The Feast of
Pentecost, which falls on the seventh Sunday after
Easter, is an important feast day in the Christian Church. In the United Kingdom this was followed by a week of festivities called "Whitsuntide". As the population moved away from the countryside during the Industrial Revolution, the celebrations became less important in many areas, but in the manufacturing towns of North West England they were seen as a welcome break from work in the mills and factories. In an article in the
Manchester Times in 1859 the London correspondent wrote: Whitsuntide is not a great holiday week with us, as with you...indeed, we have now no amusements appropriate to this season. We used to have fairs but these degenerated into nuisances and were properly enough suppressed in the interests of public morality and decency...although a good number of well-to-do Londoners take advantage of the week for a cheap trip, the mass of the populace work and toil through the week, which you Lancashire people have so well and wisely reserved for recreation. -
The Manchester Times Manchester traditionally held its annual horse races on
Kersal Moor between the Wednesday and Saturday of Whit Week. The local Sunday School Superintendents worried about the gambling and drinking and "desiring to keep youth of both sexes from the demoralising recreations of the racecourse, took them to fields in the neighbourhood and held anniversary celebrations, tea parties etc. in the schools." During the nineteenth century Whitsuntide became an accepted holiday week for all, with the mills shutting down and the workers taking canal boat trips and later, with the coming of the railways, cheap rail excursions. Each Whit Friday, local churches or chapels in the region employed bands to lead traditional processions through the streets. Whit Friday was the "Scholars' Walk", or the Church's Annual Day when the girls would have a new dress and the boys would have new trousers, and neighbours, friends and relatives would give a penny for their new clothes. The church officers, clergy and children carried baskets of flowers or ribbons attached to banners. ==Brass band contests==