Abstract
The historical development of leisure and voluntary action corresponds with thematic approaches and periods in the historiography of social policy. Pat Thane adopted the sub-periods of 1870–1914, the First World War, and the inter-war decades; Derek Fraser deployed a similar framework of an age of laissez faire from c.1780 to c.1885 and the emergence of a social service state c.1885 to 1939. Although no single model of voluntary action, or indeed leisure, was absolute at any given point, these temporal frameworks reflect broad phases of social, economic and cultural change and mark shifts of emphasis in voluntarism from paternalism and charitable philanthropy to social service and organized voluntary action.