Shrewsbury's 50-year campaign on shop hours

A campaign started in Shrewsbury 151 years ago today had a major impact on shop workers throughout the UK.

The appeal for shops to close at lunchtime on Thursday with a paid half-day holiday began with a letter to the Salopian Journal on November 7, 1860, asking the “ladies of Shropshire” to use their influence to obtain early closing when the Volunteer Corps drilled.

The Volunteer force had been raised in 1859 when it was feared the French might invade England.

During the next two years, 18 volunteer rifle corps was formed in Shropshire. Two of them, the 1^st Corps and the 17^th, had headquarters in Shrewsbury and later became the 1^st and 2^nd Shropshire Volunteer Battalions of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry.

The list for the 1^st Shropshire Volunteer Corps had 130 names, including 29 railway company clerks, workers from the Post Office, banks and the Inland Revenue, 14 solicitors, a barrister, five engineers, four gentlemen, two bankers, two school teachers, a dentist, a farm and the railway superintendent – but not one shop worker.

Numbers had increased rapidly in 1860 throughout Britain with 70,000 volunteers by February that year, and 200,000 by November.

Patriotism and the chance to wear a uniform were two of the attractions to encourage the volunteers to join up, but the main one was the social side of joining the Corps with bazaars, dinners, fetes, an annual camp in July, a ball in February and a county rifle competition at Hawkstone Park, pictured below.

Up to 30,000 travelled on special trains to Wem for the first shooting contest held on June 28, 1861, at which Lord Hill, the Lord Lieutenant of the county, paid out of his own pocket for the food and drink for the 1,200 volunteers.

Newspaper reports said the tables groaned under the weight of the huge joints of meat and the volunteers were able to help themselves to as much Hawkstone ale as they wanted, while picnics of  pigeon pies and pasties, lobster salad, sherry and champagne were held all over the park.

It was probably fortunate the shooting contest began at 12 noon before the ale was served.

Following the letter action followed and a meeting of young men to draft a circular to be sent to ladies in Shrewsbury led to the forming of the Half-Holiday Association, supposedly the first of its kind outside London.

In early December 1860, the Half-Holiday Association announced that they were holding a meeting on Thursday, January 10, in the Lion Assembly Room.

The Mayor and Corporation appealed to shop owners to allow their employees time off on Thursdays to drill with the volunteers, the clergy urged employers to meet before the date of the meeting.

However, not everyone agreed. The Vicar of Holy Trinity, Shrewsbury, the Rev Colley, spoke against early closing from his pulpit, fearing that the young would misuse the free time and that “temptations to evil were furnished by additional hours of leisure.”

In 1862, the government announced that no more volunteer companies were to be formed, which suggested recruitment was no longer a problem.

By 1880, company drill for volunteers in Shrewsbury now took place at 7.30pm with recruits being given uniforms after 30 drills and soon the Volunteers had no connection to the Half-Holiday Movement.

In 1886, the Shop Hours Regulation Act limited the number of hours for under 18 year olds to 74 hours per week, but some shop assistants were still working 12 to 16 hours a day.

However, it was not until 1911 that legislation finally guaranteed a half-holiday beginning at 1pm – 50 years after the campaign was launched in Shrewsbury at The Lion Hotel on January 10, 1861.

There’s more about this campaign in Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel. To buy a signed coped for £6 including postage email John@jbutterworth.plus.com