The time between starting work and getting married was seen and remembered as one of the most prosperous stages of life for the working classes. Youth was marked by a degree of personal independence, and over the course of the nineteenth century the parameters defining it became much clearer. This chapter examines the lifestyles of young working people from the very first stirrings of a distinct youth culture in the 1870s through to the increasingly conspicuous consumption of the interwar years, exploring the role and importance of work, leisure and courtship in young people's lives. Rowntree highlighted the affluence of young workers in his second social survey of York, and oral history respondents and autobiographers recalled their increased spending money and improved leisure opportunities after starting work but before the responsibilities of a family.¹ Relative freedom allowed young people to take advantage of leisure opportunities, but material, moral and gender constraints were also central in shaping their experiences. Young workers could enjoy considerable freedom in their social interactions with one another, and for those with the time and money to spare, commercial leisure activities became increasingly available. Others could take advantage of the free street-based leisure that formed the basis of much social activity, congregating in the streets or parading in front of those of the opposite sex, and communal leisure remained central to the leisure lives of young men and women.

Work defined the lives and experiences of the majority of young people in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. For both men and women, paid work outside the home was an important marker, distinguishing youth from childhood. The vast majority of working-class autobiographers had something to say about their introduction to the labour market, and the same can also be said of almost all of the oral history respondents consulted for this study.⁴ Throughout the period, work – whether paid work outside of the home, or unpaid work to help within the domestic sphere – was seen as more important than education to the majority of working-class families. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, working-class children were often expected to contribute to the family economy from a very young age – indeed, their contribution during the period of industrialisation has been seen as essential to economic growth and industrial expansion.⁵ The child labour market was highly localised, though agricultural labour, small-scale manufacturing and domestic work were the most common forms of employment for children and adolescents in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Factory employment, however, became relatively more important over time, as did service sector jobs.⁶ Industrialisation increased the numbers of children and adolescents in the labour market and they also became more visible, with contemporary reformers particularly focused on the dangers for children employed in mining and factory work. The process of industrialisation certainly gave rise to exploitative practices, but it also stimulated protective measures designed to target the worst excesses.⁷ Protective legislation, including the Factory Acts of 1833, 1847 and 1850, not only regulated hours and time of work, they also established distinctions between younger children and adolescents. The 1878 Factory and Workshop Act ruled that children should not be employed or allowed to attend half-time under the age of ten, and that between the ages of ten and fourteen, employment should be conditional upon satisfactory school attendance and educational achievement. The Factory Act of 1891 increased the minimum age from ten to eleven. Although the reforms were piecemeal and, and times, difficult to enforce, children and adolescents working in the 1870s certainly experienced shorter working hours than those earlier in the century, and they generally started work later. In 1871, almost a third of boys between the ages of ten and fourteen worked full time, as did about a fifth of girls of the same age. By 1901, even older children who worked full time were a minority, and most working-class children attended school until the age of twelve.⁸ However, the employment of school-age children was permitted until 1918, and, as Jane Humphries has noted, child employment figures remained on the census until 1931.⁹