Bolton's Mass Observation success

Football Spectators: Bolton Wanderers at home, Humphrey Spender (1910–2005), © Bolton Museum and Archive Service.

Pub scene, Humphrey Spender (1910–2005), © Bolton Museum and Archive Service.

For the second year in a row Bolton University and Bolton Museum & Archive Service organised a successful one-day conference around the photographs produced by Humphrey Spender during the Mass Observation 'Worktown' project in the late-1930s, many of which record the leisure lives of ordinary people in everyday situations, for example at football matches, or in pubs, dance halls, theatres, parks and public libraries. The theme of this year's conference, held on 7 April 2009, was 'Recording Leisure Lives: Sports, Games and Pastimes', with 'the aim of providing participants with the opportunity to explore the everyday context of sport, games and pastimes in 20th century Britain'. The day was accompanied by a photographic display in the Worktown Gallery at Bolton Museum, where there is a permanent display of Spender photographs, drawn from the Museum's collection of more than 1,100 Spender images and negatives showing 1930s Boltonians at work, rest, play, politics and worship.

Bolton Museum, Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, free, Le Mans Crescent (behind the Town Hall), Bolton, Lancs BL1 1SE, tel: 01204 332211, website.

10 April 2009