an integral
part of the fifty-four
hourweek, the reductions in hours were significant
in confirmingand
extendingthe Saturdayhalf-holiday in those trades
I867 Act) with a preponderance of
(by-passed by the
male workers. Thus for most
large groups of industrial workers (but not
bakery or railway
workersl28)the process begun in I853 was complete.
By I873, "It
[was]. . . needless to say that on Saturday nights
the 'gallery geds'
musterin strong force at the theatres",l29and the
ground had been
preparedfor the growth of Association Football.l30
Clearly, these trends detracted from the vigour of
Atthe Birmingham Botanical Gardens between Saint Monday.
I 854 and I 857 the
annualaverage of Monday attendances was 40,450;
by I869-73 the
averagewas down to 20,600 (and much of the latter
12S B.3t., 29 OCt. I853
was composed of
124 Report. . . into . . . Factory and WorkshopActs,
P.P., I876 (C.
XX1X,p. 59. I443),
126 G. D. H. Cole and A. W.
Filson, British WorkingClass Moventents.
SelectDocumentsI789-I875 (London, I967)n pp. 597-9;
forshorter hours", pp. 395-6; I3ienefeld, Hodgson, "Movements
pp.Io6-8* E. Allen, J. E. Clarke,N. Working Hours in British Industry
McCord and D. J. Rowe, TheNorth-East
Engineers' Strikesof I87I (Newcastle upon Tyne, I97I).
26 Tane, Rise of a GreatIndustry,pp.
II0-2.
127 See BirminghamDaily Post, 5
sympathetic Aug.-I6 Dec. I87I, and, for very
coverage,national as well as local, George Dawson's
Morning News, 5 Aug.-I8 Nov. I87I. Also the retrospectivesurveyBirmingham
in Boardof
Trade,Reporton Trades(Hoursof Work),P.P., I890 (375), lXviii) pp. 24, 29-30,
32-4543-
l29BirminghamDaily Post, I7 Feb. I873- cf. [NRright], 128 Ibid, pp. 7, 46-7-
Customs of the WorkingClasses,pp. I84-203. Some Habits and
130 D. D. Molyneux,"The
developmentof physicalrecreationin the Birming-
ham district, I87I-92" (Univ. of BirminghamM.A. thesis, I957), pp. 26-30,
39-43.Cf. JamesWalvin, ThePeople's Game(London, I975), pp. 52 ff.
 THE DECLINE OF SAINT MONDAY I 766-I 876 IOI
attendanceson one or two particularMondays-the precursorsof the
I87I Bank Holidays).13l Nor had the workshops escaped the
legislative broom, for the I867 Workshops Act instituted a Saturday
half-holidayfor their juvenile workersand restrictedtheir daily labour
to six and a half hours.132 In the I860S there had been fifteen to
sixteen thousand chlildrenand young persons employed in Birming-
ham, and when, eventually, their labour was curtailed piece-workers
were deprived of the young helpers whose labour if mechanical-
was often esse1ltial.l33 It therefore became too expensive to take
Monday off if the work could not be made up at the end of the week.
Aleanwhile, in many of Bir^mingham's"large concerns" work-
discipline seemed to be evolving into "a sort of military discipline"
wielded by a type of elmployer"hardnproud, fond of power, and a
tyrant".134 That the I876 Factory and Workshop Commission
noticed the custom only once sigllifies something of the impact of these
developments on Saint l9tonday.l35 Only its thost lingered on.l36
It may be coIlcluded that the eradicationof Saint Monday did real
harm to the actual and potential quality of working-classlife. Half a
day was given in exchange ir a whole one; in submitting to the norms
of industrialcapitalismthe notion of a properbalancebetween workand
leisure was lost. But to the half-holidaycampaignersin Birmingham
TowIl Hall in I853 there was no question that they were right.
Whether through idealism or interest, or an imponderable mixture,
There were presentthat evening employersand employed,mastersand work-
men, Ministers and peopIe, those who had obtained and those who had
grantedthe holiday,all rejoicingtogetherin the possessionof a mutualbenefit
and the watchwordof that assemblywas ''progress''.l37
131 The f.gures have been rounded-offto the nearest fifty, and are compiled
from the Snnual Reportsof the BirminghamBotanicaland HorticulturalSociety.
132 Report. . into . . . Factory and WorkshopActs, P.P., I876 [G I443],
XXiX, pp. Xli-Xlli.
133 C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,pp. 52-3; cf. Allen, IndustrialDevelopmentof
Birminghamand theBlack Cotmtry,pp. I76-7, 206-8, on the numbersof working
children after I870.
134 Birmingham MorningNews, I4 Aug. I87I, and cf. I6 Aug. I87I.
135 Report. . . into . . . Factoryand Workshop
Acts, P.P., I876 [C. I3-I],
pt. ii, Q. 5I52; cf. Hodgson, "Movementsfor shorterhours", pp. 45, 349-50.
l36Rousiers, The Labour Questionin Britain, p. 6. For recalcitranceof
workers who had been disciplined out of "playing away" but not out of
unpunctuality,see C.E.C., I862, ThirdReport,pp. II0, II6, I26, I30; "Rules
for workmen in the employment of J. Wright and Sons, Saltley Works"
C. I880, typescriptin BirminghamRef. Lib. In I907 an advocatefor the brass
trade employerstried to establishthat "short time" was made on Mondaysfor
football: [Boardof Trade], Brass Trades=4rbitration,I907 (n.p., I907), pp. 43,
49-52. Since the tail-end of the custom was intertwined with drink, the
Iicensing restrictions of the First World War probablyreduced any survivals
even further:see ArthurMarwick,TheDeluge(Harmondsworth,I967), pp. 68-9
7I. The full Saturdayholiday or the five day week was achievedgenerally
only in the I930S: see The Times,3 Dec. I936.
197X.B,G., I5 June I853: speech of Henry Wright, rolling-stockmanu-
facturer.
Universityof Birmi7agham Douglas A. Reid