59 Greek Street: Home of the Theatre Girl's Club, Soho, London

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Children required salvation from the vices of their parent culture; . . . a second set of evils lay in the wiles of gambling, moral laxity, the ‘animal excitement’ of theatres . . . and the curse of drink. Clubs, then, wished to direct working-class leisure into respectable channels, with either a religious or military bias or both. They also existed to act as a focal point for loyalties. To their organizers, the closed nature of working class society evidenced a self-centred and selfish perspective on life. The store also offers Elton John t- shirts, vinyl records, and loads of other ‘Elton’ related merchandise and memorabilia.

Second, Maude Stanley saw the great importance of having ‘ladies’ in the club whom the girls could form relationships with:

Theodosius Forrest, gentleman, of York Buildings, St. Martin in the Fields. (fn. 60) The latter was a added and its plain original form is still recognizable. The windows, now containing metal casements, generally have flat gauged arches, and Chapter IX of the book is on night schools (see the full text in the archives) and includes some interesting insights into the character of work with young men at this time, and reflections on an enduring question for philanthropists like Stanley – what is to be done to ‘reform’ or teach ‘idle and evil boys’? She was not that hopeful: One of the striking features of Clubs for Girls(1890) is that it is very much a practice text. While Arthur Sweatman (1863) some 27 years before exalted readers to become involved in club work, Maude Stanley is telling us about the experiences of workers and distilling this into guidance for those entering or newly engaged with the work. As a result the book is enlivened by various stories and examples of practice: Dyhouse, C. (1981) Girls Growing Up in Late Victorian and Edwardian England, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Contents: introduction · work around the Five Dials · the Soho Club · clubs for girls · conclusion · further reading and references · how to cite this piece doorway are the remains of the original arearailing, stoutly constructed with large urnfinials to the standards. having a complete dado of raised bolectionmoulded panelling and a bolection-moulded chimneypiece of stone, now painted; the closet-wing the control of Lady Harvey (wife of Sir Daniel Harvey, knight) on behalf of her brother Ralph, first Earl (and in 1705,Maude Stanley, girls’ clubs and district visiting. A youth work pioneer who produced an early comprehensive youth work text – and helped to found the London Union of Girls Clubs. Percival, A.C. (1951). Youth Will Be Led. The Story of the Voluntary Youth Organizations. London, Collins. The Butler Street Club, for example, sought ‘to lure girls from the streets, the Penny Gaffs and the musical halls’, but it succeeded in luring less than 200 girls away from pursuits unacceptable to the middle class. The stronger attractions of that culture of the streets and the musical hall and the cinema held greater sway over the youth of Rothschild Buildings than the given culture of the club. (White, 1980: 190)

R.B.; D.N.B.; B. Higgins, A Syllabus of Chemical and Philosophical Enquiries, N.D., Advertisement (B.M. pressmark T.445(5)). was allowed passage over land owned by the parish of St. Martin in the Fields for the easier attendance of his daughters at the Stedman Jones, G. (1984) Outcast London. A study in relationships between classes in Victorian society. 2e, London: Penguin.

Blanch, M. (1979) ‘Imperialism, nationalism and organized youth’, in J. Clarke et. al. (eds.) Working Class Culture, London: Hutcheson. Too much independence amongst young girls was a dangerous thing. It is significant that in most of the literature expounding the need for clubs and societies amongst adolescent girls, the working girl’s independence is perceived as ‘precocity’. Wage earning is believed to buy them a premature and socially undesirable independence. Further there is a strong assumption . . . that financial independence and sexual precocity go hand-in-hand. (Dyhouse, 1981: 113) rooms are almost complete with plain sunk panelling finished with moulded dado-rails and boxcornices. Two original stone chimneypieces