Magazine featuring what Ally SloperCartoon character created by Charles Ross, the first continuing comic-strip hero., Britain’s first continuous comic-strip- hero, did on his half-holidays
Wikimedia Commons

The Early Closing Association was founded in England in 1843 to campaign for the early closure of shops on Saturdays, “to liberate shopworkers for self-improvement”,[1] an early step towards the five-day working so familiar today.[2] But it was not until the passage of the Shops Act 1912 that shop assistants became legally entitled to at least one half-day a week off.[3]

As increasing numbers of employers adopted the Saturday “half-holiday” as it became known, a burgeoning leisure industry was quick to capitalise on the movement by offering reduced fares for day-trippers to the countryside on Saturday afternoons. But perhaps the biggest winner was the sport of football, which began to stage matches on Saturday afternoons as the Football Craze took hold in the 1890s.[2]

References

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Bibliography

Beaven, Brad. “History of the Two-Day Weekend Provides Lessons for a Four-Day Working Week.” Independent, 11 Jan. 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/weekend-lesson-four-day-working-week-a9274096.html.
Mandler, Peter. “Hall, Samuel Carter (1800–1889).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Online, Oxford University Press, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/11987.
Vlex Justis. Shops Act 1912. https://vlex.co.uk/vid/shops-act-1912-808394097.