Time Use and Gender in England, 1700-1850

Abstract

This thesis provides a study of all aspects of time use in England for the period 1700-1850. It uses a version of the verb-oriented method, in which a dataset of specific activities and details of the people performing them is constructed from historical sources, in this case depositions from criminal and coroners’ investigations. This approach has previously been used to study work; the innovation here is to use it for a general study of time use. As such, one of the major contributions of this thesis is to show that it is possible to construct a full time use study for a period where direct information on the subject is not available. Contributions are also made to several major historical debates, mostly relating to the relationship between work and leisure. It is shown that women’s work was important across the economy in this period, contrary to the argument made by many historians that it was in decline. The transition to the breadwinner-homemaker family that would later become dominant was underway but was not complete by 1850. This thesis also argues that working hours did not increase in this period, a key difference from existing arguments which have cited increased working hours as a key cause of economic change. The third major argument is that leisure changed little for the majority of the population in this period, where previous narratives have suggested that popular culture was either in decline or being taken over by new commercial forms of leisure. Chapter one describes the methodology in more detail, before chapters two and three both focus on work but take different approaches to the material, two focusing on the division of labour by gender and other characteristics, and three considering the relative scale of different kinds of work and the relationship between work and occupations. Chapter four examines the evidence on leisure, before chapters five and six analyse time use, five focusing on daily and six on weekly and yearly time use.