In June 1951, B. Seebohm Rowntree and G. R. Lavers brought out a book called "English Life and Leisure". Subtitled a social study, it was the result of several years of research. It arose from Rowntree's assertion that British people had inadequate means of recreation. He wanted to carry out a survey as the starting point for improvement.
The section on Village Halls and Women's Institutes reads as follows:
There can be no doubt about the value of a village hall to a village, for in most villages a community spirit still endures even though cheap public transport and the attractions of town life may have weakened it. A village hall is needed for social activities, such as whist drives, dances, housing the travelling cinema, for games and perhaps for amateur dramatics; it is needed for meetings of the many committees in a village, such as those of the cricket club, darts club, thrift club, pig club, and perhaps that responsible for the playing field, if a properly laid out one exists. The hall is needed, too, for meetings of such bodies as the Women's Institute, the Young Farmer's Club, the Scouts and Girl Guides and for the local Cricket Club's Annual Supper, the Children's Christmas Party, or the golden wedding celebration of some popular local couple. Used in ways such as these, and perhaps for a small local youth club, or if a suitable room is available, as a place where adolescents can meet and read or talk, the village hall has a highly important function in what we earlier described as "education for living". It must, however, be remembered that the community sense pre-existed and was not brought into being by the Village Hall....
We have no means of knowing how many village halls there are in England and Wales, but officers of the National Council of Social Service whom we consulted told us that they knew of 500 properly designed and equipped village halls actually in use, and of another 2,800 in various stages of planning that would be built when materials and labour were available. It seems certain that these 3,300 actual or projected village halls are only a minority of the total, for in a great many of the villages an army hut, or sometimes an abandoned Nonconformist chapel has been converted into a village hall. In these converted buildings the standard of accommodation is seldom in any way comparable with that in halls designed as such.
...Women's Institutes hold monthly meetings which are normally divided into three parts:
(i) the business of the Institute is transacted. Proposals are usually keenly discussed and voted upon.
(ii) a talk or demonstration follows on some subject of general or local interest.
(iii) tea is served, and a brief period, usually about half an hour, is devoted to social activities.
Many institutes, in addition to their monthly meetings, organize dramatic or choral societies, and there are sometimes courses of lectures and demonstrations in subjects such as handicrafts, cookery, or household tasks.
In some institutes the members have developed a remarkable interest in educational activities, for example, in one village, where most of the members were the middle-aged wives of agricultural labourers, they selected medieval history as the subject for a course of six lectures."
The section on Village Halls and Women's Institutes reads as follows:
There can be no doubt about the value of a village hall to a village, for in most villages a community spirit still endures even though cheap public transport and the attractions of town life may have weakened it. A village hall is needed for social activities, such as whist drives, dances, housing the travelling cinema, for games and perhaps for amateur dramatics; it is needed for meetings of the many committees in a village, such as those of the cricket club, darts club, thrift club, pig club, and perhaps that responsible for the playing field, if a properly laid out one exists. The hall is needed, too, for meetings of such bodies as the Women's Institute, the Young Farmer's Club, the Scouts and Girl Guides and for the local Cricket Club's Annual Supper, the Children's Christmas Party, or the golden wedding celebration of some popular local couple. Used in ways such as these, and perhaps for a small local youth club, or if a suitable room is available, as a place where adolescents can meet and read or talk, the village hall has a highly important function in what we earlier described as "education for living". It must, however, be remembered that the community sense pre-existed and was not brought into being by the Village Hall....
We have no means of knowing how many village halls there are in England and Wales, but officers of the National Council of Social Service whom we consulted told us that they knew of 500 properly designed and equipped village halls actually in use, and of another 2,800 in various stages of planning that would be built when materials and labour were available. It seems certain that these 3,300 actual or projected village halls are only a minority of the total, for in a great many of the villages an army hut, or sometimes an abandoned Nonconformist chapel has been converted into a village hall. In these converted buildings the standard of accommodation is seldom in any way comparable with that in halls designed as such.
...Women's Institutes hold monthly meetings which are normally divided into three parts:
(i) the business of the Institute is transacted. Proposals are usually keenly discussed and voted upon.
(ii) a talk or demonstration follows on some subject of general or local interest.
(iii) tea is served, and a brief period, usually about half an hour, is devoted to social activities.
Many institutes, in addition to their monthly meetings, organize dramatic or choral societies, and there are sometimes courses of lectures and demonstrations in subjects such as handicrafts, cookery, or household tasks.
In some institutes the members have developed a remarkable interest in educational activities, for example, in one village, where most of the members were the middle-aged wives of agricultural labourers, they selected medieval history as the subject for a course of six lectures."
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| Rowntree at work |
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