Swings and Roundabouts

We all have childhood memories of playgrounds. But what does the evolution of outdoor play in Britain tell us about the experience of being young over the past 200 years? Jon Winder serves up a history of sandpits, bombsites and battles with cars

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As the guests dined on seasonal delicacies and fine wines, Dickens gave an impassioned plea on behalf of the Playground and Recreation Society, an organisation that had been established just a few months earlier with the express aim of providing “playgrounds for poor children in populous places”. To the accompaniment of music laid on by the band of the 1st Life Guards, the celebrated author extolled the benefits that having a “playground near to their own dwellings where they knew their children would be safe” conferred on parents.

“I venture to assert that there can be no physical health without play; and there can be no efficient and satisfactory work without play; that there can be no sound and wholesome thought without play,” he declared.

It was a powerful argument, and one to which Dickens’ audience evidently listened - for, by the end of the following year, the Recreation Grounds Act had made its way into law. Henceforth, local authorities across the land would be allowed to create and own playgrounds for children and young people. It marked a turning point in British children’s access to play. Or did it?

The new legislation - and Dickens’ high-profile support - could have been a Big Bang moment for the playground movement in Britain. But, despite celebrity endorsement, political backing and widespread publicity, by 1860 the Playground Society had collapsed in a heap. It had amassed considerable debts – largely from putting on extravagant fundraising dinners. More damningly still, it had failed to create a single space in which London's children could play.

The movement was hardly in full swing elsewhere, either. While dedicated play space was set aside in Salford and Manchester in the 1840s, unaccompanied children were barred from entering some city parks – notably Saltaire Park in Bradford – altogether.