Sport and Colonialism in 19th Century Australasia - LA84 Foundation

III
Students of British sports history are blessed not only with
many more detailed historical works which provide the background
for their studies, but also with a more developed historical
study of the specific area of leisure and recreation. Major
works by R.W. Malcolmson, Peter Bailey, Hugh Cunningham and
James Walvin, covering the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
offer the student of recreation or sports history a broad context
for their analysis and interpretation. Equally, however,
these works can be used by the student of colonial Australia,
for they provide the means of measurement or evaluation through
comparison. 10
At the time of the New South Wales settlement British society
was beginning its dynamic transformation from a rural, agricultural-based
society to one based on urbanised industrialisation,
in which new notions of morality, industry and progress were to
play important parts. These new notions had a dramatic, if
gradual, effect on popular leisure and recreation, which came
under attack because they were seen as subverting the productivity
and industrial progress of the new society. Prior to the
industrial period leisure was an accepted part of British life,
and gambling was an accepted part of British leisure. Little
distinction was made between work and leisure in a society which
was task oriented, as long as the particular task was done. But
British rural society did devote special attention to leisure in
the form of fairs and feast days, which invariably occupied a
special place in the annual calendar of events for each region.
Apart from their more obvious economic and social functions,
the fairs provided a means of social control. They provided the
populace with an opportunity to let their hair down, or to let
off steam in a controlled environment. They also provided occasions
to look forward to or to reminisce about, thus sustaining
the workforce between events. Football matches, cudgelling
events, or other violent contests, served the purpose of channelling
hostilities into isolated mangeable conflicts. Accord-
ingly, the rural fairs and similar events were sponsored by the
gentry, or the dominant classes, as useful and even necessary
occasions for promoting the well being of the community. 12
7