The development of working men’s clubs: a case study of implicit cultural policy

Abstract

This article examines working men’s clubs (WMCs) in Britain as agents of implicit cultural policy. Several key themes prominent in the early years of WMCs are highlighted, including the drink question, patronage and related notions of respectability, and the struggle to find an acceptable balance between social, educational and entertainment roles. It is argued that WMCs played a significant role in culture‐shaping activities, with the specific intention of changing the leisure habits of the working classes. It is argued that an account of both the development of these activities and of the resistances to them represents an important but neglected element of cultural policy history.

Keywords:

• working men’s clubs
• implicit cultural policy
• recreation
• resistance

Notes

1. The acronym WMC is used not only as an abbreviation for working men’s clubs but also as a generic term for different types of social clubs that catered largely for working‐class men and their families. Not all WMCs have this in their title, some are called ‘Club and Institute’, whilst others have a stated political affiliation, for example, Liberal or Radical Club or the name of an industry, such as The Railwaymen’s, Coachmakers and Gasfitters Club (Coventry Times 2008a). In more recent years, many have been renamed Sports and Social clubs with a tendency to drop the ‘working men’s’ part in an attempt to appear as more inclusive and contemporary. Clubs in their heyday, in the early 1970s, would be regularly full, especially at weekends. Some had several thousand members on their books with waiting lists to join. In recent years, overall membership has been falling rapidly with members going and spending less in their clubs, contributing to the closure of many. 4033 clubs were affiliated to the CIU in 1974 with more than six million members (Club Members Diary 2007, p. 7). The figure stood at 2491 clubs with 3.5 million members at the end of 2007 (Good Club Companion 2008, p. 11).

2. The Working Men’s Club and Institute Union (WMCIU) is often referred to simply as the CIU or ‘the Union’. The CIU is the chosen form in this article. There have been frequent debates amongst officials and members over the years about dropping the ‘working men’ part but it remains in the full title of the organisation today (www.wmciu.org.uk). I am grateful to Oliver Bennett for encouraging me to pursue the notion of WMCs acting as agents of cultural policy and not only being on the receiving of it.

3. A blanket smoking ban came into effect in England and Wales on 1 July 2007 in line with European initiatives. There have been arguments against such measures, including from the CIU, which had expected the clubs to be exempt from the ban because of their private member status, though they were included at the last minute. It is too early to draw conclusions about the overall results of the ban but they probably go beyond effects on health. According to the anti‐smoking campaign Freedom2Choose, 2404 pubs, 81 WMCs and 81 bingo halls have closed since the smoking ban was introduced (www.freedom2choose.info). Whilst other factors are certainly involved, the smoking issue can be seen as contributory factor which is certainly supported by interview data.

4. Similar activities could be found in the Viennese coffee houses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century such as dominoes, billiards and cards, with some also providing music and other entertainment for the mainly male clientele. See Vienna Café Exhibition (www.viennacafe.rca.ac.uk).

5. The author is currently preparing a book on WMCs which includes further discussion on class, gender and ethnicity.

6. Taylor writes that, ‘Solly was successful in coaxing donations from no fewer than eleven Dukes as well as from the Prince of Wales and others of that ilk’ (1972, p. 2).

7. A fully paid‐up member of one CIU club could purchase an associate or pass card, which entitled them to be signed into and use other CIU clubs. This facilitated CIU‐organised competitions and games when men had to play at other clubs. Committee members and other officials also had to visit and attend functions in different clubs across the country. It promoted to some extent a form of CIU club ‘tourism’, with men organising trips on the basis of which local clubs they could call into. Until April 2007, women were not allowed this privilege.

8. Detailed accounts of the poor living conditions of many working‐class people can be found from Dickens to Engels, Mayhew to Orwell to cite a few. For some more recent reflections on the documentation of these conditions see McGrath (2003) and Collins (2004).

9. According to Price (1971), the crucial movers in this ‘revolution’ were the London Delegate Council, formed in 1870 as the ‘democratic but nevertheless powerless’ representative body of London clubs. Providing an example of those clubmen who argued in favour of reform to enable clubs to be independent, one representative from the Borough of Hackney Club argued that ‘it was better to have no club that one founded on patronage’ (p. 134).