Time for Play: Recreation and Moral Issues in Colonial South Australia

The Eight Hour movement, established in the middle of the 1800s, began the transition for workers from an industrial revolution work ethic to a more balanced approach to the working week. The young colony of South Australia was at the forefront of these changes.

The last four decades of the ninetenth century witnessed a significant growth of leisure hours for South Australians, especially working class males. It was accompanied by an upsurge in both formal and informal recreation activity. This owed much to major advances in communication during the period - in personal transport by road, rail, steamship and, later, the ubiquitous bicycle; to the network of telegraph stations, and to the growth of newspapers and specialist journals. These developments stimulated a demand for recreation activities.

However, not all sections of the South Australian community looked favourably on these developments. Religious and political forces combined to target the new leisure, particularly when it touched on the ‘social evils’ of intemperance, gambling and improper behaviour on Sundays. A further constraint was contemporary attitudes to matters of dress and conduct: these were particularly severe on women.

Time for Play examines these developments in the colony, and shows how they improved the lot of first the working class, and eventually, society as a whole.