THE HISTORY OF LIQUOR
LICENSING IN ENGLAND
PRINCIPALLY FROM 1700
TO 1830

BY

SIDNEY AND BEATRICE WEBB

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., 39
PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON,
NEW YORK & BOMBAY. OCT. 1903.

PKEFACE

IT is needful to preface this little book with
an explanation. Four years ago we began
an elaborate investigation into English Loeal
Government during the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries. Our task quickly divided
itself into two parts. We had first to discover
the structure of local government., to unravel
and describe the exact constitution and working
all over the country of the Open arid Select
Vestries, the Manorial Courts, the Commissioners
of Sewers, the various kinds of statutory bodies
established under special Acts, the County
Justices in Petty arid Quarter Sessions, and the
Municipal Corporations. We had then to classify
local government according to function, and to
treat, one by one, such different public services
as the Relief of Destitution, the Prevention of
Crime, the Cleaning and Paving of Streets, the

v

vi LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Regulation of Trade, the Maintenance of Churches,
Harbours, Docks, Roads, and Bridges, and the
raising of a municipal revenue by duties and
tolls, rates and assessments. The results of this
investigation into both structure and function,
for the period up to the reforms of 1832-35, we
hope to publish in the course of 1904. Moan-
while it has been suggested to us that our
chapter on the Regulation of the Liquor Traffic,
especially its hitherto unknown episode of 178 Or
87, with the dramatic suppression of licensed
houses without compensation, might be specially
instructive at this juncture, and that it may
interest readers who would not care to study
the whole range of English Local Government.
The drawbacks of separate publication are con-
siderable. In the course of our narrative we
have constantly referred to contemporary facts
dealt with in other chapters, such, for instance,
as the diversity in character and procedure of
the different benches of Justices of the Peace in
urban and rural districts, in London and the
municipal corporations. These facts will not
necessarily be known to the general reader.
Moreover, for students mainly interested in the

PREFACE vii

modern controversy, a mere shred of history
cut out of its context, beginning at 1700, and
ending abruptly at 1830, cannot provide satis-
factory reading. The first of these drawbacks
we have sought to meet by appending many
footnotes to the text. The second we have
tried to diminish, by prefixing a short historical
introduction, and appending a summary of
licensing legislation since 1830, drawn from
obvious sources.

With this explanation of some of its imper-
fections, we offer the following sketch of what
did happen between 1700 and 1830, as possibly
contributing towards an understanding of the
present problem. We carefully abstain from
pointing any moral or drawing any conclu-
sions as to present day policy.

We must add that we are indebted for the
fulness of detail and richness of variety in
our work to our two zealous and able assist-
ants and colleagues, Mr. K II Spencer, and
Miss Amy Harrison, B.A., D.Sc. (now Mrs.
Spencer). Nor would the work have been
possible but for the treasures of the British
Maiseum, and, in particular, its invaluable col-

viii LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

lection of old provincial newspapers, which it
was, at one time, actually proposed to disperse !
We venture to express our strongest hopes that
whatever else is sent away, these files of old
provincial newspapers without which the social
history of England cannot possibly be written
will be kept at Bloomsbury, where they arc
accessible to the historical student, and where
(as it is privately admitted) there is ample
accommodation for them.

SIDNEY AND BEATEIOE WEBB.

41 GROSVENOR ROAD, WESTMINSTER,
September 1903.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

i'AUK

THE FIRST CKNTUKY OK LICENHINO 1

CHAPTER II

A PwEroi) ov LAXNK.SS ........ 16

CHAPTER III

REGULATION AND SuP.PlUW.sr ON ...... 49

CHAPTER IV

FUME TUADK IN TJIKOUY AND ritAcvnuK .... 85

CHAPTER V

L'KGIIHLATIVK llKPKWTANOK ....... 127

APPENDIX
THE MovjfiMKNT FOK THE EKFOJJ.MATION OP MAKKKRB . . 187

INDEX

ix

CHAPTER I

THE FIRST CENTURY OF LICENSING

WK have made no study of the numerous in-
stances of manorial or municipal regulation of
the liquor traffic in England prior to the six-
teenth century. It is easy to find, in such
scanty records of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries as are yet printed, curiously exact
precedents, in one town or manor or another,
at one period or another, for almost every
modern expedient of dealing with the liquor
traffic. 1 Nor can we pretend to have made any
systematic investigation into the working of the
legislation of the sixteenth century. But in

1 Some of tliOHO arc given, together with a good account of
licensing history down to 1642, in the article, "Early Stages of
English Public HOUHO Regulation," by Mina C. M. lies, of tho
London School of Economics and Political Science, in tho Economic
Jown&l for Juno 1903. For examples of enforcement of the liquor
regulations of the manorial Court from M15 onwards see Fulham Old
and New, by 0. J. Fdrot (1900), vol. i. pp. 25-26 ; and tho Manchester
Court L&ct .Records,

B

2 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

order to enable the history of the eighteenth
century to be understood, we shall give a brief
outline of the course of events during the pre-
ceding century and a half.

The regulation of the trade in alcoholic liquors
originated, not in any abstract theory, but in a
practical necessity of the State. It was found
that the free use of intoxicating drinks pro-
duced not only incapacity and disease among
all classes, but also, among the " lower orders,"
idleness and disorderly living, crimes against
life and property, and even riot and rebellion.
Total prohibition of the production and sale of
intoxicants was, in face of the ease of manufac-
ture and the absence of police, plainly impractic-
able. Moreover, beer, at any rate, was univer-
sally regarded as a necessity of life ; it was the
common beverage at every meal; and all but
a small minority of the population habitually
enjoyed drinking. On the other hand, the evils
of excessive drinking were so manifest and
so widespread, that the Government, in every
generation, has felt compelled to do something
more than punish the crimes which drunkenness
produces. For more than three hundred years
the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks has
been brought under special statutory regulation.
The primary object of this legislation has been

FIRST CENTURY OF LICENSING 3

to prevent the social disorder and personal mis-
conduct brought about by excessive drinking;
and the legislators have sought to place obstacles
to the unrestricted sale of intoxicants to in-
dividuals. But this main purpose has been,
from time to time, complicated and thwarted
by two material considerations : the discovery,
made by successive governments, that taxes on
alcoholic drinks provided an easy and copious
source of revenue, and the desire to promote the
extensive native industries of brewing and dis-
tilling. Under the influence of these diverse
and often conflicting motives, the regulation of
the liquor traffic has, in England, been shared
between the central executive and the local
authorities. The national Government has always
taken for itself the revenue to be derived from
alcohol, whether in the form of royal patents,
excise duties on the manufacture, custom duties
on the imports, or revenue licences of the
dealers. We might omit all reference to these
national taxes, and to the extensive system of
official control devised for their protection, as
forming no part of English local government.
On the other hand, the duty of regulating the
consumption of alcoholic drinks in such a way
as to obviate social disorder has always been
left to the local authorities, and we shall find it

4 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

impossible, in describing their exercise of this
function, to avoid mentioning the action of the
national Government, when, in the purmiit of
revenue or for other reasons, ita regulations
interfered with, and even ousted, the powers of
Justices of the Peace.

The device of licensingthat is, the require-
ment that any person desiring to puraue a
particular occupation shall first obtain specific
permission from a governing authority may be
used to attain many different ends. The licence
may be merely an occasion for extracting a fee
or levying a tax. It may be an iiwtrument for
registering all those who are following a particu-
lar occupation, in order, for some reason or
another, to ensure their being brought under
public notice. It may be a device for limiting
the numbers of those so engaged, or for Helecting
them according to their possession of certain
qualifications. Finally, the act of licenwing may
be the means of imposing special rules upon the
occupation, or of more easily enforcing the ful-
filment either of these special rules or of the
general law of the land.

The function of licensing, as it has been
delegated by Parliament to the Justices of the
Peace, has always included three distinct forms
of control : the power of selection, the power

FIRST CENTURY OF LICENSING 5

of withdrawal, and the power of imposing
conditions.

By the statute of 5 and 6 Edward VI c. 25
(1552) the Justices of the Peace were authorised
to select from time to time, at their discretion,
certain persons in each county or borough who
were alone to exercise the trade of keeping a
common alehouse. 1 From this time forth, the
occupation became an exceptional privilege, to
which no person could assert a right.* The
Justices had full discretion as to the persons
whom they would license, a discretion which
Parliament limited only by certain insignificant
requirements. 3 What was of importance was

1 There has always been a. di.stinc.tiou between an inn which
lodges and entertains traveller, and a common alehouse which aoll
alo to all-comers. Originally an inn (Dal ton, o. 56 ; Blackorby, 170)
or a lodging-houso (Parker and Flint, 1(199, 12 Mod. 254), even if
it supplied alo to its lodgers, required no licence. An inn might, by
common law, bo indicted an a public nuisance, if it wan improperly
conducted, or oven if it wan Hot n]> where it was not needed (1 Haw.
226), But, aa imiK practically always supplied alo to all-comers,
they wore quickly brought under the operation of the requirement to
obtain licences an common alehouses and their regulation by way of
indictment became obsolete.

* In 1604 the King pointed out in a Privy Council circular letter
that, " By the law and statutes of thin our realm, the keeping of ale-
houses and victualling houses is none of Uio.se trades which it is free
and lawful for any subject to net up and exorcise, but inhibited to all
save such at* are thereto licensed."

8 Prior to 1729 the licence might be granted at any time by any
two JuBliooH, but by 2 George II, c. 28 (1729) the woll-knowu
" BrewaterSeHHiouH" was innUtutcd, all licences having to be granted
at a general HCHHion.s of the Justices of the (Uvision, of which one was
to be held for this purpose in September of each year.

6 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

the fact that Parliament, from the outset,
implied l that the number of licences was to be
kept down to just enough for the supply of the
legitimate wants of each neighbourhood, thus
creating a sort of monopoly. Moreover, there
was no idea of selling this monopoly to the
highest bidder, and the Justices were, in fact,
required to issue their licence without charge.
The result was that the Justices had it in their
power to create a valuable property, and to give
it to whom they chose.

The power of withdrawing the permission to
sell intoxicating liquors is, curiously enough,
older than the power to select the sellers. By
11 Henry VII. c. 2 (1495), strengthened by
19 Henry VII. c. 12 (1504), as part of the policy
of discouraging indoor games, which diverted the
people from archery, any two Justices were
authorised summarily to suppress useless ale-
houses in their neighbourhood, 2 and it was
primarily to strengthen this power " to reject
and put away common ale-selling in the towns
and places where they should think convenient "
as they thought meet and convenient, in order

1 Thus, the reason for the institution of special "Browator
Sessions " was so that licences might not bo granted ' { by Justices who,
living remote from the places of abode " of the applicants, " may not
be truly informed as to the occasion or want o/such inns or common
alehouses " (2 George II. c. 28, 1729).

2 History of Taxes and Taxation, by S. DowoH (1888), vol. iv. p. 91.

FIRST CENTURY OF LICENSING 7

to prevent " the intolerable hurts and troubles to
the commonwealth of the realm, daily growing
and increasing," that the first licencing Act of
1552 was passed. With the same object, these
alehouse licences were required by the Justices to
be renewed annually, so that a mere refusal to
renew amounted to, and apparently superseded,
the statutory power of suppression. 1 The full
power of the Justices to refuse the renewal of a
licence, entirely at their own discretion, and
without assigning cause, was questioned, from
time to time, but has always been upheld by the
superior courts. The reason for refusal in the
Justices' minds might be Home misconduct of the
publican, or it might be merely that they had
come to the conclusion that the. number of
licences in the neighbourhood was greater than
the existing needs warranted. Tims, jtiat as the
magistrates could create valuable property, and

1 The term for which tho permission or licence of the Justices
should ho granted was not; specified by 5 and Edward VI. c. 26
(1552), but before tho end of tho sixteenth century it scorns to have
become customary for Justices to give tho licence for one your only
(see a form of 1591 in Wost'fl tfymlwliMujrttpliy, 1000). A royal pro-
clamation of 1018 definitely proscribed a form of licence for ono year,
and this acorns to havo boon universally adopted. Tho annual
renewal wan implicitly required by Anno c. 10 (1711), imposing an
annual stamp duty, but it was not explicitly mado requisite by
statute until 20 George II, c, 81 (1758). See Mr. Bonharn Carter's
evidence before tho Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing, 1897-90,
and his valuable historical memorandum, in vol. iii. of tho
ings of this Commission.

8 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

freely endow any individual with it, so they
could, at any "brewster sessions," arbitrarily
destroy the property that they had created, and
deprive the holder of it without compensation, 1

The power of imposing conditions on the
licensees was not expressly conferred by statute
but really flowed from the coexistence of the
powers of selection and withdrawal. Parlia-
ment, whilst repeating that there was to be no
tippling or disorder, had failed to prescribe under
what accompaniments in the way of accommo-
dation or recreation the sale of liquor should be
conducted. Eight down to the end of the period

1 The Judges always refused to issue a mandamufl to the JunticeH to
grant a licence, even on affidavit of their having maliciously or
corruptly refused it (Strange, 881 ; 1 Barnard i.ston, 402). The
superior courts showed, in fact, groat reluctances to question tho
Justices' discretion in tho matter. But "if it clearly appears," nai<l
Lord Mansfield in 1758, "that the Justices havu boon partially,
maliciously, or corruptly influenced in tho exorcise of thuirdiHcrx.ttion,
and have consequently abused the trust reposed in thum, tlw.y aro
liable to prosecution by indictment or information " (E. v. Young and
Pitts, Burr. Mansf. 556). In 1765 two Justices of tho tiny borough
of Corfe Castle were committed to prison for a month, and iinod 50
each, for refusing an alehouse licence to an hmkoopw, merely lx.u?uuo
he had voted for a candidate for Parliament whom they wc.ro oppwiug
(E. v. Hann and Price, Burr. Mansf. 1716, 1780), Such criminal pro-
ceedings were rare, and convictions still rarer, though wo hear of
Justices refusing licences to any persons who petitioned for a work-
house ; and there can be no doubt that licences wore frequently
restricted, in practice to adherents of the dominant soot or political
party. The full discretion of the Justices was uphold by tha HOUHO
of Lords in Sharp i>. Wakefield ; see tho judgment roprintwl in vol.
ix. of the Proceedings of the Royal Commission on Liquor Liccnsim/,
1897-99.

FIRST CENTURY OF LICENSING 9

that we have under review, Parliament abstained
from fixing the hours of opening ami closing,
on week-clays and Sundays, or prescribing the
conditions under which the sale of liquor should
take place, contenting itself always with the
arbitrary control of the Justices, on the one hand,
and the profit which the Exchequer derived from
the exaction of excise and licence duties on the
other. 1 Thus, it was open to the Justices at any
particular time or place to make it known that
they would not license the sale of liquor in
premises remote from public observation, or in-
adequate in accommodation .for the customers ;
that they did not approve of music or dancing
or other entertainments on licensed premises ;
that they insisted on the premises being closed
at nine o'clock in the evening ; and, in fact, to
make the renewal of the licence virtually con-
ditional on compliance with any requirement
connected with the conduct of the trade that
they might think lit to impose.

That the Act of 1552 was carried out by the

1 Tho oarliont Htatuto (11 Henry VII. . 2, 1405) had om powered any
two JtiHtiiJGfl "to tako Hurotios of kooporn of alohouHca in their good
bohaving," ThcHO had d<tvlopod by 1618 into elaborate recognisances,
in which wore inserted many spooifio conditions imposed by the
Justicos, and proHcribod by the royal proclamation of that year. After
tho Revolution thoKO rocogninamHw became much shorter and simpler,
confined usual ly to a moroly fonnal undertaking not to infringe the
stattito law against tippling, illegal gamoH, otc?.

10 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Justices is sliown by the frequent references to it

in the annals both of counties and corporate

towns. 1 From 1587 to 1631 their administra-

tion, in this as in other branches of local govern-

ment, was quickened and kept up to the mark

by the series of " Books of Orders/' issued by

the Privy Council, which formed so important

a feature of the administrative system of the

time. 2 That unnecessary alehouses were to be sup-

pressed was constantly enjoined upon the Justices,

and it is clear that drastic, and often arbitrary

action was taken. The " pulling down of the

sign" of an alehouse, summarily suppressed

by a choleric Justice of the Peace, is more than

once mentioned in contemporary literature. 8

In 1599, 1604, and 1608, the Justices were

1 See, for instance, the Middlesex Vmnty Jtawrdsi by J. 0.
Jeaffreson (1888-92) ; Sessions Rolls of the, North, Midintj of Yorkshire;
West Hiding Sessions Molls (1888) ; Worcester County Records ; Three
Centuries of Derlyshwe Annals, by J. G. Cox (1890) ; Annals of
Ipswich, by Nathaniel Bacon (1654, soo edition of 1884).

a For an admirable account of thin attempt to establish a eontrally
supervised and efficient administrative system, soo The JSarly History
of the English Poor Law, by Miss E. M. Leonard (Cambridge,
1900).

8 The withdrawal of the licence was accompanied by tbo re-
moval of the sign by the parish constable,

For this gross fault I hero do damn thy llconco,

Forbidding thee ever to tap or draw,

For instantly I will in mine own person

Command the constables to pull down thy nlgn,

Massinger, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, iv. 2, quoted in The
History of Sign-boards, by J. Larwood and J. C. Hottou
p. 11.

FIEST CENTURY OF LICENSING 11

specially enjoined to bo careful in granting
licences for "the keeping of alehouses and
victualling houses . . . which/' said the Privy
Council in 1604, "ought to be no more than a
number competent for the receipt of travellers,
and for the supply of wants to poor people not
able to provide for any quantity of victual for
themselves (which are the true, ancient, and
natural use of these houses), and with this also,
that they be not made the receptacle of drunkards,
felons, and loose and idle persons/' 1 That the
Justices at this period took some trouble in the
matter is shown by the " articles" which Dalton
tells us they drew up in sonic counties, and
forced the alehouse-keepers to agree to, fixing
the hours of (dosing at night, providing for
complete Sunday cloning, except as regards
travellers, and forbidding any tippler to remain
more than one hour. 2

We give one out of the many cases in which
alehouses were suppressed simply as being uu-

1 Privy Council Circular Lot tor to Mayors and Justices, 1004 ;
g\vQftii\JIi3twyof8ou-tk(tM.ptMi t by *F. S, Davios (1883), p. 278.

2 Seo tho form of licence to koop an alehouse, and that termed
"a condition for alohoxiso - koopors " (The Countrey Justice, by
Michael Dultou (1618), p. #34-&iG). Thosa "conditions" contained
in some oases an interesting anticipation of the '* black-list " of 1902 :
"Nor willingly admit or receive . . . any portion . . . that ahall
be beforehand notified to him, tho said A.B. by tho constable of M.
or by IUH deputy, to be an unmeet person to bo received into a
common alehouse."

12 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

necessary. The Mayor and aldermen of Ripon
(Yorks) report to the Privy Council in 1623
that, in. pursuance of the directions received, they
have made inquiry as to the number of ale-
houses in the town, and " finding the number to
be great, we have reduced them to half the
number/ 7 1

In 1618 a royal proclamation recited many of
the conditions imposed by Justices, definitely
prescribed the form of the licence, and directed
that it should be for one year only. It was part
of the business of the Judges of assize on their
circuits to inquire if the directions of the Privy
Council had been duly carried out by the Jus-
tices, and the manuscript circuit records .show
that this administrative supervision of the local
authorities was, during the first half of the seven-
teenth century, frequently made effective by
peremptory orders by the Judges/ 2

1 Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, James /., vol. c.xxxvii. ;
Chapters in the History of Yorkshire, by ,T. ,T. Cartwright (WakofioM,
1872), pp. 289, 290.

2 Thus, to give one out of many instances, tho MS. Order Book
of the Western Circuit contains, under 13th August 1046, the
following order made at the Dorchester Assizes :" Upon tho groat
complaint of the gentlemen of the Grand Inquest of this county,
made to this Court at this present assizes, against the multiplicity of
alehouses within this county, and the daily abuses and disorders
vext and suffered in such alehouses, especially on tho Sabbath days,
whereby the service of Almighty God is much hindered ; for reform-
ing whereof this Court doth think and declare that tho Just lew* of
the Peace within the several divisions and liberties of this county,

FIRST CENTURY OF LICENSING 13

The supervision of the. Privy Council, by
which the Justices had been kept, up to the
mark, was suddenly broken by the outbreak of
the Civil War. We do not find that any serious
attempt was made, either during the. Protectorate
or after the Restoration, to r<M.;onstrue.t the cen-
trally supervised administrative system at which
the statesmen of Elizabeth and James L had
evidently aimed. The Privy Council orders
cease. The Judges of assixe gradually abandon

aliall, with all convenient speed, inform themsoiveM by the boat ways
and means that pos.sibly they MII, conn-ruing the .said nlmwB om-
mittod and suffered by such aloli0usvhkp % r.H, and not to sutler or
license any to sell ale or beer but such as can bring their certificates
under tho hands of tho most Huflioionl and best inlmbiiantn of the
several places and parishes whore they dwell, c.onct'rning their good
boliavlour and carriage, and tlw eonvoniency of tho plaw;B lit for such
alohoitHOM to bo bost, and to tako Hjx?Mly courso for tho punishing
and supproHsing of all othor alehouse kimpors according to tho
BtatutoH in that cano inado aiid provided." Tho Judgtw of fiHsizo
would occasionally thonwo.lvoB Huppmns an akdummn Thus, at
Exeter AHSISWH in August 1H(J5, it in rocordod that **whortsas it
appears unto tho Court that K. P., who wan omiviV.tcd of man-
slaughter at the HHHISSOH for killing of ono Q, M. , wan drinking at tho
house of ono J. M., in the parish of St. Thomas tho Apostle in this
county, an alehouse-lumper ; and that the challenge was made for
thorn to wrestle whilst they sat drinking in the said house, which
occasioned tho said death. Thin Court doth, therefore, order that
the house of the said J, M. shall be from hence suppressed from
being an alehouse any longer" (MH. Order Book, Western Circuit,
Exeter, August 1085). In the same way earlier in the century, in
the intorcssts of temperance and keeping the peace, "at the Exeter
Assizes (1627) Chief Baron Walter and Baron Denham made an order
for the suppression, of all wakes. Judge Eiehardson made a like order
for the county of SomorHot (1681)" (Nineteen Centuries of Drink in
England, by E, V. French, p. 200),

14 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

all interest in the civil administration of the
counties included in their circuits, and after
1688, at any rate, we find them confining them-
selves strictly to their judicial functions. Except
when Jacobite plots were feared, or serious dis-
orders were threatened, the Justices of the Peace,
whether in municipal corporations or on county
benches, were, at the end of the seventeenth
century, abandoned entirely to their own devices.

CHAPTER II

A PERIOD OF LAXNKSS

FROM the end of the seventeenth century, at
any rate, a period of extreme laxness set in.
Licences to keep alehouses were granted by any
two Justices of the county, whether or not they
belonged to the neighbourhood, or had any
knowledge of applicant, or his house. We
gather that practically any one could obtain a
licence, which, once granted, was never with-
drawn. The suppression of alehouses by the
Justices went entirely into desuetude. There
was, on the contrary, a constant tendency
towards their multiplication, " The superfluous
number of such petty inns and alehouses,"
complains a contemporary writer, " seems to
proceed from these two causes : the first is
from the application which is frequently made
on the behalf of some broken, half -starved
merchant or idle fellow, who rather than beg, or
steal, and be hanged, or at best become charge-

15

16 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

able to the parish, hopes to get a subsistence by
the little cheatings and degenerate shifts of ale-
selling. The other course is much of the same
figure, it being commonly no other than the
sordid interest of some mean-spirited Justices,
who, to maintain a superfluous or indigent
member of his family or acquaintance, is
tempted easily to license alehouses for the sake
of fees." l

Whether or not we need accept as a true
generalisation this cynical description of the
Justices' motives, of the actual increase in the
number of licensed houses there is no shadow of
doubt. With the possible exception of the city
of London, 2 our search through contemporary

1 Campmia Felix, by Timothy Nourso (1700), h. xii, "Of Inns
and Alehouses," p. 170.

2 In the MS. Journals of the Common Council of the (Jityuf London
(vol. lii. p. 373), under date of 1700, there, in an order by tho Lord
Mayor to the aldermen of the several wards, annually rquwtud for
the next few years, "for the bettor choice of all uh victualler,
tiplers (sic), alehouse-keepers, and others soiling luior and ale, an arc
to be licensed within this City ami liberties thereof, and suppimsing
those not thought fit to be licensed. These arc therefore to will and
require you forthwith upon sight hereof to repair into your Haul
ward, and there, as well by the advice of your deputy and common
council, as upon view of tho parties themselves, consider who arc fit
to be licensed, having respect to their agCH, liven, conversations, and
places of abode ; and that you certify mo under your hand in fair
writing the names and surnames of all such persons an you Khali think
fit to be licensed within your ward, and in what they dwoll, and in
what company every one of them is free (for you arc to present none
but what are free of the city)." Corresponding orders were issued to
the ward beadles."

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 17

newspapers and official records during the first
quarter of the eighteenth century, has revealed
no evidence of any care or thought by the
Justices, either in restricting the grant of new
licences or in regulating the conduct of existing
alehouse -keepers. Nor was there any attempt
made to limit the traffic to licensed houses. It
was a special feature of the period that the sale
of beer was not confined to the inns, or victual-
ling houses, and the alehouses, or " mug-houses/ 7
as some of them were termed in London. The
coffee-houses, which filled HO large a part in the
public life under William HI, and Anne, sold
alcoholic drinks as well as coffee. At Shrews-
bury, De Foe noted in 1714, there are "the most
coffee-houses round the Town House that ever I
saw in any town, but when you come into them
they are but alehouses, only they think that
the name of coffee-house gives a better air/' 1

It is therefore scarcely to be wondered at
that the consumption of ale and beer rapidly
increased. In 1722 the production of malt for
brewing beer attained the extraordinary figure
of 33,000,000 bushelrt, indicating a consumption
in the year of a whole barrel of beer (tSG gallons)
for every man, woman, and child of the popu-
lation, a total production not again reached

1 De Foe's Tour through the whok IslmwZ of Great Britain (1724-7),

18 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

until more than a hundred yearn later, and an
average consumption per head which has never
subsequently been equalled. 1

Meanwhile other forms of intoxicating drinks
were coming extensively into consumption, and
these were to a great extent exempt from the
Justices 7 control. Already in 1553 we are told
that " great numbers of taverns "that is, wine-
shops " had recently been net up in back lanes,
corners, and suspicious places within the City of
London, and in divers other towns and villages
within the realm/ 7 winch became "the common
resort of misruled people." " Therefore, in the
year next following the first licensing of ale-
houses, all taverns outside the limits of boroughs
or market towns were suppressed ; those in such
towns were limited to two in each place, or to
three, four, six, or eight in twenty specified large

1 Report of the Commissioners of Inland Rwmuo (1870), vol. i.
Appendix, pp. 15, 17 ; Twenty-Eighth, Report of tho CommiHaionerH of
Inland Revenue (1885), p. 20. For tho history of tho maimfar-turo,
retailing, and taxation of alo and boor, aoe the convonumt Jkcr
Manual, by Joseph Scarisbrick (Wolverhampton, 1802).
_ 2 7 Edward VI. c. 5 (1553). " Tavum-'-fa&mift -.wan tho dis-
tinctive name for the wine-house of tho Middle Agon, iw oppoBinl to
the alehouse" (History of Taxation and 2te'a, by S. Powull, 1888,
vol. iv. p. 136). A tavern, it was said, " is a degree, or (if you will)
a pair of stairs, above an alehouse, whoro men are drunk with mow
credit and apology " (Mt&rocosTHography, by John Karlo). Wine-
shops were dealt with apart from alehouses until 1792, but tho word
tavern seems to have been loosely used already in tho eighteenth
century for all drinking-places.

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 19

towns ; and forty in the city of London. Up to
this maximum all taverns were to be licensed,
during pleasure, by the municipal corporations
or county Justices. 1 But this extension of the
Justices' jurisdiction wan, to a great extent,
rendered nugatory by the exercise of the King's
prerogative, recognised by the statute of 1623,
to give a licence to any tavern-keeper to sell
wine/ 2 These royal licences, which were made a

1 7 Edward VI. c, 5 (15fiJJ), Gravosond, Sittingbonruo, Tuxford, and
Bagftliot wore Kpocially jw'hulwi an townn whk'h might havo taverns.
(As to the Chvivoscnd privilege, WM H, 1*. Orudon's Hi-story of
Gfravcsend, 18-13, p. 171.) The Mayor and Corporation of St. Albans
enjoyed tlio excluHivo privilog<, by charter of Edward VI. In 1560,
of appointing tlmw \viu<j taverns in that borough for the main-
tenance of tho local school. Their privilogo \vn,s pivwerved by 12
Car. II. c. 25 (1W50), i Anno, c. 2H (1710), and 43 and 44 Vit. o. 20,
sec, 48 (18BG), and ntill uxwt.s (Mtriii I'apcrs rr.rftirdiiuj the Excise
Department, by John OWWIH (Linlithgow), pp. 4S)(M98 ; History of
Hertfordshire, by Hobtirt. Cluttcrbuck (1815), vol. i. p. 49; History
of Taxation and 7V^y*,t, liy S. Dowoll (1888), vol. iv. p. 138; The
Licensing Laws, by H. M. Montgomery ('2nd edition, 1000), p. 2).

2 For tlio statuton regulating UWHO royal wine licences, aoe 12
Car. II. c. 25 (1600), 15 Oar. IL c. M (1008), and 22 and 23 Gar. IL
c. 26 (1070), and Ooorgo IL c. 10 and 15 (1757), Freemen of the
Vintners Company of tlio city of London wow, by thoir charter of
Jamoa I. (1612), allowud tho privilcgo of Hulling wino without any
licence within throe inilcn of tho city of London, in cities and port
townn, and in tho " thoroughfaro towim" on certain groat roads.
This privikgo still conlimioH, but it i now roatri<;td to freomon by
patrimony or apprenticeship, who may havo each only one house*
and nuiat give formal nolico to tho KXCJHO (B^O JJO George IL o, 19,
sees. 10-11 ; 9 (3oorg< IV. c. 61, HIWS. 30 ; 25 and 26 Viet, c, 22, sec. 16 ;
and The Limsiwj Ads t by J. Pataraon, 13th edition, 1900, p, 2). In
1737 (10 George II. c. 17) retailors of British wines, mead, etc*
technically known an "sweets," and in 1792 (32 Qoorge III. o. 59)
retailors of wine, to bo drunk on tho promises, were required to be

20 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

regular source of revenue for the Crown, were
not abolished until 1757. After the Restoration,
as De Foe remarks, taverns multiplied fast, 1 and
the consumption of wine grew apace.

The drunkenness caused by the wine-shops

was completely thrown into the shade by the

results of the free sale of gin. 2 During the

greater part of the seventeenth century the

new art of the distillation of spirits had been

a monopoly in the hands of the Distillers'

Company and other royal patentees, and the

trade had remained small But after the llevolu-

tion, as part of the commercial warfare levied

against the French, the importation of foreign

brandy was prohibited or heavily taxed, and a

general permission was granted in 1(590 to all

persons to distil and retail spirits made from

English-grown com. The habit of drinking

ardent spirits now assumed alarming proportions.

The Legislature, far from desiring to suppress

this new drink traffic, at first gave it distinct

licensed victuallers, and were thus brought und<T tho control of the
magistrates (History of Taxation mid Taxes, by S. Dowoll, vol. iv.
p. 140).

1 Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel De. /< T w, by Wai tor
Wilson (1830), vol. ii. p. 203.

2 For the history of the manufacture, Halo, and taxation of spirits,
see the convenient Spirit Manual, Historical and Technical, by
Joseph Scarishrick (Wolverhampton, 1891) ; Seventh Roport of the
Commission of Excise Enquiry, 1836 ; IIi$tory of Taxation and
Taxes, by S. Dowell (1888), vol. iv.

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 21

encouragement. It became an object of the
Government to develop the manufacture of
English brandy and strong waters*, seeing that,
in this way, " great quantities of the worst sort
of malted corn, not useful to the brewers, hath
been yearly consumed by those who set up works
for that purpose/ 7 Between 1690 and 1701 a
series of statutes provided, for the encouragement
of these patriotic distillers, that, if they used
malted corn, they should pay only a low pre-
ferential duty on their product, whilst " French
and other foreign brandies " should be as far as
possible excluded. No provision had been made
by Parliament for requiring retailers of spirits
to obtain a licence, and " punch houses " and
"dram shops/' as the new places were called,
multiplied rapidly in London and Westminster.
It is true that in 1701 the retailers of British
spirits were required to obtain an alehouse licence
from two Justices, but as this was found, in the
words of a House of Commons Committee, to be
" a great hindrance to the consumption of English
brandies," l it was, in the very next year, so far
repealed as to leave the distillers themselves free
to open as many retail spirit shops as they chose,
and also to permit a like free sale in the case of
" all other shopkeepers whose principal dealings

1 House of Commons Journals, 17th and 27th February 1702.

22 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

shall be more in other goods ami merchandises
than in brandy or strong waters." l The result
of this free sale of a powerfully intoxicating
liquor, rendered Hpeemlly clump by the extremely
low duty on KB manufacture, wan a perfect
pandemonium of drunkenness, in which the
greater part of the population of the metropolis
seems to have participated. Not only were
there in London and WcHtiniimter six or seven
thousand regular drum-shops, but cheap gin was
given by masters to their workpeople instead of
wages, Bold by the barbers and tobacconists,
hawked about the Htreot>s on barrows by men
and women, openly exposed for sale on every
market stall, forced on tin*- maidservant-H and
other purchasers at the chandler's shop, distri-
buted by the watermen on the* Thames, vended
by pedlars in the suburban bines, and freely
offered in every house of ill-fame, until, as one
contemporary writer puts in, " one-half of the
town seems set up to furnish poison to the other
half," 2 "Every one who now panseB through

1 12 and 13 William III, o. 11 (1701), and I Ann*', Mat. 2, c. 14
(1702). An attempt by tho DUtillurH' Company to obtain jwwr to
inspect all spirits, and hwint ou good quality, though at tot
favoured by the House of Comment*, was not mado law (iiouKQ of
Commons Journals, 17 tit and 27th February, <Jth, 18th, and 27th
March 1702).

a " Theopkilus," in Gentleman* 9 Magazine, February 1733, vol. iii.
p. 88.

A PEKIOD OF LAXNESS 23

the streets of this great Metropolis," says a
contemporary pamphleteer, " and looks into the
distillers' shops . . . must see, even in shops of
a creditable and wholesale appearance, a crowd
of poor ragged people, cursing and quarrelling
with one another over repeated glasses of these
destructive liquors. . . . In one place not far
from East Smithfield ... a trader has a large
empty room backwards where, as his wretched
guests get intoxicated, they are laid together in
heaps, promiscuously, men, women, and children,
till they recover their senses, when they proceed
to drink on, or, having spent all they had, go
out to find wherewithal to return to the same
dreadful pursuit, and how they acquire more
money the sessions paper too often acquaints us/ 71
" Such a shameful degree of profligacy pre-
vailed/ 7 writes Smollett, who saw the London
of that date with his own eyes, cc that the
retailers of this poisonous compound set up
painted boards in public, inviting people to be
drunk for the small expense of one penny,
assuring them they might be dead drunk for
twopence, and have straw for nothing. They

1 Distilled Liquors the Jtonc of the Nation, being some consulara-
tions humbly off wed to thfi Lcyisl&ture, with the late Presentment of
the Orand Juries of London, Middlesex and the Tower Hamlets,
together with the lleyort made by His Majesty's Justices at Hicks EM
(London, 1730) ; preserved in the Vlaco Add. MBS. 27825, p. 178,

24 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

accordingly provided cellars and places strewed
with straw, to which they conveyed those
wretches who were overwhelmed with intoxica-
tion. In these dismal caverns they lay until
they recovered some use of their faculties, and
then they had recourse to the same mischievous
potion." l

Presently we find the general disgust at the
carnival of bestial drunkenness which had been
allowed to grow up in the metropolis gaining
official expression. The Middlesex Justices, con-
cerned for the public order, begin to petition
Parliament for immediate action. " The drink-
ing of Geneva and other distilled spirituous
liquors," they emphatically state in 1736, " hath
for some years past greatly increased, especially
among the people of inferior rank. . . . Thin
pernicious liquor is now sold, not only by
distillers and Geneva shops, but by many other
persons of inferior trades, by which means
journeymen, apprentices, and servants are drawn
in to taste, and by degrees . . , to . . . im-
moderately drink thereof." 2

But, already in 1729, Parliament had tried to
cope with the evil by a sudden reversal of policy.

1 History of England, by Smollett, vol. ii. eh. xviii. p. 430 (1848
edition).

2 Middlesex Quarter Sessions, Epiphany, 1736 ; see Houao of
Commons Journals, 20th February 1736.

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 25

In place of " free sale " it had sought to intro-
duce, with regard to the most pernicious forms
of alcoholic drinks, a system of licensing and
heavy taxation of the retail trade. By the first
" Gin Act " not to be confused with the more
celebrated one of 1736 a new and additional
excise duty of five shillings per gallon was put
on gin and other "compounded" spirits, and
every retailer of them was required to pay
twenty pounds a year for a licence, whilst the
hawking about the streets of any kind of spirits
was expressly prohibited. 1 This Act merely led
to the invention of new forms of spirit, one of
them called in derision "Parliament Brandy/ 7
which did not fall within its scope ; and it was
repealed in 1733, on the plea that, whilst doing
DO good, it checked the sale of barley to the
distillers. The orgy became, however, so terrible
that, in 17 30, Sir John Joky 11, then Master of
the .Rolls, induced Parliament to adopt a prac-
tically prohibitory policy, extending the policy
of the Act of 1729 to all spirits whatsoever, im-
posing a new tax on the retailers of the enormous
sum of twenty shillings for every gallon sold,
and restricting this retail sale to publicans who
paid fifty pounds a year for the privilege. This
drastic measure led only to riots and a complete

1 2 George II. c. 17 (1729) ; repealed by George II. c. 17 (1783).

26 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

collapse of the Justices' authority. The law
simply could not be put in force. "Every
man . . . foresaw/' subsequently remarked
a shrewd member of the House of Lords,
"that it was such a law as could not be
executed, but as the poor had run gin-mad,
the rich had run anti-gin-mad, and in this fit
of madness no one would give ear to reason." l

In the course of seven years only two licences
at the exorbitant fee of fifty pounds were ever
taken out. " Since the populace saw they could
not evade the law," Lord Cartaret plainly told
the House of Lords " they openly and avowedly
transgressed it; and the transgressors were so
numerous that they even set the Government
itself at defiance. No private man, no under
officer durst inform, no magistrate durst punish,
without being in danger of being De Witt-ed by
the mob as he passed along the streets/ 7 2

1 The Earl of Islay, in the debate in the House of Lords (Parlia-
mentary History, 21st February 1743).

2 Parliamentary History, vol. is. pp. 1132-1138 ; vol. xii. pp. 1191-
1439. For this whole episode, see Mr. Lecky's History of England
in the Eighteenth Century (1883), vol. i. pp. 476-482, and the
authorities there quoted ; also Smollett's History of England (1756-7) j
TindalTs continuation of Rapin's History of England (1759), vol. viii.
pp. 358-388 ; Lord Mahon's History of England (1839), vol. iii. ch.
xxv. pp. 213-214 ; Macfarlane and Thomson's History of England
(1856), vol. iii. p. 258 ; An Argument for the Legislative Prohibition
of the Liquor Traffic, by F. E. Lees (1856), p. 82 ; History of Drink,
by J. Samuelson (1880), pp. 161-162 ; Nineteen Centuries of Drink

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 27

It appears that the distillers at Cambridge,
rather than pay the exorbitant new taxes under
the 1736 Act, " with great loss, disadvantage and
expense, converted their effects into the wine
trade," and " hired, furnished, and opened cellars
and taverns" (see their petitions in House of
Commons Journals, 23rd March, 19th April, and
2nd May 1737). This brought down upon them
the university authorities, who claimed that by
ancient custom the sole right of licensing any
kind of public-houses lay in them. To maintain
this monopoly, the university obtained a clause
in a new Act (see House of Commons Journals,
16th March 1737).

In spite of the fact that no spirits could
legally be sold by retail at all for no one had
taken out the necessary licence 1 the amount
manufactured, on which the excise duty was
paid, rose from 4,947,000 gallons in 1734 to no
less than 7,160,000 gallons in 1742.

The 1736 Act had, it is said, never secured
the approval of Walpole, the then all-powerful
minister, but he had not cared to oppose the

in England, by R. V. French (1884), pp. 285-292 ; Gentleman's
Magazine, vol. vi pp. 550, 682 ; vol. vii. pp. 513, 701, etc.

1 The fact that, in seven years, only two (or three) licences had
been taken out, was stated in the House of Lords by Lord Bathurst,
on the authority of Burton, a Commissioner of Excise (Parliamentary
History, vol. xii. pp. 1201, 1294).

28 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

momentary tide of opinion in Parliament.
Within a very few years it became evident that
it had totally failed to suppress excessive
gin-drinking. Though', the Government got no
revenue either from licences or the duty on retail
sales, the consumption was enormously increas-
ing. " You can hardly pass along any street of
this great city," said the Bishop of Salisbury in
1743, " at any hour of the day, but you may see
some poor creatures mad drunk with this liquor,
and committing outrages in the street, or lying
dead asleep upon bulks, or at the doors of empty
houses. It is true we have not now those public
and open scenes of wickedness and debauchery
that appeared in every gin-shop before the
making of the law . . . but the trade is carried
on, though more privately, yet with as great
excess as ever, and the reason we do not see
more objects in streets is because most of
them sleep out the dose in the private corner
where they took it in." l

"Every one knows," said Lord Bathurst,
"that the 1736 Act did not diminish the con-
sumption, nor prevent the excessive use of
spirituous liquors. They were not, it is true,
retailed publicly and avowedly, but they were
clandestinely retailed in every coffee-house and

1 Parliamentary History, 21st February 1743.

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 29

alehouse, and in. many shops and private houses,
so that the use and even the abuse of spiritu-
ous liquors continued as frequent, though not
so apparent, as before the Act was made ;
and the consumption rather increased than
diminished, as appears from the amount of the
duty for these last two years." 1

It is clear that the Act of 1736, as it stood,
was of no use. To strengthen both the law and
the administration in such a way as to make it
really effective would have caused a diminution
in the revenue. By 1748, the Government
needed actually more revenue, and was in no
mood to dispense with any. It therefore
brought forward a Bill which it had got drafted
by Kent, one of the great distillers of the time. 2
This measure repealed the 1736 Act, and adopted
the policy ever since maintained in this country,
namely,' the combination of revenue duties on
the manufacture of spirits, with the licensing of
retailers at a moderate annual fee under magis-
terial supervision. This momentous reversal of
policy " was hurried through the House of
Commons with the utmost precipitation, and
passed almost without the formality of a debate." 8

1 Parlmmmitary History, 21st February 1743.

a Ibid. vol. xii p. 1299.

8 Lord ChostorJiolcTs speech, Parliamentary History, 21st February

30 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

But in the House of Lords the enemies of
Ministers rallied their forces, and they were
powerfully aided by the whole bench of bishops.
The debate which ensued happens to have been
more fully recorded than, perhaps, any other
parliamentary discussion of the century. 1 The
Government urged that the Bill, though removing
the virtual prohibition professedly imposed by
the Act of 1736, would really diminish the
consumption of spirituous liquors, by enabling it
to be brought under control. " We find by
experience/' said Lord Bathurst, " that we
cannot absolutely prevent the retailing of such
liquors. "What then are we to do? Does not
common sense point out to us the most proper
method, which is to allow their being publicly
retailed, but to lay such a duty upon the still
head and upon licences as, without amounting
to a prohibition, will make them come so dear to
the consumer, that the poor will not be able to
launch out into an excessive use of them."

1743 ; Memoirs of Kir Robert Walpoh, by W. Coxo (1798) ; History of
Hhigland, by Lord Mahon (1839), vol. iii. ch. xxv. p. 213.

1 Besides the general histories already cited, the student of this groat
debate will consult Archbishop Secker'a Diary xmder 24th February
1743, in his Works (1811) ; Ebenozor Timbcrland's History and
Proceedings of the House of Lords (1744), vol. viii. ; Cobbott's
Parliamentary History, which devotes no less thati 248 pages to the
proceedings (vol. xii. pp. 1191-1439) ; the London Magazine, October
1743 j and the Gentleman's Magazine, November 1743.

A PEKIOD OF LAXNESS 31

The bishops, on the other hand, strenuously
opposed the setting up of a traffic destructive
alike of health and morality. They seem to
have suggested as a remedy an increased strin-
gency of the prohibitory law, and the exercise
of greater care by the Justices in granting ale-
house licences. " If," said the Bishop of Salis-
bury, "Justices of Peace did their duty they
would be much more cautious than they are in
granting or continuing licences ; but they never
did, they never will do, their duty in this
respect. Do not we know that they never do
refuse a licence to any one that is willing and
able to pay for it ? Are there not now many
notorious vile houses licensed as coffee-houses or
alehouses? Do not we know that when such
houses become a nuisance to the whole neigh-
bourhood, it is with the utmost difficulty that
the honest neighbours can prevail with the Jus-
tices to take away the licence ? "

Lord Ilervey, in opposing the Bill, endorsed
this condemnation of the Justices, and urged that
their lax ness was directly encouraged by the
financial interest of the Government in multi-
plying licences. "Originally," he said, "no
licence was granted unless upon inquiry it was
found that such a house was in that place really
wanted for the convenience of the neighbour-

32 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

hood. . . . But since the high duties and excises
have been laid upon wines, and upon beer and
ale, has such an inquiry ever been made ? Has
not a licence been granted to every one that
asked it? Has not the execution of our laws
against drunkenness and tippling been most
egregiously neglected? This, my Lords, will
be the consequence of the duty now proposed to
be laid on gin. The duty proposed is not near
so high as to amount to a prohibition. ... It is
not designed as such ; it is designed as a fund
for bringing money into the King's exchequer,
and therefore . . . the use of this commodity,
and even the excessive use of it, will be encour-
aged, or at least connived at by the King's
Ministers, and by all those under their direc-
tion. The Justices of Peace may, perhaps, for
the first year or two refuse granting a licence to
a house known to be designed to be made a gin-
shop under the pretence of being a coffee-house
or alehouse; but they will soon have private
directions, and a licence will be granted to every
one that desires it. ... I foresee that if you.
again open gin-shops under the denomination of
coffee-houses or alehouses, we shall presently
have a new deluge of all those calamities whicK
were so severely felt, and so much complained o~
in the year 1736."

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 33

It is needless to add that, notwithstanding
the zeal and fervour of the bishops, and the
eloquence of the noble opponents of the new
administration, the new Prime Minister got his
way. The Bill of 1743 passed into law. 1 The
retail licence duty was reduced from 50 to 1,
and the prohibitive duty of 20s. per gallon
on retail sales was abolished, whilst the very
moderate duty then levied on the manufacture
was only slightly increased. 2

These incessant and revolutionary interfer-
ences by Parliament with the regulation of the
liquor traffic between 1690 and 1743 absolve,
we think, the Justices of the Peace from any con-
siderable responsibility for the outburst of bestial
drunkenness and brutal disorder that charac-
terised the first decades of the eighteenth cen-
tury. But it is clear that neither in London
nor in the country did they show any zeal or
efficiency in exercising the powers which they
possessed. Alehouses, which were exclusively
under their jurisdiction, were greatly multiplied
in number. All this time, moreover, the laws

1 16 George II. c. 8 (1743).

2 In 1747 there was, for reasons unknown to us, a temporary
departure from tMs policy, in that distillers were allowed to retail
without magisterial licence. This led to abuses, stigmatised by H.
Fielding in his Inquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of JZobbers
(1748), and to the total prohibition of distillers to retail, even with
a licence, in 1751.

D

34 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

against " continuing drinking' 7 or " tippling"
were in fall force, and the' Justices were expressly
required to see that the victuallers whom they
licensed prevented any such " continuing drink-
ing, and maintained good order in their houses."
Yet we do not hear of any withdrawal of licences
for misconduct, or the suppression of unnecessary
drinking places. From 1701 onward, as we have
seen, the law, though subject to large exceptions,
required the ordinary " dram-shops " and " punch-
houses" to be licensed, and the indiscriminate
retailing of spirits was plainly illegal ; but there
is no indication in Hogarth's " Gin Lane " of any
interference by the Justices or the constables. 1
To induce the vendors of spirituous liquors to
take out a licence was, no doubt, in the contem-
porary anarchy, a difficult and unpleasant task.

1 Yet even the Middlesex Justices could be particular enough if
they chose. "One of the curious sights of the year 1717," writes
Dr. Doran, " was the assembling by summons of a thousand Middle-
sex tavern-keepers in front of Hicks' Hall, where announcement was
made to them that in future no licence would be granted save to
those who had taken the oath of allegiance before the Justices of the
various parishes'* (London m Jacobite Times, by Dr. Doran, 1877,
vol. i. p. 288). So in 1745, a critical year, we read that the magis-
trates for the division of St. George's, Hanover Square, in petty
sessions, resolved "that for the future no persons that are Roman
Catholics, or others who shall refuse to take the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy, be admitted to have licences in this parish. That
all persons that shall hereafter apply for new licences do first take
the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and repeat the declaration
against transubstantiation " (MS. Minutes, Petty Sessions, St.
George's, Hanover Square (Middlesex), 5th October 1745).

A PEEIOD OF LAXNESS 35

" When a Justice of the Peace/' we are told,
" meets with inferior officers of courage and
intrepidity, and sets about a reformation of the
unlicensed houses, he finds himself surrounded
with numbers of pettifogging attorneys and
solicitors who watch his steps, and if there
happens to be the least flaw in the method of
drawing up and managing the several proceed-
ings, he finds himself obliged to attend a cer-
tiorari in the King's Bench, where, failing in
some circumstance, the whole proceedings are
quashed, and the magistrate, who has been at
great expense, has the mortification to see the
impudent fellow triumph over him and increase
his iniquitous trade." l The committee of
Middlesex magistrates which reported to Quarter
Sessions in 1736, may well have been " firmly
persuaded that there has been great negligence
and remissness in several of the officers in this
occasion," seeing that they discovered that nearly
half the constables whom they employed were
themselves retailers of spirituous liquors. " While
all other tradesmen endeavour to get excused
from serving the office of constable, the dealers
in Geneva court the office, whence they infer
that the constables find their account in encour-

1 Distilled Liquors the Bam of the Nation (1736), p. viii. (p. 180
of Add. MSS. 27825).

,

36 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

aging the commission of vices and crimes." The
net result was that in 1736 this committee
reported the existence, not only of almost in-
numerable cases in which spirits were clandes-
tinely sold in cellars, garrets, and backyards,
but, in the metropolitan parishes alone (exclud-
ing the city of London and Southwark), of no
fewer than 2105 open and regular retailers who
kept dram-shops without being licensed, as com-
pared with 4939 holders of licences ; and that
these had formed a common fund to defend them-
selves against the prosecutions which the Justices
were afraid to institute. The licensing powers
of the Justices, as well as the laws of Parliament,
were, in fact, simply set at defiance.

In this dilemma Parliament seems to have
found no alternative to the policy of throwing
all responsibility upon the Justices of the Peace.
The ten years which succeeded the main Act of
1743 witnessed a series of minor reforms, all
directed towards making more effective the Jus-
; tices' authority. Licences were to be granted

only at the annual " Brewster Sessions," specially
summoned for the purpose, and at no other
time; 1 the procedure as to the transfer of
licensed houses was systematically regulated; 2

* 26 George II. c. 31.
2 26 Gteorge II. c. 31 and 29 Gteorge II. c. 12.

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 37

no Justice who was himself a brewer or distiller
could take part in granting a licence ; l the fee
of the Justice's clerk was expressly restricted to
half a crown, 2 whilst the Government stamp was
raised to a guinea. 3 No licence was to be granted
to any person but the keeper of a house of public
refreshment for that house only ; 4 and the
licensee was not allowed to carry on the trade
of grocer or chandler, or that of a distiller, or to
keep a "brandy shop." 5 As some guarantee
that the premises were of sufficient size, they
had (if spirits were to be sold as well as beer)
to be rated to the poor rate, and in London to
be of at least 12 rental or ,10 ratable value. 6
The licensee had not only to enter into his own
recognisances for good behaviour, but had also
to furnish two sureties for the same. 7 More-
over, no new licence was to be granted outside
London and the corporate towns, except on the
certificate of the incumbent and churchwardens
of the parish, or of three or four substantial
householders therein, that the applicant was " of
good fame and sober life and conversation." 8

1 26 George II. e. 31 c. 13, sec. 11.
2 24 George II. c. 40. 3 29 George II. c. 12.
4 17 George II. c. 17, c. 19. 5 17 George II. c. 17, c. 19.
6 24 George II. c. 40 ; 26 George II. c. 13.

7 26 George II. c. 31, sec. 1.

8 26 George II. c. 31, sec. 16.

38 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Finally, in order to strengthen the hands of the
Justices, the procedure relating to their proceed-
ing against defaulting publicans was simplified
and defined ; * they were protected against writs
of certiorari and actions for damages, and they
were given summary powers of search and dis-
covery. 2 From 1753 onward, at any rate, the
Justices had in their uncontrolled discretion to
grant or refuse a licence, and in the crushing
penalties against unlicensed sellers, an almost
unlimited power of confining the drink traffic
within legitimate bounds. 3

During the decades immediately following
the legislation of 1743-53, the Justices seem to

1 26 George II. c. 31, sec. 7, 8 ; 28 George II. c. 19.

2 24 George II. c. 40, and 26 George II. c. 31, sec. 9.

3 Trustworthy statistics of the consumption of spirits cannot be
given, owing to the varying prevalence of illicit distilling, and the
uncertainty as to the amount smuggled from other countries. For
the first half of the eighteenth century the statistics of the amount
of British spirits charged with duty seem to have, at any rate, some
significance. The records begin in 1684, when the total was only
527,492 gallons, and it did not reach a million until 1696. It then
rose rapidly to 2,200,721 in 1710, 3,879,695 in 1722, 4,612,275 in
1727, and 6,074,562 in 1734, the known production being thus at the
latter date about one gallon per head of the estimated population of
England. The first Gin Act of 1729-33 effected no reduction at
all. The second, of 1736-43, caused the amount to fall off for the
first three years only, the increase for the last four years of its opera-
tion being at a greater rate than before. This was again checked by
the Acts of 1751 and 1753, when the total amount fell from 7,049,822
gallons in 1751 to only 4,483,341 in 1752, and to 1,849,370 in 1758

v | (see the tables in First Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue,

| 1857, Appendix, Ho. 19).

A PEEIOD OF LAXNESS 39

have set themselves to carry out the spirit of
Walpole's Act, by aiming at licensing the sale of
alcoholic liquors rather than restricting, or even
controlling it. Gradually, with many prosecu-
tions, the indiscriminate sale of liquor in London
and Westminster was put down, but only at the
cost of steadily increasing the number of licensed
houses, and allowing them to remain practically
unregulated. 1 In 1750 we learn that "7000
out of 12,000 quarters of wheat sold in the
London markets per week were converted into
spirituous liquors . . . and there were 500 out
of 2000 houses in the parish of St. Giles-in-
the-Field open for" their sale. 2 "The suburbs
of the Metropolis/ 7 writes Smollett of 1752,
" abounded with an incredible number of public-
houses, which continually resounded with the
noise of riot and intemperance ; they were the
haunts of idleness, fraud, and rapine, and the
seminaries of drunkenness, debauchery, extrava-
gance, and every vice incident to human
nature." 3 In contrast with the drastic "articles"

1 "In 1750 the following is given as an authentic account of the
proportion of (drink shops) ... in the City of London one to every
fifteen houses ; in "Westminster one to every eight dwellings ; in
Holborn district one to every five ; and in St. Giles above one to
every four houses " (History of the Temperance Movement, by Samuel
Couling (1862), p. 19).

2 Gentleman's Magazine, January 1760, p. 21.

3 History of England, by T. Smollett, ch. xxii. vol. iii. p. 81 of
1848 edition.

40 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

enforced by the Justices under James the First,
those who were commissioned by George the
Third made, for the first twenty years of his
reign, absolutely no attempt to enforce the laws
against tippling, or to stop drinking during
divine service on Sunday, or to prescribe any
hours of closing, or even to require the obser-
vance of the most elementary decency. The
overgrown parishes of the metropolitan area
became specially notorious for their gin-shops
and night-houses. 1 "In many parts 77 (of the
Metropolis), writes a reviewer of 1759, "par-
ticularly in Chelsea, every house, comparatively
speaking, is a public-house." 2 In Westminster,
in spite of an unrepealed order of 1585, by
which the High Steward and Burgesses had
ordained that there should be "one hundred
common alehouses and no more 77 within the
city and liberties, there were in 1770 no fewer

1 "These * night-houses ' were kept open the whole night, pro-
fessedly for the purpose of receiving all manner of persons who think
proper to resort to them ; where every one is permitted to sit tippling
and gambling the whole night apprentices, journeymen, family
servants, known thieves, the most abandoned prostitutes, all
assemble and mix together" (Address by W. Mainwaring to the
Middlesex Grand Jury, 12th September 1785 ; see Chelmsford
Chronicle, 21st April 1786).

2 Monthly Review, December 1759, vol. xxi. p. 575, in a notice of
a pamphlet entitled The Number of Alehouses shown to be extremely
Pernicious to the Publick by the Vicar of S. in Kent, 1758, This little
work, which is signed R, C., is by the vicar of a small rural parish.

A PEKIOD OF LAXNESS 41

than two thousand. 1 Loud and frequent are
the complaints of the obvious partiality and
corrupt laxity of the Middlesex magistrates,
" men of profligate lives, needy, mean, ignorant
and rapacious/' Smollet calls them, in all that
concerned licensing. 2

The magistrates of the other counties and
municipal boroughs, though free from the gross
and unashamed corruption of the " trading
Justices" of Middlesex, seem to have been,
between 1729 and 1786, hardly less negligent in
the performance of the duties which Parliament
had cast upon them. In most parts of the
country it became, apparently, easy to get an
alehouse licence, and we hear on all sides that

1 A Brief Account of the Powers given to and Exercised ly the
Burgess Court of Westminster, by An Inhabitant of Westminster
(n.d. 1770?), p. 12.

2 The disreputable public-houses in St. Luke's parish, in spite of
the laws against tippling and drinking during divine service, had
" benches set at the doors " on Sundays to accommodate their crowds
of customers. " And do not the churchwardens and Justices," asks
an indignant critic in 1782, " see many wallowing in the streets who
have been harboured all night at the houses alluded to ? Why not
severely fine the occupiers of these houses for such conduct ; and if
that does not remove the evil, you are justified in preventing their
ever being again licensed. The time of renewing licences is now near
at hand. You are hereby publicly called on to remove the evil. You
as managers of the aifairs of this parish can, with propriety, and
without any partiality, remove that which individuals cannot, and
by complying with which you will gain the approbation of every
peaceable inhabitant" (Gazetteer, 2nd August 1782 ; and again to the
same effect, 19th February 1782).

42 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

the number of " little alehouses, those nurseries
of highwaymen, street robbers, housebreakers,"
etc., 1 was enormously increased. 2 The character-
istic desire of the eighteenth century governing
class to extract revenue out of the evil propen-
sities of the population s had, as Lord Hervey
predicted in 1743, seriously infected the licensing
work of the Justices. " We are unhappily fallen,"
said the Gentleman's Magazine already in 1739,
" into a way of raising great part of the public
and civil list revenue on malt, beer, wine, etc.,
the consumption of which, and consequently the
revenue, is mightily increased by the vices of
the people. This naturally stops the current of
justice, and is an over -ruling argument with

1 See, for instance, the correspondent to the London Magazine,
ilarch 1758 (vol. xxvii. p. 135).

2 "I live in a country village," says a -writer in 1751, "and we
have six common stews or alehouses ; they brew near 130 quarters of
malt in the year. Our farmers drink but little, our day-labourers
drink less ; the consumption is chiefly by our weavers and combers "
(Gentleman's Magazine, May 1751, p. 206).

3 The use made of lotteries is one example of this desire. Nor
was it altogether in jest that a writer, in 1732, proposed that the
National Debt should be paid by a tax on each particular vice.
"Drunkenness he taxes at sixpence, and supposing only 20,000
persons daily liable to be taxed, the amount would be 500 per day.
This is a moderate computation if one considers that, besides the
usual opportunities of taverns and private houses, there are elections,
fairs, mayors' feasts, university treats, corporation dinners, Christmas
regals, weddings, and christenings ; but would exempt county

""I Justices and parsons, not willing they should be insulted by inferior

4 *' officers " (Read's Journal, 22nd January 1732, quoted in Gentleman's

Magazine, January 1732).

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 43

avaricious ministers and falsely loyal magistrates,
not to exert themselves, according to their duty,
to nip the first buddings of vicious, disorderly
spirits. Hence the innumerable alehouses with
which England abounds ; hence the non-execu-
tion of so many good laws against tippling
houses. ... To this may be added a supine
neglect of duty too apparent in many magis-
trates, who seem to have little sense of the
concatenation of vicious habits and unruly
actions with each other, and over some of whom
the large fees for warrants, licences, mittimuses,
orders, etc., into their clerk's, or their own
pockets, may reasonably be supposed to have
some little influence. Within these two years I
was at a session held at a trading town in Wilts
for licensing alehouses, where there were seven
Justices, one of whose clerks told me with an air
of gladness that his share came to between three
and four pounds." l

Nor were the brewers and distillers idle in
the promotion of the trade. They are "not
contented," says a writer in 1773, "with such
trade and gain as might fairly and spontaneously
arise/' and " are known to buy up paltry houses
and settle retailers in every little parish, as well
as in every town and city, and for fear there

1 Gentleman's Magazine, March 1739, p. 124.

44 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

should be a place in the kingdom exempt from
their advantage, we have scarce a village with-
out some of their cottages and huts, where
servants and labourers, inferior tradesmen and
handicraftsmen, young people and old, are
secreted and allured by various sports, pastimes,
and fooleries, till, intoxicated with every mixture
that can tempt the palate or drain the pocket,
they swallow in like swine the filth of debauchery,
and are a disgrace to our laws and a reproach to
human nature/' 1

Avarice, whether public or private, was, it is
hardly necessary to say, not the only influence at
work on the mind of the licensing Justices ; there
was also the charitable desire to help poor people
to get a living. The evil multiplication of
"petty alehouses," says a writer in 1766,
" arises from a mistaken notion in many re-
putable people in different parishes, who think
that, by signing certificates to the Justices to
obtain licences for some needy persons, they
thereby keep them off the poor rate, and prevent
their being troublesome to the parish." . . .
The situation of these little public-houses is
commonly on the side of a common ... or
some such, place, and being out of the public
road, of course are of no service in accommodating

1 M&nthty JRei)iew t January 1773, vol. xlviii p. 20.

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 45

travellers. The chief support, therefore, of the
occupiers of them arises from their harbouring
and entertaining poachers, as well as others who
pursue indirect practices, and also from enticing
labouring men to loiter their time and spend their
money with them." l Nor were things any better
in the corporate boroughs. The little town of
Woodstock (Oxfordshire), for instance, which
cannot, at the middle of the eighteenth century,
have had more than a thousand inhabitants

1 London Chronicle, 26tlx-28th Juno 1766.

The laxity of the Justices in granting too many licences is strongly
animadverted on in The Number of Alehouses shown to be extremely
Pernicious to the, PulUck, by the Vicar of S. in Kent (signed E. C. ),
1758.

We do not know how far the following lively picture of a licensing
sessions in 1754 may he accepted as typical. At "the Brewster
sessions at Bray in Northungria " five Justices arc represented as
being present. " Mrs. Drab " comes in to apply for a renewal of her
licence ; she bringu a certificate signed by some of her neighbours,
certifying that " Mrs. Drab of the Hound keeps a very regular and
orderly house ; and that we have been often entertained there with
much pleasure, wit and humour ; and desire that her licence may be
renewed ; for wo cannot live without her and hers."

Sir John Bear "Tho Hound lies in my neighbourhood. I
wish there was never a liound near me ; it debauches my servants.
I could give many reasons why she ought not to have a licence." Mr.
J. Lock then refers to " irregularities committed at the house in
April" and "shameful doings in May and June," and "infamous
revels in August." Other objections are made,

Tho Chairman "Horn! hem! There are two Justices required
to the granting every licence by the statute. Brother Friar, yon and
I must sign it Tho woman must not be undone, nor the excise
diminished. Tho house draws a great deal of ale, and pays a round
sum into the office." (They sign the licence). Gentleman's
Magazine, October 1754.

46 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

always had over a score of alehouses. 1 In
wide area of the borough of Leeds, which eoverecl
twenty square miles of country, the terrible
increase in the " nightly depredations committee!
in the town and neighbourhood" is, in 1786*
attributed largely to " the immense multitude of
the lower sort of alehouses within the borough- .
. . . They are too numerous to enable their
inhabitants to gain a livelihood by fair and
honourable means. In one village not far froncL
Leeds . . . their number is between thirty and
forty. . . . These little pothouses . . . are tho
rendezvous of these nocturnal villains, whero
they plan their depredations, and where not un-
frequently they divide their spoil. 7 ' 2 All the
keepers of these alehouses and gin shops, these
haunts of criminals and " night-houses," it must)
be remembered, had entered into elaborate re-
cognisances for good behaviour and came up
annually for a renewal of their licences. The

1 Minutes of { Portmouth. Court" and " Acts'* of the Town.
Council ; see Chronicles of Woodstock, by A. Ballard (Oxford, 1896).
Occasionally the granting of new licences in corporate towns was
checked by the Influence in the corporations of local brewers, who did
not want the business of their own licence-holders competed with.
Snch a case certainly occurred at Canterbury (Kent) ; see Charters
Destructive to Liberty and Property, by Thomas Koch (1776), pp.
85-93. But the testimony of the Municipal Corporation Com-
missioners in 1835 leads us to think that such influences were not
common,

3 Leeds Intelligencer, 25th April 1786.

A PERIOD OF LAXNESS 47

remissness of the Justices in neglecting their
powers of control was as complete and universal
as their laxness in granting licences. The
recognisances and surety bonds and certificates
became mere meaningless formalities. 1 In one
county, at any rate that of Durham the
''practice . . . had long prevailed of signing
blank licences, and leaving them to be filled up
at the discretion of the Clerk of the Peace." 2

1 Here is a description of the recognisances at the latter part of
the eighteenth century : " On every day of licensing the Clerk of
the Peace or his deputy attends the meeting of the Justices of the
Peace, and upon a large roll takes a recognisance of the alehouse-
keeper, -who produces any sureties without enquiry "being made into
their circumstances upon oath (which I admit the statute doth not
empower the Justices to do), and for this he, the Clerk of the Peace,
receives twelve pence, which I am sorry to say is the only advantage
arises to any one from these recognisances, and then the roll is carried
to the Clerk of the Peace office and never heard of after . . . and
hereby is this statute of King Edward VI. evaded" (Serious Thoughts
in Regard to the Piibliclt Disorders, by a County Justice of the Peace
(n.d.), pp. 14, 15).

2 Paley, when rector of Bishop Wearmouth and a Justice of the
Peace, induced the Justices to abandon this lax practice (see Memoirs
of William Paley, D.D., by George Wilson ileadley (Edinburgh,
1810), p. 192).

It is unfortunately impossible to give statistics of any significance
as to the increase of licences, and the amount of consumption during
this period. Ko statistics as to the total number of alehouse licences
were obtained until 1810, when the stamp on the licence was re-
placed by an excise duty (by 48 George III. c. 143 of 1808). There
were said to be 40,000 in 1773, for a population which probably did
not then reach eight millions (Monthly Review, Jan. 1773, vol.
xlviii. p. 20) ; but this was far within the mark.

The number of spirit licences is known, and it is significant that
this rose from 22,821 in 1744 to no fewer than 37,172 in 1779 a high-
water mark not again reached, in spite of the enormous growth of

48 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

population until 1811 (see Appendix 32a to First Eeport of Com-
missioners of Inland Revenue, 1857). In this period there was so
much illicit distilling, private brewing, and smuggling of foreign
spirits that the revenue statistics afford no guide to the total con-
sumption. The statistics of malt and British spirits charged for
duty between 1758 and 1784 show a fairly stationary taxed pro-
duction ; for beer somewhat less than in 1716-27 ; for spirits only a
third of the swollen totals of 1734-51 (see the tables in Appendices
Nos. 19 and 20 of First Keport of Commissioners of Inland Revenue,
1857).

CHAPTER III

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION

WE come now to the most remarkable episode
in the whole history of public-house licensing
in England, the sudden and almost universal
adoption by county and borough benches of a
policy of restriction and regulation, lasting, in a
systematic and self-conscious form, only for half
a dozen years, but surviving in most of the
counties as an ideal, and to some extent as a
governing principle, right" down to the adoption
of Free Trade in Beer by the Parliament of
1830. This episode, which has, so far as we
know, never been described, 1 included the
deliberate and systematic adoption, by benches
of magistrates in different parts of the country,
of such modern devices as Early Closing, Sunday

1 We have found no mention of it in the voluminous literature of
the temperance movement, so far as we have examined it ; and we
are not aware of any case in which it has been cited in the various
Parliamentary inquiries from 1817 to 1900.

49 E

50 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Closing, the Refusal of New Licences, the With-
drawal of Licences from badly conducted houses,
the peremptory closing of a proportion of houses
in a district over-supplied with licences, and in
some remarkable instances, even the establish-
ment of a system of Local Option or Local Veto,
both as regards the opening of new public-houses
and the closing of those already in existence, all
without the slightest idea of compensation. As
this reform movement was not only important in
itself, but is of special interest in our own day,
we propose, principally by means of extracts
from contemporary sources, to describe it at
some length.

"We have elsewhere 1 described the powerful
movement for the reformation of the manners
and niorals of the lower orders which was in-
augurated by Zouch and Wilberforce in 1786-87,
cordially endorsed by the pious king, and sup-
ported by the whole governing class. This
movement came, as we pointed out, from several
distinct but converging currents of public
opinion the new-found Evangelical zeal for
saving men's souls, the growing dislike of the
propertied class of the insecurity of life and
property, the alarm both of the financier and the
ratepayer at the increasing burden of the poor

1 See Appendix, pp. 137-151.

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 51

rate, and last but not, we think, least, the half-
conscious desire of the rising class of industrial
capitalists to drive the manual workers out of
the alehouse and gin-shop into the factory and
workshop. Such being the influences at work, it
is not surprising that the most signal and durable
manifestation of the movement should have been
a strenuous attempt to restrict the temptations
to, and the opportunities for, licentious conduct,
disorderly gatherings, wasteful expenditure and
idle hours, which an unlimited supply of un-
regulated public-houses afforded to the lower
orders. 1

The first indication of the movement came
from the heart of the new manufacturing dis-
tricts. 2 The high earnings of certain classes of

1 " That many (alehouses) are opened without any licence at all ;
that many are improperly licensed, being more in number than are
necessary ; and being in situations very dangerous and remote from
the public eye ; and that very many of those which are licensed are
irregularly conducted, are facts which no one will venture to
contradict " (Narrative of Proceedings tending towards a National
Reformation, 1787, p. 5).

2 Individual magistrates up and down the country had for some
time been suggesting the propriety of restriction. Thus, in a
pamphlet entitled Thoughts on the Great Circumspection necessary
in Licensing Public Nouses, a country Justice of 1777 earnestly
exhorts his brother magistrates not to licence any but absolutely
necessary alehouses, to make "the most strict and impartial
inquisition" into their conduct, and "to exercise with unremitting
vigour the power entrusted with them," and "to lay the axe to the
root of an enormous and growing evil " (see Monthly Review^ Nov.
1777, vol. Ivii. p. 408).

52 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

operatives in the new textile and iron manu-
factures liad led to a pandemonium of hard
drinking and brutal amusements. We find the
Lancashire Justices in Quarter Sessions in 1782
giving public notice that, " whereas divers inn-
keepers within the said county have for some
time past made a common practice of suffering
great numbers of ill-disposed persons to assemble
at their houses and fight cocks, to the great im-
poverishing of themselves and their families, and
to the great encouragement of vice, ... in
future no licences will be granted to any . . .
who shall encourage, connive at, or suffer the
fighting of cocks at or in their houses, outhouses,
or grounds, and that the magistrates . . . are
determined to prosecute and punish all such
persons." l Presently, fiscal changes gave a great
stimulus to the drinking habits of the new
manufacturing population. The manufacture of
British spirits, which had remained for five~and-
twenty years at a relatively low level, and had
even drooped under the heavy war taxes of
1780-85, suddenly bounded up in 1785, on the
reduction of the duty, and rose to double
its accustomed amount. 2 It is not without

1 Lancashire Quarter Sessions, Easter 1782 (see Manchester
Mercury, 28th May 1782).

2 See the statistics in Appendix No. 19 of First Report of Com-
missioners of Inland Revenue, 1857.

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 53

significance that, in 1786, the "West Riding Justices
found themselves driven to consider seriously the
condition of the county, and that they incorpor-
ated in their general scheme of reforms of
"police" strict rules with regard to licensing.
A general reduction in the number of public-
houses was, they stated, eminently desirable.
In the meantime, they gave notice that all
publicans offending against the law would have
their licences withdrawn and their recognisances
estreated. 1 That this was no empty threat was
proved at the next Brewster Sessions at Barnsley,
where " the licences of several alehouse-keepers
were stopped, who had entertained tipplers,
particularly on Sundays, and encouraged cock-
ings, bull-baitings, bear-baitings, etc." 2 The
Royal Proclamation against vice and immorality,
issued at the instance of Wilberforce early in
1787, and sent by the Home Secretary to every
bench of magistrates, set going a national move-
ment in the same direction. Throughout the
next two or three years we find recorded in every
provincial newspaper from one end of the king-
dom to the other the repeated discussions and
elaborate resolutions of the county Justices as to
the evils which, neglect had produced, and the

1 West Riding Quarter Sessions, Eastor 1786 (soo Leeds Intelli-
gencer, 16th May 1786).

2 Leeds Intelligencer, 19tli September 1786.

54 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

way to remedy them. Each county recognised
that too many alehouses had been licensed, and
that these " swarms of petty pothouses" had,
from lack of regulation and supervision, become
" haunts of idleness," " nurseries of sottishness,"
and " seminaries of crime." Practically, every
county resolved to insist on a strict observ-
ance of the laws against allowing gaming or
cock-fighting on licensed premises, tippling
during divine service, and the harbouring of
vagrants. Everywhere the constables were
incited to more diligent supervision, 1 and the
ministers and churchwardens were urged to
greater care in signing certificates in support of
new licences, and to be prompt to report any
misconduct of the alehouse - keepers already
licensed. But in many counties the Justices went
much further, and prescribed for themselves in
Brewster Sessions rules of action, and for the
publicans conditions of licensing, which not only
revived the " articles " enforced by the Justices
under James L, but even anticipated nearly all
the suggestions of modern temperance reformers.

1 The effect of the 1787 proclamation in stirring up the then Mayor
of Leeds to an active enforcement of the law is described in the Life
of William Hey, hy John Pearson (1822), pp. 109-131. The Mayor's
campaign against the liquor-sellers led to a great outcry, and several
vexatious actions were instituted against him and his constables by
aggrieved publicans.

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 55

To begin with the Justices' own action, we see
them putting the procedure of granting the
licence, and the relation to the publican of the
local constable, on a more satisfactory footing.
The Surrey Justices resolved " that licences re-
fused at any or either of these meetings shall
not be granted at any other time or place
without the consent of the majority of the
Justices present at the time of such refusal. 77
They went on to prohibit skittle grounds and
billiard tables, and to determine that houses
shut up on account of disorders suffered therein
should not be re-licensed for the ensuing year,
arid that whenever a mere dram-shop became
vacant by death or removal of the occupier, its
licence should lapse for ever. 1

The Justices of the Northern Division of the
Lath of Aylesford, Kent, gave public notice that
" if any information shall be given, to the said
Justices on or before the licensing clay, of any
irregularities committed or encouraged at any
alehouse within the said Division, such as per-
mitting the playing at cards, skittles, or any
other game prohibited by law to be there
used ; suffering tippling, especially on Sundays
during the time of divine service ; keeping late

1 Surrey Quarter Sessions (seo PuUic Advertiser, 17th August
1787).

56 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

and irregular hours, and entertaining night
customers," they would not only stop the
licence, but would also cause proceedings to be
taken to estreat the recognisances. 1

It was ordered in various counties that no
publican should henceforth be " appointed either
high or petty constable/ 7 2 nor accepted as surety
for another applicant for a licence ; 3 nor was
any " beadle " or "other parochial servant "to
be allowed to act in that capacity. 4 On the

1 Kentish Gazette, 10th August 1787. This notice seems to have
arisen from the charge to the grand jury of the chairman of Quarter
Sessions at Maidstone, in which, replying to the question, " Why are
not these houses suppressed ? " declared that magistrates could not
act without formal information being laid before them (Kentish
Gazette, 20th July 1787) a confusion of mind between their judicial
character and the essentially administrative duties cast upon them
in licensing which goes far to explain their failure. "I take upon
me to say," he continued, "that the magistrates have not been
remiss. I cannot recollect an instance where a proper information
has been given and it has not been attended to. Magistrates, I will
allow, have been merciful, and if that be a fault. His Majesty's
proclamation has now set a keener edge on the sword of justice."

2 Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions, 10th July 1787 (see Bristol
Journal, 15th September 1787). Licensed victuallers had been
expressly disqualified to be constables in Westminster by the Local
Act, 29 George II. c. 25 (1756). The adoption. of a similar rule by
the Justices elsewhere, "numberless inconveniences having been
found to arise from such appointment/' is recommended in The
Whole Duty of Constables, by an acting magistrate of the county of
Norfolk (Norwich, 1810), p. vii.

3 Justices for the Bampton Division of Oxfordshire (see Jackson's
Oxford Journal, 18th August 1787) ; Justices for the City of Oxford
(ibid. 12th April 1788).

4 Surrey Quarter Sessions (see Public Advertiser, 17th August
1787).

KEGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 57

otter hand, tlae Wiltshire magistrates in the
Salisbury Division hit upon the idea that " com-
mon brewers, being the owners of public-houses,
should be themselves securities for the good
conduct of their tenants/' 1 Many benches
adopted a formal resolution to grant no " new
licence to any public-house but where the con-
venience of the public absolutely required it " ; 2
or " excepting the case where some other house
in the same parish or place shall have been
suppressed within the preceding twelve months" ; s
or "until the present number shall have been
considerably reduced, 4 or for any house " situate
upon the skirts or outparts of any village/' 5 or
to any person intending to set up a dram-shop, 6
and in any case to insist on four weeks' notice
prior to the Brewster Sessions, in order to enable
inquiries to be made. 7 The Nottinghamshire

1 Justices for the Salisbury Division of Wilts (see Bristol Journal,
29th September 1787).

2 For instance, Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions, 10th July 1787
(see Bristol Journal, 15th September 1787).

3 Suffolk Quarter Sessions (see Ipswich Journal, 1st September
1787); Essex Quarter Sessions, 23rd July 1787 (see Chelmsford
Chronicle, 27th July 1787).

4 West Riding Quarter Sessions 3 16th April 1787 (see Leeds
Intelligencer, 1st May 1787).

5 Nottinghamshire Quarter Sessions (see Nottingham Journal,
21st July 1787).

6 West Riding Quarter Sessions (see Leeds Intelligencer, 16th May
1786) ; Surrey Quarter Sessions (see Pullic Advertiser, 17th August
1787).

7 West Riding Quarter Sessions (see Leeds Intelligencer, 16th May

58 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Justices declared their intention of refusing to
grant a spirit licence to any person who did
" not sell any wine, chocolate, coffee, tea, ale,
beer, or other liquors/' 1 The Essex Justices
made up their minds, " with mild firmness . . .
gradually at least, to licence no alehouses
occupied by persons carrying on some other
business ; to lessen the number, so as to make
each the means of a decent support to a worthy
family and consequently a heavy loss to be
forfeited by an omission of the conditions on
which such a beneficial licence is granted; and
to receive no certificate of recommendation of
character for licence unless signed, together with
the other inhabitants, by the officiating minister
of the parish, if resident in the same/ 7 2 The
magistrates of the borough of Leeds resolved in
1790 that they would " not on any account,
or upon any solicitations whatever, grant any
licence for the opening any other house as an
alehouse than those that are at present licensed ;

1786). It became customary for the magistrates to notify, by public
advertisement prior to each Brewster Sessions, that they invited
complaints or information from any person as to misconduct com-
mitted by any licence-holder. See, for instance, Public Advertiser,
20th August 1787 ; Leeds Intelligencer, 27th April 1790, and 23rd
April 1792. In 1792 (by 32 George III. c. 59) the Justices' consent
was first required for the transfer of a licence.

1 Nottinghamshire Quarter Sessions (see Nottingham Journal,
21st July 1787).

3 Ghelmsford Chronicle, 24th August 1787.

KEGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 59

and that as the keepers of such small alehouses
in the borough either cease to keep public-
houses, or remove out of the borough, or die, the
magistrates are determined to reduce the present
number of these houses. Any person or persons,
therefore, purchasing a licence or licences, or
entering upon any licensed public-house at any
intermediate part of the year for which the
licence is granted, will do the same at his or her
peril of being refused a licence. " l

But the Justices did more than refuse new
licences, and forfeit those of publicans who had
broken the law ; they, like their predecessors of
two centuries before, used their power to insist
on quite new conditions of carrying on the trade.

In Newcastle-on-Tyne the alehouse-keepers
were given " a printed copy of rules for their
guidance, together with a printed copy of
His Majesty's proclamation for preventing and
punishing vice, profaneness, and immorality/'
and the licences were declared to be void " upon
breach of any one of the printed rules so
delivered, " when the recognisances were also to
be estreated; and every alehouse -keeper was
expressly required "to keep the aforesaid two

1 Borough Justices' Meeting, 3rd May 1790 (see Leeds Intelligencer,
llth May 1790). This resolution was repeated two years later (ibid.
18th June 1792).

60 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

printed copies constantly hanging up, either in
frames or pasted on boards, in the most proper
and conspicuous place in Ms or her house, where
all persons resorting to the house may read the
same." l What these conditions were we learn
in other cases. In many counties the Justices
made it a condition of all licences that the public-
houses should be closed at nine o'clock in winter
and ten o'clock in summer. 2 At Leeds, the
Borough Justices fixed ten o'clock as the closing
hour all the year round. 3 More or less Sunday
closing became the rule everywhere out of
London. The publicans in Manchester "had
notice that no liquor must be sold before noon
on Sundays"; 4 whilst those of Gloucestershire

1 Ipsirich Journal, 24th May 1788.

2 Oxford Quarter Sessions, 10th July 1787 (see Bristol Journal,
15th September 1787) ; Berkshire Quarter Sessions (see Northampton
Mercury, 8th September 1787 ; Leeds Intelligencer, 18th September
1787) ; Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions (see Bristol Gazette, 24th
January 1788).

3 Borough Justices' Meeting, 3rd May 1792 (see Leeds Intelligencer,
18th June 1792). At Derby no closing time seems to have been
fixed until 1799, and then only for Saturdays, when all public-houses
were directed to close at 11 P.M. (see Derby Mercury, 21st November
1799). The Mayor of Plymouth printed a handbill in 1809, warning
licensed victuallers that they must close at 10 P.M., and must not
allow persons to remain tippling, or serve night-watchmen (IFol.
Misc. Papers, 1800 to 1835, p. 53, in Plymouth Corporation MS.
Records).

4 Bristol Journal, 22nd September 1787. At Stockport there was
a similar prohibition up to half-past twelve (Keport of House of
Commons Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1833, p. 238).

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 61

were directed not to serve on Sundays any one
but travellers " until after the evening service/'
and then only up to eight o'clock. 1 In other
counties all houses of public entertainment were
to cease selling drink during the hours of divine
service, during which time no one was to be
received or remain in such houses. 12 The Leeds
Justices drew a queer distinction between beer,
which was not to be sold during divine service,
and " drams " (of spirit), which were not to be
sold on Sundays at all. 3 The Berkshire Justuses
went further, and enforced complete Sunday
closing, except for the " hona-fide traveller,"
making it a condition of all their licences, " that
on the Lord's Day they do not receive, or suffer
to remain, any persons as guests to tipple, eat,
or drink, other than travellers, or such as come

1 Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions (see Bristol Journal, 24th
January 1788).

2 Essex Quarter Sessions, llth July 1786 (HOC Chelmsford Chronicle,
28th July 1786) ; Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions, 10th July 1787 (BOO
Bristol Journal, 15th September 1787) ; Derby Borough Justices (HOO
Derby Mercury, 21st November 1799) ; Nottinghamshire Quarter
Sessions (see Nottingham Journal, 21st July 1787). It was the same
desire for Sunday closing that led to the direction that no ntago-
waggon or cart was to be received at any time on Sunday, and tho
publican was required, at his peril, promptly to inform against tho
owners of public vehicles so breaking the Sabbath, so that they
could be prosecuted. Oxfordshire Quarter Sessions, 10th July 1787
(see Bristol Journal, 15th September 1787).

8 Borough Justices' Meeting, 3rd May 1792 (see Leeds Intelligencer,
18th June 1792).

62 LIQUOB LICENSING IN ENGLAND

upon necessary business/' 1 Another revival of the
" articles" of the beginning of the seventeenth
century was the rule, adopted by Gloucester
and many other counties, that one hour should
be the maximum time that " any journeyman,
labourer, servant, or apprentice" should " re-
main tippling " ; and that if such a person was
allowed to remain more than that time, or should
become intoxicated by tippling for less than
that time, the alehouse-keeper would be deemed
guilty of an offence against the Statute of 1603. 2
It is significant that the Justices of the Peace
of the latter part of the eighteenth century
frequently cited as the most oligarchical and
autocratic of governing authorities habitually
made use of local option or local veto in their
administration of the Liquor Laws. The Act
of 1753 had, as we have seen, required every
applicant for a licence, except in corporate towns,

1 Berkshire Quarter Sessions (see Northampton Mercury, 8th
September, and Leeds Intelligencer, 18th September 1787).

2 Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions (see Bristol Gazette, 24= th January
1788). A new instrument of order was found by some rural parishes,
in which the Vestry offered a reward of two or three guineas to any
person giving information leading to the conviction of any person
"for selling beer or spirituous liquors within the said parish without
a licence " ; so at Saxmundham, Great Glemham, and Swafflmg (see
Ipswich Journal, April, May, and June 1788 ; and other cases in
Suffolk). Kirby and Walton (Essex) (see Chelmsford Chronicle,
9th May 1780). This policy was approved by the Suffolk Quarter
Sessions (see Ipswich Journal, 18th October 1788).

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 63

to support his application by a certificate of
personal character, signed either by the clergy-
man and churchwardens, or by three or four
householders. The Gloucester Justices bettered
this statutory requirement by requiring the
certificate to be in all cases signed by the
clergyman and principal inhabitants of the
parish, and directing that it was to be signed
" at a vestry to be called for that purpose with
proper notice." 1 That the consent of the
" principal inhabitants in vestry assembled"
became, during the next two decades, a necessary
condition of the granting of new licences in
many counties is proved by the vestry records.
Thus, in the lively little town of Brighthelm-
stone (Brighton), we find the question of whether
or not new public-houses should be licensed
becoming the subject of prolonged agitation.
In 1801 a " public vestry" was held C( to take
into consideration the propriety of licensing a
victualling house situate at the back part of the
Royal Crescent." The clergyman who presided
succeeded in persuading the meeting to resolve
"that it is the opinion of this meeting that
there are already public-houses enough in the
town of Brighthelmstone for the convenience of

1 Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions, Epiphany, 1788 (see Bristol
Gazette, 24th January 1788). '

64 LIQTJOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

its inhabitants and the good of the trade, and
that the increase would be ruinous to the trade
and principally injurious to the lower class of
people." 1 Three years later we find the Chief
Constable, whom we suspect of being friendly
to the publicans, presiding over another public
vestry, duly summoned by notice in church for
the express purpose, which resolved "that it
appears to this meeting that there are already
forty-two public-houses in the parish," but that
these are " not sufficient for the accommodation
of the parish," and that accordingly five named
persons are recommended to the Justices as
eligible to receive licences. 2

Even more revolutionary was the practice of
calling into council the " principal inhabitants "
of the parish as to the expediency of renewing
the old licences. The Justices for the Bathsorum
Division of the county of Somerset " recommend
it to the Ministers and Churchwardens to be care-
ful in inquiring into the characters and behaviour
of publicans within their respective parishes ; to

1 3IS. Vestry Minutes, Brighthelmstone (Sussex). 24th February

1801. -

2 IMcL 24th August 1804. Another vestry meeting a week later re-
commends six additional persons for licences (iUd. 31st August 1804).
In the city of London it was apparently the custom to require the
support of the Aldermen and Common Councillors of the particular
ward before a new licence was granted (Report of House of Commons
Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1830, p. 16).

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 65

point out to us where there are too many public-
houses for the reasonable accommodation of the
neighbourhood, and by no means to recommend
the licensing of new ones without very sufficient
cause for so doing, as we are determined to keep
a watchful eye particularly over that part of the
police." l

Elsewhere the practice of requiring local

1 Bath Chronicle, 16th August 1787. We see the effect of such a
circular from the Justices in the following case : " The parish officers
of Prome," we are told, "have determined not only to see that good
order is kept in the public -houses on Sundays, but at all other times,
particularly on Saturday nights, which are generally appropriated to
drunkenness and dissipation ; and to report such houses to the
Justices as are not shut at ten o'clock" (Bristol Journal, 10th
September 1787).

What happened in an energetic Vestry we may gather from the
following report of the proceedings at Wanstcad (Essex): "At a
Vestry held at the parish church of Wanstead for the purpose of
carrying into effect the objects proposed by His Majesty's late pro-
clamation, it was resolved that the . . , parish officers and police
officers he required to pay particular attention to the conduct of the
several keepers of public-houses within this parish, and that they
make their report to the Vestry concerning them ; whether they keep
good order ; whether they suffer gambling or tippling at unseason-
able hours ; whether they have any skittle grounds or any place or
instrument for gambling of any kind j and especially whether they
keep their houses open for the entertainment of their guests in the
time of Divine Service on the Lord's Day.

"That a Vestry be held on the last Sunday in August for the
purpose of receiving the said report.

" That the constables be required to visit the public-houses within
this parish at ten o'clock every night, and see that the publican
dismiss Ms guests and shut up his house at that hour ; and that
they take into their custody all such persons as shall refuse quietly
to depart when called upon by the constables and pxiblicans so to do "
(Ohelmsford Chronicle, 10th August 1787).

66 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

consent was systematically applied to all tlie
existing licences. Thus the Justices of the
Bampton Division of Oxfordshire publicly noti-
fied in August 1787 that they would, 'at the
next " Brewster Sessions," require in all cases
fresh certificates, not merely as testimony to
character by any three or four householders,
but " under the hands of the Minister, Church-
wardens, and at least six of the principal in-
habitant householders (if so many there be) of
their respective parishes . . . asserting the ex-
pedience and necessity of such house to be
licensed, without which certificate no licence
will in future be granted." l The North Biding
Justices laconically request the ministers of all
the parishes in the Biding " to state how many
alehouses they think necessary in their respective
parishes." 2

More specific were the West Biding Justices
who resolved, at Michaelmas 1787, to hold
annually at Easter in each division an ad-
journed Brewster Sessions, for the special purpose
of inquiring into "the state and situation" of

1 Jackson's Oxford Journal, 18th August 1787. Fresh certificates
were also called for by the Justices for the Woodbridge and Ipswich
and Beccles divisions of Suffolk (see Ipswich Journal, 1st Sept. 1787 ;
and 3rd May 1788), and by those of the county of Durham (see New-
castle Chronicle, 18th August 1787).

2 North Riding Quarter Sessions, 10th July 1787 (see Leeds Intel-
ligtncer, 7th August 1787).

REGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 67

all the licensed houses, prior to which "the
Minister and Churchwardens of every Town-
ship " were "to call a meeting of the overseers
of the Poor, Constables, and all the Principal
Inhabitants of their Townships for the express
purpose of making a return to the Justices of
such public-houses as they, or a majority of
them, shall think useful and necessary, and also
of such others as are either improperly situated,
or on account of the past irregular and dis-
orderly conduct of the occupiers they would
wish to have suppressed in future." l

1 West Riding Quarter Sessions (see Leeds Intelligencer, 9th October
1787). We have a vision of this local option at work in the follow-
ing letter from the Rector of Twerton (Somerset). "In the year 1786
I addressed a letter to the Justices of the Peace for the Division of
Bathsorum, stating the inconvenience which the parish of Twerton
(of which I am the minister) laboured under from the number of
public-houses. I alleged no instance of misconduct against either,
but the Justices were pleased to suppress two out of three : a circum-
stance with which I was highly gratified, being convinced that one
was fully sufficient for the accommodation of the neighbourhood.
My parishioners thought otherwise, and constantly expressed their
wish that another house or houses should be licensed. I was
frequently applied to by the owners of the suppressed houses to join
in recommending them to the Justices, but I uniformly declined to
interfere in the business. When the time for renewing the licences
approached, these solicitations were repeated, and I even received
applications from several persons of credit both in Bath and Bristol
in behalf of the respective houses, with the assurances that it was
the wish of my parishioners that they should be licensed, and that
the Justices would not grant a licence to either unless I would sign
the recommendation. To these applications I replied that if a
majority of my parishioners were in favour of another public-house,
I would join them in recommending whichever of the two they should

68 LIQUOB LICENSING IN ENGLAND

From the standpoint of the present day the
most notable action taken by the magistrates
was the drastic suppression up and down the
country of public-houses, without compensation,
sometimes because these were complained of as
disorderly, as ill -constructed, or as improperly
situated, but frequently because they were
deemed superfluous affording injurious en-
couragement to the consumption of intoxicating
drinks. "At the Petty Sessions held here/ 7 we
read of Gloucester in 1786, "a petition was pre-

think most proper, provided they would agree to recommend only
two at this or any future period. At this time a printed paper was
delivered to me signed by the Justices of the Peace, purporting their
intention to exert their authority for accomplishing the desirable
objects of His Majesty's proclamation, and recommending to the
Minister, Churchwardens, etc., in every parish to use their utmost
caution in the recommendation of public-houses. I, therefore, at a
meeting of the principal inhabitants of the parish, recommended this
paper, as well as the King's proclamation, to their particular atten-
tion. I then made the declaration above mentioned, and added as
an additional condition that they should never sign any recommenda-
tion or certificate for a publican but at a meeting of the parishioners
called for that purpose. . . . The persons present at this meeting
were unanimous for another public-house ; they readily acceded to
the conditions I had proposed, and resolutions were accordingly
entered in the parish book to that purpose. They were also unani-
mous in recommending the Crown public-house, together with the
one licensed the former year. The reason assigned for their prefer-
ence was that the person who was to keep it was well known to
them. ... I accordingly signed a recommendation for the houses
above mentioned." The Justices, it seems, accepted the parish
decision as to the number, and licensed two public-houses. But
they had not intended a local popular election of publicans, and
chose another person as the holder of the second licence (JSath
Courant, 18th October 1787).

KEGULATION AND SUPPKESSION 69

sented to the Justices by the principal inhabitants
of the parish of Pitchcombe, stating that their
poor's rates before the licensing an alehouse in
the parish were two shillings in the pound, but
since two alehouses had been opened the common
people have become idle, drunken, and profligate,
and have spent their wages in the public-houses,
leaving their families to be supported by the
parish ; by which means the rates have lately
risen to eight shillings in the pound." Upon
this representation the Justices suppressed both
the alehouses. 1 The Gloucestershire Justices were
evidently in earnest. " Last year/ 7 it was said,
" no less than ten alehouses were licensed in the
parish of Horseley , near Gloucester. The Justices
have now reduced them to three/ 7 2 A Somerset-
shire correspondent writes in 1787 : " We learn
that the licences of six public-houses in the parish
of "Widcomb, the Blue Lodge ' in the parish of
Weston, and several others, were suppressed by
the Justices of Bathsorum Division (Somerset) at
their late meeting. 77 3 " "We hear from Holywell,"
says another, " that, at the meeting for licensing
public-houses held there, the magistrates, to give
force to His Majesty 7 s proclamation, refused the

1 Leeds Intelligencer, 26th September 1786.

2 Ibid. lOtli October 1786.
3 Bristol Journal, 22nd September 1787.

70 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

renewal of licences to eight public-houses in the
town, and several others within their district,
which they deemed superfluous, and tending to
the increase of immorality and debauchery." l

" "We are informed that the magistrates have
refused licensing seventeen public - houses in
Speen Division of Berkshire, and that the magi-
strates for "Wiltshire have put down fifteen public-
houses in one division in that county." 2

That the refusals to renew old licences were
"persisted in we learn from the instance of a
northern city. " Tuesday last," it was reported
in 1789, "the ale licences were granted for the
city of Carlisle by the Earl of Lonsdale and the
Mayor, but the innkeepers who were refused the
last year were again denied." 3

Even stronger action than the suppression of
a few unnecessary village alehouses is recorded
of the "West Eiding Justices in the case of a large
manufacturing centre. The rapidly growing
town of Sheffield, with a rough and turbulent
population of cutlers, file -makers, and miners,

1 Bristol Journal, 6th October 1787.

2 lUd. 22nd September 1787. A week later it is reported that,
at the Brewster Sessions of the Justices for the Salisbury Division
of Wilts, " several houses of notorious character were suppressed, and
some useful regulations adopted. . . . Returns were made to the
Justices from many parishes of the public-houses therein, and the
conduct of landlords" (ibid. 29th September 1787).

3 Newcastle CJwonicle, 3rd October 1789.

KEGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 71

had suffered specially by the multiplication of
" dram-shops/' which, like those of London, sold
large quantities of cheap gin and other spirits.
The magistrates acting for that division of the
West Riding began by closing them on Sunday, 1
and three months later took the strong step of
suppressing them all at one fell swoop. 2 The
Devon county magistrates in 1805 took drastic
action at Plymouth Dock (now Devonport), at
that date thronged with sailors and dockyard
workmen, and the largest town in the west of
England. Every street had its own series of
public -houses and beer shops, which vied with
one another in offering music, dancing, and other
attractions to attract custom. The 24,000 in-
habitants had enjoyed over 200 public -houses,
which the Justices suddenly reduced to 100, at
the same time ordering each " inn " to have a
lamp over its front door, and each " tavern "
two lamps. 3

1 Leeds Intelligencer, 26th June 1787.

2 "At the Brewster Sessions held at Sheffield yesterday s'en night
(10th September), before the Justices of the Peace for this Riding, a
total suppression was ordered of the numerous dram-shops in that
town, by withholding from them ale licences, which, according to
the Act in that respect made, restrains them from selling less than
two gallons of any kind of spirituous liquors " (Leeds Intelligencer,
18th September 1787).

3 History of the Town and Borough, of JDcwnport, by R. K. Worth
(Plymouth, 1870, pp. 20, 36). We may add that, about 1818, the
publicans of the. neighbouring borough of Plymouth petitioned the

72 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

It might reasonably be assumed that so essen-
tially a national movement in favour of regula-
tion and restriction could not fail to influence
the metropolis. We do, indeed, find the Justices
for the St. James's Division of Westminster
deciding, as early as 1785, to adopt a stringent
policy. They resolve that the cc constables and
beadles do return lists of the names of all
victuallers and other persons who shall set up
or keep any bawdy-house, or house of ill-fame,
or shall permit, suffer, or set up any E.O. table,
billiard, or other gaming-table, or any shuffle-
board, or suffer any skittle - playing/' They
threaten to proceed against any publican who
" shall keep his or her house open in the night
or suffer any drunkenness or tippling, or any
dancing or music." They resolve " where any
licensed victualler is convicted of any of the
offences aforesaid, that no licence be afterwards
granted to the house where the offence was com-
mitted." They declare " that there are too many
licensed houses in this parish," and " that the
number ought to be reduced . . . that no

Mayor for a revocation of a recent order forbidding music and dancing
in public-houses. The petitioners declare that, should the soldiers*
and sailors* "favourite entertainment of a fiddle and a dance be
withheld from them, the houses will be entirely deserted, and your
petitioners will be ruined " (Fol. Misc. Papers, 77, in Plymouth
Corporation MS. Records).

KEGULATION AND SUPPRESSION 73

licence be granted on any pretence whatever to
any house not licensed the preceding year . . .
and that whenever it shall appear to the satis-
faction of the magistrates that there is not
sufficient custom to a house for the victualler
to get a livelihood, that the licence be not
renewed the next year." l

That these resolutions were acted upon we
learn in 1787, when it is reported that " the
magistrates have refused licences to several
public -houses ; they have also caused all the
other regulations to be carried into execution,
and continue to meet, as formerly, three times
a week to receive complaints and grant redress.' 7 2

The Justices of the Kensington Division of
Middlesex were stirred into activity by a local
tragedy. " Two men at an alehouse in the
King's Eoad, between Fulham and Chelsea . . .
drank gin to such an excess that one of them, a
gardener in that neighbourhood, died beastly
intoxicated a few minutes after he drank the
last half -pint. . . . The magistrates in that
division have since, at a general meeting, refused
to renew the publican's licence, and have also,
to their credit, begun the good and necessary

1 Justices for the St. James's Division of Westminster, 7th Sep-
tember 1785 (see Morning Herald, llth August 1787).

2 Morning Herald, llth August 1787.

74 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

work of reformation by stopping the licences of
forty-three useless and improper public -houses
in the parishes of Fulham, Chelsea, Hammer-
smith, and Kensington ; and however strange it
may appear, there is at this time twenty-one
licensed public -houses within the space of one
mile fronting the road in the parish of Hammer-
smith." l

Here and there we find a Metropolitan Vestry
protesting against the licensing of this or that
public -house, or taking action possibly insti-
gated by the local Justices to enforce order on
licensed premises. Thus, in July 1787, we see the
Fulham Vestry earnestly recommending " to the
constables and head borough of this parish to
be diligent and regular in searching the public-
houses, particularly on Sundays ; and if any shall
be found where tippling is suffered during the
time of Divine Service, or gaming or any other
disorders or irregularities at any time, to give
notice thereof to the magistrates resident in this
parish to the intent that the persons keeping
such houses may not be again licensed/' 2

The records of the Marylebone Vestry show
that it had occasion to oppose the renewal of

1 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 10th. September 1787,

2 Vestry Minutes, Fulliam (Middlesex), 8th July 1787, i
Old and New, by C. J. Feret (1900), vol. i. p. 26.

REGULATION AND SUPPEESSION 75

licences to persons of bad character. Thus, in
1800, "the Vestry having been informed that
application had been again made to the magis-
trates acting for the Holborn Division for the
renewal of the licence to the public-house called
the '"Wheatsheaf in Callmel Buildings in this
parish, which had been refused last year on
account of the many irregularities committed in
the said house by gamblers and other persons of
the most abandoned characters, resolved unani-
mously, that in consideration of the advantages
already derived to the peaceable inhabitants of
that neighbourhood, and of those likely to accrue*
to them in future, should the licence be refused,
it be recommended to the magistrates at their
adjourned meeting not to renew the said licence/' l
In 1795 " J. B., keeper of the public -house known
by the sign of the Elephant and Castle, in Oxford
Market, according to notice for that purpose,
attended to answer a complaint against him for
suffering disorderly persons to tipple in his house
at unseasonable hours." After a severe warning,
the Vestry " dismissed the complaint/ 7 2 But
making due allowance for these and other
instances, we cannot refrain from noticing that,

1 MS. Vestry Minutes, Marylebone (Middlesex), 13th September
1800.

2 Ibid. 9th June 1795.

76 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

in spite of the greater publicity ensured by the
London newspapers, our search has brought to
light comparatively little in the way of activity,
the regulation or restriction of liquor licensing,
either by the Yestries or by the Justices of the
Peace who had under their government the
populous parishes of the metropolis. The
remarkable movement for greater stringency
which swept over the provinces appears scarcely
to have touched the metropolis. The notorious
" trading justice" of Middlesex, who, to quote
a contemporary, " turns the exercise of his
authority into an iniquitous traffic/' l had, by the
establishment of the public police-offices, lost
the particular opportunities for " creating business
for his own emolument/' described by Fielding.
No general proclamation against vice and im-
morality was likely to prevent him, at the
Brewster Sessions, from creating valuable pro-
perty for his creatures and friends, by merely
signing his name to new alehouse licences.
Hence it is not surprising to learn on excellent
authority that the habitual practice in Middlesex
was for licences to be " granted with great
facility, and far beyond what appears to be
necessary for the public accommodation, and in
some instances in direct violation of the laws of

1 Miquiry into the Duties of Men, by Thomas Gisborne (1794), p. 287.

EEQULATION AND SUPPEESSION 77

the land/' 1 The same authority tells us that
the licences of "completely infamous" houses
were renewed in spite of the protests of the
police officers and the principal inhabitants.
When additional stipendiary magistrates were
appointed in 1792, they seem at first to have
attended the licensing sessions, and to have
brought to notice " the ill-regulated public-houses
conducted by men of loose conduct and depraved
morals." 2 But " perceiving the inutility of
those efforts," with the little coterie of Justices
who had assumed all the licensing duties, they
" ceased attendance " at the Brewster Sessions. 3
The ablest and strongest of the new stipendiaries,
the celebrated Dr. Patrick Colquhoun, did,
indeed, work a temporary reformation in the
Tower Hamlets. In 1792, among a total of
1100 public-houses in the division, he managed
to get suppressed 87 of the worst gin-shops. 4
But any such suppression was quite exceptional.
" Once a public-house always a public-house,"
and "bricks and mortar commit no sin," were
favourite axioms of the Middlesex bench. If

1 Report of House of Commons Committee upon the Police of the
Metropolis, 1816, p. 97.

2 Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis, by Dr. Patrick Colquhoun
(1800), p. 324.

3 Report of Committee upon the State of the Police of the
Metropolis, 1816, p. 96.

4 Ibid. p. 50.

78 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

one occupier misconducted himself, it was for the
brewer to put in another.

There was, however, one direction in which
the metropolitan Justices seem to have exercised
their regulative powers. Ever since the terrify-
ing orgies of the earlier decades of the eighteenth
century there had remained, in the minds of all
thoughtful persons, a strong desire that the
people should give the preference to beer over
spirits. The evidence before the committee of
1816-17 shows that the Middlesex magistrates
thought that they were only carrying out the
policy implied in the Acts of 1743-53, in in-
sisting that the public-houses licensed by them
should be and continue, in the main, alehouses,
providing accommodation for social intercourse ;
and should not be converted into mere " bars/'
for the sale of spirits to a constant stream of
persons seeking only an intoxicant. 1 It was
this policy of discrimination against the incipient
" gin palace," somewhat unintelligently pursued
by the Justices, that was sarcastically described

1 The magistrates who, as it was said, had " imbibed the principle
laid down in tlie preamble of the Act of 9 George II. (1736), objected
to the publicans having a separate door to a shop fitted up with
barrels and inscriptions to show the great consumption of the gin
and cordials, with a long counter, and syphons to draw up the
yarious liquors with expedition for the customers who come in and
out, , . . thus giving incitement to the excessive use of spirituous
liquors " (ibid. p. 188).

KEGULATION AND SUPPEESSION 79

by a hostile critic in 1816. The Middlesex
Justices, he said, instead of enforcing publicity
and responsibility, had lost themselves in a maze
of arbitrary distinctions between " taprooms and
pewter counters, tobacco pipes and brass cocks,
checquers and glass phials/ 7 1

1 Eeport of Committee upon the State of the Police of the
Metropolis, 1817, p, 63. In spite of the growing objection to
magisterial interference with the conduct of the trade, this policy
was persisted in ; and in 1816, and again in 1829, it was resolved by
the Middlesex Quarter Sessions that "The Court taking into con-
sideration the increasing use of spirituous liquors amongst the inferior
ranks of people of "both sexes within their jurisdiction, so destructive
to their health and morals, and attributing it in a great measure to
the facility and privacy by which the liquor may be obtained through
the means of houses licensed by the Justices to sell beer, but which
are appropriated either solely to the purpose of retailing spirits, or
have rooms, fitted up for this use only, that communicate directly
with the street, or with some court or alley adjoining it," in viola-
tion of the Act of 1753, recommends the Justices in Brewster Sessions
not to license any publican who shall be found to have obtained an
alehouse licence as a mere pretext for obtaining a spirit licence ; nor
any person " who cannot prove to their satisfaction that he has sold
in his house during the preceding year a reasonable quantity of malt
liquor, respect being had to its size and situation ; and that he has a
public tap-room in front of ! his house, fitted up and frequented for
that purpose" (MS, Minutes, Quarter Sessions, Middlesex, July
1816 ; repeated verbatim, 29th October 1829). The same policy was
adopted by the Surrey Justices, who resolved "not to license any
house which had not good accommodation for such persons as should
prefer beer to spirits, and good beer to furnish them with " (see report
in Hull Packet, 23rd January 1816). It was violently denounced by
the licence-holders as an arbitrary interference with liberty and
property (see Suggestions and Correspondence relative to Magistrates*
Licences, arranged by H. B. Fearon (1830), one of the principal gin-
sellers of the Metropolis, preserved in the Place Papers, Additional
MSS. 27829-40 ; also Report of House of Commons Committee on
the Sale of Beer, 1830, pp. 95-116).

80 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

How energetically and how long the various
county benches carried out the policy of restric-
tion and regulation, started in 1786-87, we
cannot exactly discover. After the end of the
eighteenth century the general meetings of
magistrates at Quarter Sessions, of which alone
records or reports exist, seem to have ceased to
concern themselves with licensing ; and the new
policy may have been quietly either continued
or abandoned by the Brewster Sessions. "When
again the Justices' action becomes a matter of
public controversy, namely, from 1816 to 1830,
the complaints against them are principally that
they refuse new licences or arbitrarily withdraw
old ones ; and from this fact it is not unreason-
able to infer that the old indiscriminate granting
of licences had not been resumed. Still more
difficult is it to ascertain with any accuracy what
were the results of this restrictive policy. We
cannot even get statistics as to the total number
of ale