Note this lecture is on 5 January not the 4th as in the recent email.
A Panorama of Victorian Leisure from the Parlour to the Seaside, via the Nursery.Even though ‘work’ was the bedrock of Victorian progress and improvement, Queen Victoria’s reign saw the greatest upsurge in leisure pursuits ever witnessed. People earned more money and worked shorter hours than ever before and with the birth of the Railways and a desire to be health conscious it was a golden age for the art of entertaining oneself and being an amateur in the true sense of the word. This talk celebrates a pre-television age when the ability to amuse and entertain was paramount.