In 1775, after a trip to Scotland, Dr Johnson wrote, ‘The true state of every nation is the state of common life…The great mass of nations is neither rich nor gay: they whose aggregate constitutes the people, are found in the streets, and the villages, in the shops and farms; and from them collectively considered, must the measure of general prosperity be taken.’1 This seems to be such an unremarkable thought that to us it is scarcely worth saying. But before the nineteenth century it was a radical idea that prosperity, much less the true state of the nation, could be assessed by measuring the quantity and quality of the possessions of the nation’s inhabitants. The idea of a quantifiable ‘standard of living’ was as yet in embryo. By the time of the first ever World’s Fair, the Great Exhibition, held in London only seventy-six years later, the idea that one’s quality of life could be judged by the number of things one owned or consumed had come to be seen as natural: the consumer society had been born.
One of the ways of measuring the standard of living was by measuring possessions, but possessions did not necessarily have to be expensive or exclusive in order to be valuable to their owners. Dr Johnson’s equation of the state of the nation with the state of common life and the ‘measure of general prosperity’ came towards the start of the era of innovation which today we refer to as the Industrial Revolution, an era that finished towards the end of the nineteenth century, just as the phrase ‘standard of living’ came into general use. The Industrial Revolution calls to mind images of raw power, of steam engines, of coal and iron. But the first, and for much of the next century the most lucrative and technologically advanced, industry spawned by what we know as that revolution was the manufacturing of textiles—all that iron and steel, to create fashionable fabrics, pretty ribbons, lace and other fripperies that could in many cases be bought for a few pennies.
The Industrial Revolution saw not only the transformation of independent workshops into mammoth factories; it also saw the transformation of small shops into magnificent department stores. The period was one of increased buying and selling generally, and more particularly an increase in the quantity and quality of shops. The expansion of these new stores was frequently driven by new entrepreneurs, who generated previously unimaginable ways to stock them with new goods, new ways of displaying goods—plate-glass windows, gas lighting—and new ways of selling goods—money-back guarantees, advertising, discounts. By the end of the nineteenth century the Crown Princess of Greece was writing to her mother, ‘We spent I don’t know how many hours at Maple & Liberty! I screamed at the things to Tino’s horror, but they were too lovely! No, these shops I go mad in them! I would be ruined if I lived here longer!—Divine shops!!’2 Not only were there ‘divine shops’, but new technologies in transport, from stagecoaches to canals to railways, brought the novelty of newspapers to tens of thousands more people, who could now read about what was available and what could be bought, encouraging them to acquire—or hope to acquire—more and more things.
But what the Industrial Revolution, and the new technologies that both drove it and were driven by it, produced was not just things—it was choice. Many items that had been undreamt of luxuries to the grandparents, or even the parents, of the children of the Industrial Revolution became conveniences; less than a generation later they were no longer even conveniences: they had become necessities. Living without sugar, without tea, without cotton, glass or cutlery became unimaginable to much of Britain’s population. Over the course of the nineteenth century, mass production of goods, improved distribution of those goods by new and faster forms of transport, promotion by advertising in newspapers and magazines, and new methods of retailing all combined to produce a seemingly endless stream of things that could be acquired by the consumer. It was not expensive rarities that created the new middleclass world of plenty and ease: it was the small comforts of hot, sweet drinks, or cheap and cheerful clothes—perhaps ultimately better symbols of the new world than all the machinery and technical ingenuity that made these items possible. As Gibbon noted in 1781, ‘The plenty of glass and linen has diffused more real comforts among the modern nations of Europe, than the senators of Rome could derive from all the refinements of pompous or sensual luxury.’3
But the consumer revolution was not only a matter of things. Commercial entertainment—the selling of leisure and pleasure—was also now accessible to the masses, creating myriad business opportunities. Theatre, opera, music-making; pleasure gardens and fairs; newspapers, magazines, books; holidays and tourism, seaside outings and excursion travel; spectator sports such as racing and football—in the nineteenth century these became available to many, who could increasingly afford to pay for their entertainment. No longer was the pub or the annual or monthly fair the prime venue for leisure. The age of mass entertainment had arrived, and the unruly crowd—avidly, enthusiastically—had become eager customers.
In Consuming Passions I have chosen to look not at the contents of the world of leisure, but at the containers: not at the literary merits (or otherwise) of books, newspapers and magazines, but at the availability of reading material; not at the subject matter of plays, but at staging and the technological development of theatrical presentation—at lighting, special effects and spectacle; at football and racing not as sporting competitions, but as paying spectator events.
Of course commercial leisure has always existed, in some form or another, but the masses previously had minimal access to much of it. The Industrial Revolution is often represented as having created a new world of commerce and commercialism; of factory routine, endless grind, and dark, Satanic mills. It did that. But it also brought colour, light and entertainment. This new world is the one I want to visit.
1 From Arcadia to Arcade:The Great Exhibition
THE 1ST OF MAY 1851. Prince Albert is on the dais, welcoming the throng to the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. Joseph Paxton’s extraordinary Crystal Palace, as it has swiftly been nicknamed, throws off sparks of light in the bright sunshine. The choir sings the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ from the Messiah. It seems that all the doubt, turmoil and trouble of the previous decades has at last been overcome: machinery, technology and science are in the ascendant, and will set the world free. Britain, the world’s first industrial society, will lead the way into a glorious future, which can be seen, all mapped out, in the courts and aisles of the Crystal Palace.
The building itself is a triumph of technology: Paxton’s great innovation has been to design perhaps the world’s first—and definitely the world’s largest—prefabricated building, using in his cast-iron and glass structure principles previously applied only to engineering projects. The Crystal Palace, deep in Hyde Park, is a cathedral to the glories of industry, in which power and steam are deified: a twenty-four-ton lump of coal greets visitors at the entrance, a precursor to the steam engines, hydraulicpowered machinery, locomotives, looms, spinning machines, steam hammers and more inside.
Earlier that year The Times had reported a speech given by the Prince, in which he had held out an enticing vision of the future: ‘The distances which separated the different nations and parts of the globe are rapidly vanishing before the achievements of modern invention…The products of all quarters of the globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is the best and the cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of production are intrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital.’1 Others had less exalted ideas. Albert and his supporters and encouragers were concerned with the benefits, both moral and industrial, that were to be found in commercial endeavour, but, in the brave new world of free trade and capitalism, many more were content simply to enjoy, or profit from, the results of those endeavours. The Great Exhibition gave many their first taste of the mass market, a thrilling peek into a future of plenty and consumption. For the Great Exhibition brought with it more than merely machinery. It brought things—tens of thousands of things, things piled high in the aisles of the Crystal Palace; things representing the hundreds of