Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/Working men's clubs
WORKING MEN’S CLUBS.
The aristocracy and gentlemen of England are no longer to hold a monopoly in that hitherto unique institution—a West End Club. For the future, the working man is to enjoy this luxury: he is to share with the nobleman, the prelate, the officer, and the professional, his own well-arranged, well-ventilated, comfortable house of call. Everywhere, throughout the kingdom, establishments are being formed, self-supporting, where the members can retire at any hour of the day to rest, to read, or to refresh the inner man. They may assume various names, such as Working Men’s Club and Institute, Working Men’s Club and Reading Rooms, Workmen’s Hall, Working Men’s Mutual Improvement and Recreation Society, or the Village Club; but they are all founded with the same object, and are animated by the same spirit.
The success which they have already met with demonstrates unmistakably how necessary and useful they are. They satisfy a want which years ago it was thought would have been supplied by the Mechanics’ Institute. They provide for the physical and intellectual requirements of the industrial classes, and, if properly conducted, extended, and developed, will contribute most materially to the moral and mental improvement of the toiling, moiling masses.
Let us watch the working of two or three. In 1858, the Saint Matthias Working Men’s Club was established at Salford. Two large cottages, well lighted, warmed, and ventilated, were thrown into one, and made to present, as far as possible, the features of home. The speedy growth of the club, however, necessitated a larger tenement; and a club-house, at a cost of 1000l., has been erected in Silk Street. This new building contains rooms for conversation, amusements, committee meetings, and school purposes, as well as a library, well stocked with works of history, travel, and popular science, a lavatory, and a news-room. The club, although founded and conducted by the clergy and congregation of Saint Matthias, is established upon the broadest basis of self-government, being open both in management and membership to all working men. One half of the committee consists of artisans. The weekly subscription is one penny. Social meetings are held on Monday evenings, when refreshments—intoxicating liquors excepted—are provided. Conversation is encouraged, whilst the exhibition of illustrated works and engravings, or chess-matches, serve to attract the attention, and gently stimulate the mental faculties of the subscribers. The subjects chosen for lectures and conversational discussion are usually of a stirring nature. Social and political questions are particularly brought forward, as tending specially to interest the members. Every one is invited to express his opinion freely.
At Southampton, no less than three Workmen’s Halls have been opened within the past year or so. Its members, we are glad to say, include not a few seafaring men. The management is in the hands of one central, and three executive committees—the latter being working men, elected half-yearly, by the members. The Halls are open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, from six to ten o’clock in the evening, and from two to nine on Sundays. Refreshments are supplied at a low fixed rate, and smoking is allowed, though intoxicating drinks are excluded. A large number of publications, five daily and nine weekly London and provincial newspapers, and sixteen monthly and weekly periodicals are placed on the tables, whilst provision is made for fourteen games in the halls and skittle-grounds. There are class-rooms and places for letter-writing. Public readings, recitations, and singing take place every Wednesday, when the members take their wives and families, whilst a trade register is kept for the benefit of persons seeking employment. This last is a great boon, and tends to destroy the infamous and demoralising public-house system. The subscription is one penny per week, but a single payment secures admission to either of the three halls.
Perhaps the oldest club of the kind is the Stormant House Working Men’s Association, established in 1853, at Notting Hill. Its rooms are open every evening; and, besides weekly lectures and concerts, there are classes for elementary instruction; a reading room, well supplied with newspapers and periodicals; and a library of 400 volumes. Refreshments may be had by members; intoxicating drinks, however, as well as smoking—committees indeed appear to set their faces steadily against intoxicating liquors—are altogether prohibited. This association differs from the others we have mentioned, in being formed on a strictly religious basis. There is, indeed, no actual test of membership, but care is taken that the instruction imparted shall be in entire accordance with, and shall imply the acceptance of, the truths of Christianity. To preserve this principle from being infringed, the trustees reserve to themselves the power of vetoing the resolutions that may be passed, either by the committee or the members. This regulation has had a decidedly blighting effect upon the institution; for whereas the others have flourished, and continue to flourish, the Stormant House Association has exhibited great fluctuations during its career.
Seeing the good these institutions are likely to achieve, and the avidity with which they are welcomed, it is gratifying to know that nearly every county in England and Wales enjoys one or more of them. It is to be hoped moreover that the time is not far distant when every city, town, and village will be able to boast of its Working Men’s Club, or Workmen’s Hall. In the metropolis they will be found especially useful, not only as rivals of the gin-palace and beer-shop, but as places where the members may obtain real rest and real recreation, stimulating the mental faculties, while refreshing the physical energies. Already much has been done in London in this excellent work. The Tower Hamlets possesses four clubs: there is the Albert Institution in Southwark; a Workman’s Institute in Wellclose Square; a second in Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn; a third in the Kensington Potteries a fourth in Duck Lane, Westminster; and a fifth in Clare Market. We are not certain that we have enumerated all, but we have enumerated enough to show that the promoters of these admirable institutions are labouring with zeal and energy, and that their labour is being not unattended with success. It is a curious circumstance, and one that should be recorded in letters of gold, as it redounds to the credit of the fair sex, that most of these clubs owe their origin to the sympathetic exertions of ladies. By their benevolent and enterprising efforts, the Working Men’s Halls of Southampton, as well as the clubs at Notting Hill, Westminster, and Portugal Street, have been founded. It is to this female influence, felt rather than seen—we are proud to say—that these institutions owe so much of their quiet comfort and orderly arrangement.
The aim and purpose of the founders of these clubs, it is scarcely necessary to observe, is to aid the working classes towards obtaining the benefits of “social life.” By social life is meant pleasant company. But not this merely. Pleasant, agreeable company may, perhaps, be obtained in the parlours of taverns. There is abundance of company in a billiard-room or a bowling-alley. The Frenchman finds agreeable company in his cabarets; the Italian in his trattoria; the Turk in his café. This, however, is not the social life it is intended to introduce the working classes to. By social life in this sense is meant “the feelings, the habits, and all the various forms of activity appropriate to the whole class of working men, or at least of all those who have realised their actual position of living together as fellow workers, as neighbours, as citizens, and as men.” The object is to make these clubs and institutes something more than mere places where men can come to get a little amusement, a little instruction, a cup of coffee or a pleasant chat. Although these things are not overlooked, although they form a principal feature, more is added to them. They are intended to furnish, besides this, something better—something that appeals to feelings higher than the gratification of simply selfish instincts. “They must be societies,” says one of their warmest advocates, “the members of which should be led to feel an interest in one another’s well-being, as well as a desire to promote the common good; there is no fear of the sociability of the club-room being spoiled by the studies of the class-room; the two are supplementary the one to the other,—the one inspires the general social sentiments, the other is the best guarantee for substantial knowledge, steady habits, personal effort, and a sense of duty,—conditions without which any mere sentiment evaporates, without which no society can long hold together. The club will be most honoured, most loved, most enjoyed by those who have found an opportunity within its walls alone or together with others to put forth their efforts for the good of all. Thus by various means each must be encouraged to do what he can for the general success of the enterprise, and for the individual comfort and welfare of his brother members. In proportion as this corporate brotherly spirit is evoked and cherished the club will not only be securing the best chance of permanence, but will be sure to do far greater good while it lasts than could have been effected by the most lavish expenditure of money or by any accumulation of mere teaching appliances.
Excellent are these principles, and happy the institution based on them. Where the spirit of union thus indicated pervades the whole body, there can be no doubt but these clubs must be productive of the highest good. It is hardly to be expected, however, that so much purity of feeling, so much disinterestedness, so much unalloyed mutual benevolence should be universally found, and if the promoters of these institutions imagine they are to discover them in the majority of the members, they will, we fear, be disappointed. It seems to us they anticipate too much. If they hope to realise a little of what is laid down in the first clause of their programme, they will do well.
It is a trite proverb, and older than the days of Mrs. Glasse, “first catch your hare.” To us it seems that the main object should be to induce men to join. How can this be best effected? Unquestionably by offering the advantages which we have already pointed out; but if the working classes are to be bored with fine sentiments, or the noble aims of these institutions, they are likely rather to retire than come forward. It is well, indeed, that there should be instruction as well as games, that there should be the opportunities of reading as well as of lounging, of study as well as amusement, and that members should take a personal share in the administration of the clubs as well as enjoy their tea and coffee within its walls, but the ultimate drift of these institutions should be carefully veiled, and only the more alluring features put forward, the conditions of membership being as few as possible.
Many vital and interesting questions have, of course, arisen during the formation of these clubs. For instance, are games absolutely necessary, and do they not lead to gambling and quarrelling? Should beer and intoxicating drinks be sold in them? Should smoking be permitted? How is order to be maintained? What class of working men is likely to attend? and other queries of this kind. Games, it is needless to say, are essential to the success of these clubs; working men must have something to do, they will not sit hours together with their hands before them idle and listless; many, for whom the clubs are intended, can only read with difficulty and by spelling out the words slowly; few care to be instructed, whilst most have no fund of conversation. As a rule, beer is sipped simply for the mere pleasure of having something to do. Games, then, are essential; they employ the hand and recreate the mind. It has, however, been found by experience that the working man does not care, unless incited by drink or low companions, to lay stakes upon the play. He enjoys, and he enters into a love game with as much zeal as if money were laid upon the result. There is, however, as we have hinted, one instigator to betting and also to quarrelling, an enemy to order and sobriety, a dangerous comrade at all times, and that is John Barleycorn. For this reason he has been expelled from most of the clubs—if not from all. We are glad, however, that the claims of the “soothing” weed, which has just experienced the clement attentions of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have been recognised. Tobacco in nearly every club is introduced; in fact, without it, we could hardly recognise the idea of the place being a working-man’s club at all.
How is order to be maintained? “Our first bye-law,” writes one of the indefatigable honorary secretaries of the admirable Workman’s Hall, in Southampton, “is, that every man must be his own policeman, and after six months’ experience we have never known this simple law broken. One or two of the executive committee attend every evening to sell tickets, &c., and we have a resident female superintendent at each hall. We exclude political discussion or handbills, and during our present contested election, the members have nobly kept their ground in this respect, however warmly they espoused party politics elsewhere.” To the same correspondent we may refer for an answer to another question. What class of working man generally attends? “On analysing the first 700 men enrolled,” he says, “we found that one fourth, or 172, were labourers, hawkers, porters, &c.; 109 bricklayers, masons, and carpenters, &c.; 103 boiler-makers and smiths, &c.; 61 shoemakers, carriers, &c.; 54 engineers and seamen; 99 painters, mechanics, &c.; 26 tailors; and the remainder shopmen, agents, carriers, &c.”
The outline which we have briefly given will convey a very fair idea of the nature and utility of these Working Men’s Clubs. Gratifying is it to know that they are rapidly extending throughout the kingdom. Whatever tends to draw away the labouring man from the stifling fumes and stupifying liquors of the tap-room must be welcomed universally; and if, having thus withdrawn him, we can introduce him to a better life—a life in which he will find amusement, recreation, and instruction, where he can enjoy the amiable pleasures of society, converse and smoke—we shall have achieved all that can be expected for the present. Had this been the aim of those who originally founded the Mechanics’ Institutes, we should not have witnessed the utter failure of those well-intentioned establishments. However, we learn by experience, and we may regard the Working Men’s Clubs as in a great measure emanating from this other great failure. It may be that we shall have much yet to learn even in the conduct and management of these supplementary institutes, but we believe they are based upon sound principles, that their aims are excellent, and that they constitute a movement in the right direction.