MASS OBSERVATION ARCHIVE
Papers from the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex

Part 2: The Worktown Collection, 1937-1940

"There is a momentum of energy, enterprise, and intellectual courage in the movement; there is goodwill behind it, and indeed there is humility too, in its readiness to cooperate with other scientific workers. ... It has advanced towards that combination of simplicity and sincerity with a passion for fact and principle which is the essence of honest research. In the long run I am convinced that it will substantially contribute to greater national self-knowledge."
Bronislaw Malinowski

Mass-Observation can have hoped for no greater accolade for their endeavours than these comments, penned by Malinowski in a review of their first year’s work. But whilst most anthropologists spent their time studying exotic cultures on distant islands or in jungles, Mass-Observation set about a thorough investigation of life in an English industrial town. For the most part this meant a detailed analysis of working-class culture - arguably as foreign to the investigators as the life of Trobriand islanders - but their investigations also paint a detailed picture of middle-class life and of the relationship between different classes and communities in the same town.

The work was partly funded by Victor Gollancz, publisher and founder of the Left Book Club, although only one book was produced for him as a result of the research (The Pub and the People). It followed his commissioning of George Orwell to visit Wigan and other northern towns in 1936 to write a "condition of England" piece which was published in 1937 as The Road to Wigan Pier. Where Orwell was angry, polemical and judgemental, Mass-Observation was dispassionate and analytical and built up a detailed picture of life at every level and in every situation. They observed their subjects at the factory and in the chip shop, on the terraces at a football game and at a bazaar in the church hall, in slum dwellings and in the dance hall, on the pleasure beach and in the unemployment line. Many of the investigators integrated with their subjects, joining in conversations at pubs and working in the mills. Others captured "overheard" comments and recorded everything from election speeches to the graffiti on the walls. Tom Harrisson reflected in 1970: "We sought to fully penetrate the society we were studying , to live in it as effective members of it and to percolate into every corner of every day and every night..."

Mass-Observation wanted to study a typical northern industrial town (a Worktown) and chose Bolton because of "what it shares in common with other principal working-class and industrial work places throughout Britain." But to get a full picture of people’s lives they also had to study Blackpool (Holidaytown) where so many of the local people took their annual holiday. The team of investigators, led by Tom Harrisson and Charles Madge, was made up of students, artists and writers, photographers, unemployed workers and local people. At peak periods (during university vacations) there were up to 60 investigators and the project was run from a base at 85 Davenport Street, Bolton. The evidence and analysis gathered fills 65 archival boxes containing nearly 40,000 pages of original notes. There are 9 boxes devoted to local politics, from fascist activities and Spanish Aid to municipal politics and by-elections. There are 12 boxes covering religion from accounts of church services and rivalries between Methodists and Catholics, to Jumble Sales, Sunday Schools and the Boys’ Brigade. There are 7 boxes relating to money matters including numerous "budgets" for individual households, showing what was earned and how it was spent. There is also much material relating to Public Houses, Sport, Special Days (Coronation Day, Christmas, Armistice Day), Film and Cinema, Public Services, Industry, Pets, Rude stories, Holidays, Dances, Jazz, Education, Shopping, Children and Food.

A flavour of the material can be gained from the following extract of an observer’s account titled PUBS, dated April 22 1937 which gives a vivid description of a visit to a local pub:

"The Great Birthday Night. Went in about 7.35. Approx 80 people, trade brisk, barmen skipping about like mad, large skinny black dog running about getting under peoples’ feet and being patted. Great barrels being rolled around. Cheerful air, conversation loud. Mostly working class people, men and women, women all over 40 except for one little tart with colleague of about 35 both standing with frozen smiles in one place not drinking. The birthday port going like mad, toothglasses half full for 5d. I had one, it was thick, sweet, gooseberryish. It didn’t taste any different to the ordinary threepenny a small glass stuff. While I was there another barrel of it was being heaved and shoved into position, the first one being almost empty, tilted down very far. Chaps coming up and saying give me three glasses of the Christmas stuff, I mean the birthday stuff. Everything very brisk, very animated. Barmen grinning and standing in a straight row behind the bar as if waiting for heavy work".

On the other hand there is the housewife trying to make ends meet:
"Mrs D said they did not know how they were going to manage. ‘Yesterday it was awful. The kids couldn’t understand that there wasn’t any butties. It’s hard when the kids go hungry.’ Yesterday the D’s only had 6 slices of bread and marge and some potatoes."

The Worktown Papers comprise the original notes and reports compiled during the intensive study that Mass-Observation carried out in Bolton (Worktown) and Blackpool (Holidaytown) between 1937 and 1940, together with notes made when they revisited the sites in 1960. The Papers are arranged into 65 boxes and, within these, into files. The files in each box are lettered from ‘A’ onwards with some boxes containing up to 16 files (A-P). It has sometimes been necessary to split the contents of individual boxes (not files) over more than one reel. All files have been filmed in their entirety. Thanks are due to Dorothy Sheridan, Joy Eldridge and Anna Green for their help in the preparation of this microfilm edition of this underused resource.

The Worktown Collection contains excellent source material for all those interested in studying the ordinary people of Britain during a period of great change. It is a vital research tool for social historians, labour historians, historians of leisure, sociologists, and to all those studying Britain in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the fiction of Bennett, Lawrence and Orwell, the impact of the war on people at home and middle- and working-class culture.