Volume 3: Education, Crime and Leisure

The third volume of the Nineteenth Century British Society series has now been published on Amazon.

The book addresses the problems posed by education, crime and leisure to society and the ways in which the state sought to legislate in its search for public order. The two chapters on education consider the periods before and after the passage of Education Act 1870 that, for the first time, established a national system of elementary education. In addition to schooling for the working-classes, education for the middle- and upper-class and girls are examined. There are three chapters that look at crime, punishment and policing. Finally, the ways in which people spent their leisure time is explored and the ways in which the state and voluntary groups sought to ‘control’ what people used their leisure time for is explored. It is divided into six chapters:

1. Literacy and schooling, 1830-1870

2. A state system of education, 1870-1914

3. Crime

4. Punishment

5. Policing

6. Leisure

Further Reading identifies the most valuable books on these subjects while the detailed notes provide a guide for further research.