History of liquor licensing in England principally from 1700 to 1830.

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 alehouses licensed, or the number of licences
withdrawn. The number of alehouses in England
and Wales, vaguely supposed in 1773 to be
about 40,000 plainly an underestimate 1 was

1 A considerable proportion of the alehouses, including apparently
the majority of those in the rural districts, had no spirit licence ;
yet there were in 1779 no fewer than 37,172 houses licensed for the
retail sale of spirits (Appendix 32a of First Report of Commissioners
of Inland Bevenue, 1857). We suspect that, at this date ? there were

EEGULATION AND SUPPEESSION 81

found in 1810, when the statistics begin, and
when the population had greatly risen, to be
no more than 48,000. The effect of the move-
ment of 1786-87 can, however, most clearly be
seen in the number of houses where spirits were
sold, of which accurate statistics exist. In spite
of the rapid growth of population, and its aggre-
gation in new centres, the total number of
publicans' spirit licences in England and Wales,
which reached a high point in 1779, shows the
following reductions in the next decade : l

1779 . 37,172

1780 .... 36,712

1781 .... 36,033

1782 .... 34,923

1783 .... 34,329

1784 .... 35,176

1785 .... 35,697

1786 .... 36,029

1787 .... 36,675

1788 .... 34,503

1789 .... 33,349

1790 .... 32,850

The population went on increasing by leaps

altogether not less tlian 100,000 licensed houses for a population of
fewer than eight millions.

1 See Appendix No. 32a of First Report of Commissioners of
Inland Revenue, 1857. The drop in 1789-90 is probably to be
ascribed, in part, to the reduction of licence duty which took place
in 1788.

G

82 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

and bounds, but the number of spirit licences
went on sinking, until in 1799 it was only about
30,000, or fewer than in any year since 1769.
From 1799 the numbers rose very slowly, at
the rate of about 1 . per cent per annum, until
in 1825 they reached 38,472, or hardly more
than the number granted by the Justices of
1779 for two thirds the population. Mean-
while the number of alehouse licences had, be-
tween 1810 and 1825, actually remained nearly
stationary, at about 485000. 1

Owing to the amount of private brewing,
and the illicit distillation and smuggling of
spirits, no trustworthy statistics can be given as
to the total consumption. There is, however,
a certain amount of testimony that the average
consumption of alcoholic drinks diminished
during this period, a diminution which the
authorities declare to have taken place among
the "lower orders/' And it is interesting to
record that our own researches into the history
of crime for this same period, concluded prior to
our discovery of this movement for the regula-
tion and restriction of the sale of alcoholic
drinks, had already caused us to note what we
termed a " lull " in crime and rioting, licentious

1 See the tables at pp. 44 and 60 of Thirteenth Report of Com-
missioners of Inland Revenue, 1870.

KEQULATION AND SUPPBESSION 83

living, disorderly conduct, and brutal amuse-
ments between 1790 and 1810. We entertain
no doubt that, compared with, the immediately
preceding period, there was in England, during
these years, a marked diminution of overt acts
of crime and disorder. "We had suggested that
this might possibly have been due to the
absorption of disorderly characters in the army
and navy during the years of war, and to the
greater regularity of life introduced by the
factory system. Both these circumstances, and
others that might be cited, seem to us to afford
an inadequate explanation. Any good effects
they ' ; may have had were probably more than
counterbalanced by the demoralisation of large
sections of the population by the worst features
of the Old Poor Law, which became prevalent in
1795, and by the terrible stringency of the
famines and high prices of these very years.
Our subsequent discovery of the regulation and
restriction of the sale of alcoholic drinks carried
out by the Justices from 1786-87, and lasting, as
we infer, in many parts of the country for a
whole generation, appears to us to throw new
light on the subject. We think that any im-
partial student of the contemporary records
will be driven to the inference that the limita-
tion of the opportunities for disorderly drinking

H<

^ !

i-

84 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

between 1787 and 1825 outside the metropolis
was at any rate an important contributory cause
of tie remarkable advance in " respectability "
made by the English working-man during the
first two decades of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER IV

FREE TRADE IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

IN the opinion of the country Justices of the
Peace, concerned for the good order of their
villages and, as we may believe, for the reforma-
tion of the manners and morals of the people,
the regulative and restrictive policy of 1786-87
had proved a distinct success. It is therefore
with surprise that the student finds this policy,
from 1816 onwards, meeting with almost uni-
versal condemnation.

To the Whigs, and still more to the rising
school of philosophic Radicals, the arbitrary
authority vested in the Justices of the Peace
was in itself an offence. They vehemently
resented the fact that unrepresentative bodies,
like the magistrates in Brewster Sessions, could,
without appeal, deprive the working-man of his
beer, the honest publican of his means of
livelihood, and the brewer of his property, out
of mere caprice, and not without grave suspicions

86

86 LIQUOE LICENSING- IN ENGLAND

of political partisanship 1 and even pecuniary
corruption. There was at this time nothing in
the nature of a temperance party, and though
the vice of drunkenness was deplored, beer was
still habitually regarded as a necessary of life,
and any idea of interfering with individual
liberty was more abhorrent even than drunken-
ness itself. The Tories, on the other hand, did
not see any objection to the authority of the
Justices, which, haunted by the spectre of the
French Eevolution, they would willingly have
strengthened. But they had a sentimental
objection to any interference with the pleasures
of the people. Some of them may have thought,
like Wyndham, that if the lower orders were
rendered less self-indulgent, they would become
more seditious. The Tory leaders were at any rate
so desperately keen on maintaining the authority
of the Government against the rising tide of
reform, that they were, after 1825, not disposed
to lose any popularity by restraining the
common people from their sensual and brutal-
ising amusements.

1 The publican at the beginning of the nineteenth century was
apparently usually a Radical. "The public-houses resorted to by
the lower classes," we read in 1800, " particularly in the metropolis,
though under the immediate control of the magistrates, almost
inyariably take in newspapers of a pernicious tendency " (Reflections
on the Moral and Political State of Society at the Close of the JSighteenth
Century, by John Bowles, 1800, p. 164).

FREE TRADE 87

Finally, we have to take account of what
seems, between 1820 and 1830, to have become
almost an obsession of the mind of every en-
lightened legislator, Tory and Eadical alike, that
every person ought to be left free to invest
his capital and employ his talents in whatever
way he thought best ; that cheapness and good
quality could only be secured by an absolutely
unrestricted competition ; and that there was no
reason why the number and position of public-
houses should not be left as free as those of
bakers' shops. All these abstract doctrines
found illustrations and arguments in two un-
doubted facts, the rapid growth of a monopoly
of public - houses in the hands of the great
brewers, and the proved corruption of the Justices
in one or two divisions of the metropolis. These
facts were brought to light by a remarkable
series of Parliamentary inquiries into the
"police" of the capital during the years 1816-
18. In the Parliamentary proceedings of
the ensuing decade the personal grievances
and public wrongs alleged to be caused by
the arbitrary action of the Justices and the
brewers' monopoly recur with monotonous
iteration.

It is not our business here to enter into the
history of the industries of brewing and distilling,

88 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

or to describe the gradual development, from the
latter part of the eighteenth century, of the old-
fashioned " family brewers" into gigantic estab-
lishments supplying the whole world. Nor can
we explore with any thoroughness the causes
and circumstances of one feature of this develop-
ment, the "tied-house" system, which was, in
1816-30, being energetically complained of.
The ownership of licensed premises by brewers
and distillers had, as we have seen, been common
for more than a century. But increased strin-
gency in licensing undoubtedly increased the
practice. When the Justices made it a practice,
before granting a licence, to require that the
applicant should show that he occupied premises
suitable for the business, they insensibly passed
into virtually licensing the houses, as w6ll as the
particular occupiers. It then became inevitable
that the brewers, commanding large capitals,
should advance money to enable the necessary
alterations to be made, and thus obtain control
of a large proportion of the premises on which
drink was sold, either by simple purchase of the
property or by the publican's indebtedness. 1 It

1 The purchase of tied houses by the brewers was admitted and
defended in 1802 (see Observation on Seer and Brewers, by Richard
Flower (1802), pp. 24-27). Much information is given in the Report of
the House of Commons Committee on Public Breweries (1818), and
the evidence (1819).

FREE TKADE 89

was reiterated on all sides that the limitation
of the number of public-houses, their alteration
and enlargement to suit the requirements of the
Justices, the insistence on substantial sureties for
good behaviour, and the general increase of
pecuniary responsibility involved in stricter
regulation, all fostered the tied-house system.
The Justices up and down the country had
attempted to counteract this assumed result of
their restrictive policy, and to keep alive the
old-fashioned alehouse - keeper, free to brew his
own beer, or at any rate to buy it where he
chose. Thus it was reported in 1816 that " at
the late meeting for licensing alehouse-keepers
... in Newbury Division (Berks), the com-
plaints made by the publicans of the badness of
the beer served to them by brewers were so
general, and in some instances their interference
in, and monopoly of public-houses so flagrant,
that the magistrates, nine in number, unani-
mously resolved ' that the full extent of time for
granting licences should be allowed to several
publicans, in order that they might procure
other houses, which the Justices would license in
lieu of those so monopolised, or wherein any
undue interference had been used/ " l In the
following year " the magistrates of the Division

1 Cornwall Gazette, 21st September 1816,

90 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

of Marlborougli (Wilts) . . . refused to grant
licences to those who held their houses of
common brewers, unless such brewers first
declared that they were not bound to take their
beer of their respective landlords, except it was
good and such as was generally approved of.
The magistrates at the same time informed those
persons who held public -houses under brewers
that, in case their landlords gave them notice to
quit their houses in consequence of taking beer
from other brewers, they would authorise them
to remove their licence to any other house, and
never license such brewer's house in future." l
It is needless to say that spasmodic and local
efforts of this sort did not deter the agents of
the great brewers from seizing every opportunity
to purchase public-house property.

The ownership of public-houses by brewers
seems to have struck the House of Commons
Committee of 1816-17 as a revelation of un-
suspected wickedness. They noted, with alarm,
that " one half of the victualling houses in the
Metropolis " were held by brewers as " owners,
purchasers, or equitable mortgagees." In the
provinces " it prevailed in a greater degree than
in the Metropolis." At Reading, for instance,
the local brewers owned or controlled 66 out

1 Carmarthen Journal, 3rd October 1817.

FREE TEADE 91

of 68 licences. 1 To the House of Commons
Committee of 1816-17, the most objectionable
feature of this monopoly was not any effect
which it may have had on the consumption of
drink or social disorder , but " the restricted
power which the public at large possess of
employing their capital in the trade of victualling
houses/ 7 2 The Committee would not inquire
whether or not, as a matter of fact, the houses
belonging to brewers were better constructed
and better regulated than those which were
" free " ; or whether the commodity which the
great brewers supplied as the product of a
highly organised industry, using the newest
improvements on a large scale, was or was not at
least equal in quality and cheapness to that
which the old-fashioned little alehouse - keeper
had brewed for himself. The evidence on these
points brought by the brewers before this and
subsequent committees was left unrefated. 3 To

1 Report of Select Committee on the Police of the Metropolis, 1817,
p. 10. An Excise return, of 1816 stated that, out of the total of
48,000 licensed alehouses in England and Wales, 14,200 actually
"belonged to brewers, 10,800 to the occupiers, and 22,700 to disinter-
ested persons. This, however, took no account of the "tie by
indebtedness. "

2 Report of Select Committee on the Police of the Metropolis, 1817,
p. 10.

8 The House of Commons Committee on Public Breweries, 1818-19,
dealt specially with these points, and found no evidence that the
consumer had been injured. But they nevertheless objected to the
monopoly which the great capitalist brewers were obtaining.

92 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

the enlightened members of Parliament of 1816-
30, it seemed a matter of mere logical infer-
ence, from necessary axioms that the more
limited the competition of sellers, the worse
conducted would be the business, the less would
be the accommodation afforded to the public,
the higher would be the price, and the more
inferior would be the quality. "The eleven
chief brewers 7 ' of London, it was said in 1818,
" met together like partners in one concern and
fixed the price of porter/' l To the dullest intel-
lect on the committee, it was plain that any
such meeting would, to quote the classic words
of Adam Smith, " end in a conspiracy against the
public or in some contrivance to raise prices."
This conviction found apparent confirmation in
the rapidly rising value of public-house property.
The fact that the grant of a licence to a house in
a good position in a populous neighbourhood
was equivalent to the creation of property
worth thousands of pounds puzzled the ordinary
members of Parliament. It seemed to them that
the exaction of such a price from the purchasers
of licensed houses " of course . . . raised the
price of everything that was sold in them." 2
Such large investments of capital, they said,

1 Hansard, 1st May 1818.
2 Keport of Select Committee on Sale of Beer, 1833, p. 32.

FEEE TKADE 93

" must . . . create a necessity of selling at such,
a price as may secure a trade interest on money
so advanced/' l The House of Commons failed
to discriminate between the gains due to an
organised trade "ring" of the great brewers;
the monopoly value of licensed houses restricted
in numbers, by whomsoever owned ; and the
mere rental value of premises in situations which
enabled them to attract an exceptional amount
of custom. These three " unearned increments "
seemed, to legislators who ignored the teaching
of Kicardo, alike explicable only on the supposi-
tion that the consumer was being made to pay
" an extravagant price " for his beer. 2

The second fact which influenced public
opinion against the restrictive policy of the
Justices was the obvious breakdown of the
Middlesex bench. This breakdown was, we may
here explain, a general one, affecting not licen-
sing alone but all their functions ; and resulting,
as our investigations show, from the inherent
inadequacy of this type of authority for the
circumstances of an overgrown capital city.
The chairman of the committee, a fanatical
believer in freedom of trade in alcoholic drinks,

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on Public Breweries,
1818.

2 See the whole statement of C. Barclay, before the House of
Commons Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1830.

94 LIQUOB LICENSING IN ENGLAND

occupied a whole year over an elaborate investi-
gation into the doings of the little coterie oJ
Justices into whose hands the licensing work of the
Tower Hamlets Division had been allowed to fall. :
Owners of East End house property, for whict
new licences had been refused, old established
publicans, who had had their licences withdrawn,
clergymen, and respectable inhabitants, aggrieved
at the disorder of the multitude of low drink
shops and " flash-houses " in their parishes, wen
encouraged to vent their several grievances
before the committee. "We need not attempt ai
this date to disentangle the unsavoury story ir
which Joseph Merceron, of Bethnal Green, whc
had a lively career as a corrupt parish " boss/
played the leading part. That the half a dozer
acting Justices of this particular division hac
given, withheld, and renewed licences for corrupl
reasons was clearly proved. 2 But in spite of on(

1 A whole report, followed by 562 pages of evidence, is devoted ti
tMs subject (see Eirst Eeport of the Committee on the State of th
Police of the Metropolis, 1817).

2 Accusations of a more indefinite character, without attempt a
verification, were loosely made against the other divisions of th
Middlesex bench. A glimpse of similar licensing partiality" in 179:
among some of the magistrates of the Hammersmith Division o
Middlesex may be gained from a Letter to Sir John Danvers, Bart.
by William Hyde (1791). The general laxness of the Middlese:
Justices in licensing is graphically pictured in Observations and Fact
relative to Licensed Alehouses, etc., by a magistrate (Dr. P. Colquhoun)
(1794). For the Surrey Justices at a later date, see A Better to th

FEEE TEADE 95

or two sensational instances of an improper
refusal or withdrawal of a licence, the net result
of all this corruption and favouritism liad been,
according to the weight of evidence, not an
undue restriction but an undue multiplication of
licensed houses, not a Puritanical regulation of
the conduct of publicans but a notorious laxity.
The scandalous failure of the Tower Hamlets
bench was, in fact, not an argument against the
policy of 1787, but an instance of the results of
not adopting it. The House of Commons Com-
mittee, biassed by its free trade proclivities, and
concerned only about the metropolis, did not
attempt to examine the policy of restriction and
regulation quietly persisted in by the county
and borough benches up and down the country.
The outcome of this one-sided investigation
was a report which, in effect, pronounced against
the control of the liquor traffic by the Justices of
the Peace. The essential feature of the licensing
system, on which Parliament had, since 1743,
relied, was the genuine exercise of the free dis-
cretion of the Justices in regard to their three-
fold power of selection, power of withdrawal, and
power of imposing conditions. It was in the

Lord- Lieutenant of the County of Surrey on the Misconduct of the
Licensing Magistrates and the consequent Degradation of the Magis-
tracy, "by Thomas Edwards, LL.D. (1825), reviewed in Edinburgh
Review, September 1826.

96 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

exercise of that discretion that the provincial
Justices had, from 1786-87 onward, effected the
remarkable changes as most of them thought,
the important reforms implied in the reduction
of the number of licensed houses, the insistence
on suitable position and adequate accommoda-
tion, the prohibition of mere dram-shops, com-
plete or partial Sunday closing, a nine or ten
o'clock closing on week days, and the suppression
of brutal amusements and other disorder. "We
cannot discover that any member of the House
of Commons Committee of 1816-17 had ever
heard of the remarkable movement for the
Eeformation of Manners in 1786-87, still less
inquired into the circumstances and results of
the drastic withdrawal of licences which then
took place. It is an amazing instance of the
ignorance with which English official business
was at that time transacted, that from beginning
to end of the voluminous proceedings of 1816-17
there is no mention of the striking upheaval
which had taken place only thirty years pre-
viously. Under the influence of the contem-
porary theories at Westminster, the Committee
took the view, dead in the teeth of a long series
of decisions of the Courts of Justice, that the
functions of the Justices in licensing were, and
ought to be, confined to a merely ministerial

FEEE TEADE 97

execution of statutory provisions. In granting
new licences, their duty was almost, if not
entirely, confined to seeing that the applicant
was a responsible person of good character.
Though the Eeport does not expressly declare
for complete freedom of trade, the Committee
nowhere deprecate the granting of additional
licences, and specifically " advise ^that licences
should be granted to new houses ... in those
districts in which the monopoly is at present
complete/' so that the trade may be taken out
of the few hands which, in some districts, have
entirely engrossed it. In fact, they " strongly
implore the different magistrates of the country
to lend their aid to break down a confederacy
which is so injurious to the interests of the poor
and middling orders of the community."

The second part of the Justices' licensing
power that of withdrawal is entirely con-
demned. "Your Committee think it by no
means clear that the legislature ever contem-
plated that magistrates would assume the power
of considering old licensed houses as new ones ;
or that . . . they should be able to deprive by
their sole will and pleasure persons of their
property, to which long enjoyment had given
them a right, and upon which their existence
and that of their families depended." They

H

98 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

emphatically recommend " that no established
victualler be deprived of his licence under any
pretence whatever without a trial by jury/ 7 for
some statutory crime.

The third power that of imposing conditions
stands or falls with the discretional power of
withdrawal, and is thus implicitly condemned
by the Committee. The necessity of imposing
conditions as to disorderly games, or hours of
closing, or Sunday observance, or all the thou-
sand and one details of conduct that from time
to time arise, is not so much as mentioned.
The Committee insist that the publican shall
be as free as the butcher and the baker to do
anything which Parliament has not specifically
forbidden. They go out of their way to uphold
" the long-undisputed and exercised right en-
joyed by the victuallers to conduct their houses,
and to sell ale, beer, wine, and spirits, in the
manner and after the mode as suited best to the
character of their respective customers." 1

1 Report of House of Commons Committee upon the Police of the
Metropolis, 1817. The remarkable exemption from all regulation
of the sale of beer at fairs may here be noted. It had apparently
long been customary for the needs of the concourse of people at a
fair to be met by many persons opening their houses for the sale of
beer for the occasion only. This right of any one to brew and sell at
fair time, without a licence, was preserved by 5 and 6 Edward VI.
c. 25 (1552), and was continued by all successive licensing Acts
until 1874. This led to an orgy of drunkenness and disorder at
every fair. A writer in 1787 appeals in vain for "some regulation

FREE TRADE 99

The publication in 1817 of this report, with
its two volumes of evidence about the brewers'

and restriction of the bush-houses as they were called, viz. temporary
alehouses where vice in all her forms is permitted to revel uncon-
trolled. A number of abandoned females are entertained in these
houses, and suffered to molest every person who passes them, and to
seduce the unwary in the face of day. Villains of all descriptions
find in them an asylum, and too often form connections to break open
houses and commit other atrocious depredations on society " (Bristol
Journal, 25th August 1787). These u bush-houses," as they were
called, were frequently complained of. Thus, of Barnstaple (Devon)
in 1830, we read that "at fair times the right to sell strong drink
irrespective of Justices and excise was claimed and fully exercised.
The person who wished to sell liquor during the three days of the Fair
simply stuck a bush in front of his house, and he thereby became a
publican for the time" (Gardiner's Barnstaple, p. 57). As late as
1849, at the great annual fairs at Fazeley and Rugeley (Staffs), they are
reported to be " an intolerable nuisance . . . the constabulary have
no power to enter ... or to punish the occupiers for selling beer all
night, and for permitting drunkenness or immorality . . . there are
constant complaints about it " (Report of House of Commons Com-
mittee on the Sale of Beer, 1850, p. 34). ". . . After the five or six
hours of the cattle fair, their houses are ... the peculiar rendezvous
of all the thieves and prostitutes that attend from Birmingham the
three days' fair " (ibid. pp. 134-135). In the first quarter of the nine-
teenth century the exemption, which in strict law was confined to
prescriptive or chartered fairs, was commonly taken to apply to all
"wakes" and village revels. Thus it was reported in 1817 from
Shropshire that "during a certain week in every year there takes
place in most parishes in this county a kind of rural revelling gene-
rally known by the name of wake. ... On these occasions it is not
unusual (in villages where there is no public-house) for unlicensed
persons to brew a certain quantity of beer to be sold during the wake,
at all hours, . . . which sale is commonly announced to the excise
officer of the district, who gives an apparent sanction to it by receiving
the customary duties for the liquor brewer with that design." On
certain Justices trying to suppress this custom in 1815 - 16, the
Commissioners of Excise insisted on its continuance, and obtained
statutory powers (56 George III. c. 104 sec. 105) to give temporary
permits to sell beer without the Justices' licence (Report of House of

100 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

monopoly and the Tower Hamlets Justices,
marks a turning-point in the history of licensing
practice. The tales told to the Committee of
the corrupt and arbitrary conduct of the Tower
Hamlets Justices were adapted or varied to suit
the local circumstances by every Radical news-
paper, and repeated by every Radical member
in the House of Commons, whilst the recom-
mendations of the Committee as to what the
Justices' licensing powers ought to be, were
boldly assumed to be the actual state of the
law. No one writes to describe the actual
practice of the Justices, or mentions their
inquiry of the Vestries as to how many public-
houses are required. We find absolutely no
mention of the policy of 1786-87, or of its
dramatic and even wholesale withdrawals of
licences. The whole episode seems to have
been forgotten by friends and foes alike. The
letters to the newspapers do not, as in 1787,
complain of the prevalence of disorderly drink-
ing. What the correspondents are concerned
about is the fact that a licensed victualler,

Commons Committee on the State of the Police of the Metropolis,
1817, pp. 218-220). It is astonishing that not until 1874 was this
immemorial abuse put a stop to. The Licensing Act of that year
(37 and 38 Viet. c. 49 sec. 18) abolished the ancient privilege of free
sale, made a licence necessary, and enabled the Justices to grant an
"occasional " licence to meet the temporary need (see The Licensing
Acts, by JT. Paterson, 13th edition, 1900, p. 202).

FBEE TEADE 101

alone among tradesmen, is "subjected to the
ruinous effects of petty tyranny ... lie is
punished without a hearing and without know-
ing his offence, on a secret information. . . .
Thus after a man has embarked his whole pro-
perty in this line of life he is frequently, on
the mere fiat of a licensing magistrate, robbed
of his only means of subsistence. In a case
laid before the Police Committee, a person paid
1000 for the lease of a house, the licence was
taken from it without any assigned or apparent
reason, and he was ruined." 1

"We see the effect on the minds of the Justices
themselves. One bench after another begins

1 Manchester Observer, 14th February 1818, In the Tory Quarterly
tieview for April 1818 we see what may perhaps be called the last stand
of old-fashioned folk for the old idea. In discussing "the means of
improving the people," the multiplicity of unnecessary licensed
houses is alluded, to as an evil. " To advise any sudden reduction of
their number would be absurd . . . but no new house should be
licensed without clear proof that it would be useful to the neighbour-
hood, which it could only be where a new village was rising, or where
there was a rapid increase of inhabitants from some local causes.
That a gentleman's servant wanted an establishment or that a brewer
found it advantageous to have another taproom opened for the con-
sumption of his beer, ought not to be considered sufficient causes for
adding to what are already far too numerous. With regard to the
unnecessary number of houses that are already open, the licence
should not be renewed when the present occupier removes or dies ;
one generation would then produce the desired reduction. And in
every instance where riot and drunkenness were suffered, or the doors
kept open till an improper hour of the night, the licence should
uniformly be taken away. "Were the magistrates and parish officers
strictly to enforce these latter . . . they would soon perceive the
good effect in the amended morals of the parish."

102 LIQUOB LICENSING IN ENGLAND

to weaken in its adhesion to the policy of 1787.
All idea of regulation is given up. The very
power to make conditions is assumed to be non-
existent. 1 As regards increasing the number of
publicans the change of policy was, however,
neither universal nor simultaneous. Throughout
the greater part of rural England, right down
to 1830, it continued to be taken for granted
that each parish should have its one public-
house just as it had its one church. 2 The old-
fashioned village inn, with its parlour and tap-
room, " kept by a regular steady man ... of
some property, " 3 was resorted to by men of
all classes, the labourers thus drinking, as it
was said, " under the eye of parlour company." 4

1 Thus, in spite of the "articles" of 1618, of the "conditions"
mentioned in Burn's Justice of the Peace, and of the innumerable
precedents of Justices in every county, when the Surrey magistrates
in 1828 wished to make licensed houses, which were also places of
entertainment, like Yauxhall Gardens, close at some definite hour,
they considered that they had no power to enforce this or any
other requirement as a condition of granting the licence. "It
is, " they said, ' ' a licence either to be given absolutely, or denied
absolutely ; it is not in our power to impose any conditions " (Report
of Select Committee on the Police of the Metropolis, 1828, p. 136).

2 Thus it appears that, prior to 1830, 22 parishes in Somerset had
exactly 22 licensed houses ; 12 parishes in Berks and Oxon had just
about 12 licensed houses ; and of one parish in Sussex we are expressly
told that no second public-house was allowed (Report of House of
Commons Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1833, pp. 145, 160, 192).

3 Ibid. p. 160.

4 Report of House of Commons Committee on Drunkenness, 1834,
p. 33.

FREE TEADE 103

In many districts the Justices continued to
recognise the right of the " principal inhabitants "
to veto the establishment of even one public-
house where none had previously existed. 1 In
other divisions the Justices, thinking the public-
houses too numerous, withdrew licences at their
discretion. 2 Nor were the magistrates in the
municipal corporations more free-handed than
the county Justices. The reports of the Muni-
cipal Corporation Commissioners show that
where the population was stationary, it was
customary for the old-established public-houses
in the small boroughs to remain, decade after
decade, undisturbed, the number of licences
being neither increased nor diminished. 3 In

1 Thus in Devonshire we hear of one village in which, through
local influence, the Justices for twenty years refused to grant any
licence ; whilst in Hampshire a leading brewer bitterly complained
that there were many parishes without any public-house ; the " country
gentlemen and clergymen," he said, "were very averse to having
beer-shops near their residences, not considering the advantages the
consumers of beer derived from them " (Report of House of Commons
Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1833, pp. 52, 199, 200). There were
evidently many small rural parishes in which there was no licensed
house of any sort. In the remote villages near Falmouth (Cornwall)
it was said of the last decade of the eighteenth century " there were
then neither beer -shops nor gin-shops anywhere within reach"
(Autobiography of J&mes Silk JB-ucJcinghawi (1855), vol. i. p. 21).

2 So in the Aylesbury division of Bucks (Keport of House of
Commons Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1830, p. 79 ; and at Yoxall
(Staffs), where 14 had been reduced to 2 (ibid. 1833, p. 171).

3 In nearly every case in which the Municipal Corporation Com-
missioners give particulars in 1883 as to the increase or decrease of

104 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

some of the larger towns, as we have seen,
licences had been multiplied in the old lax times,
and the Justices were in the first quarter of the
nineteenth century still trying to reduce their
numbers. 1

licensed victuallers, they record a restrictive policy on the part of the
borough magistrates. Thus at Heading (Berks) the bench had
resolved to grant no new licences j at Bodmin (Cornwall) only two
had been granted during twenty years ; at Falmouth (Cornwall), in
spite of frequent applications, only one had been granted during ten
or twelve years, and at Penryn none ; at West Looe (Cornwall) the
number had not been increased for thirty years ; at Plymouth (Devon)
the magistrates had for years tried to reduce the number, refusing
eight applications in a batch ; at Chichester (Sussex) no new licences
had been granted for over seventeen years ; at Portsmouth (Hants) a
new licence was scarcely ever granted, and 14 out of 242 had not
been renewed ; at Eochester (Kent) the number had been reduced
from 61 in 1811 to 58 in 1833 ; at Dover (Kent) there had been only
one new licence since 1824 ; at Faversham (Kent) none for many
years ; at Doncaster (Yorks) the number had remained stationary
for five years ; at Beverley (Yorks) it had been reduced by one ; at
Hull (Yorks) the number had been reduced from 223 to 211 ; at
Lancaster (Lanes) there had been no new licence since 1823 ; at Leeds
(Yorks) a few were granted each year, but the magistrates strove to
keep them down, refusing nineteen of the applications ; at Kipon
(Yorks) the number had been reduced from 49 to 39 in ten years.
At Scarborough (Yorks) there had been no increase for seven years,
until shortly before, when three had been granted. At Maidstone
(Kent) six new licences had been granted since 1825. (See the
various volumes of the Appendix to the First Report of the
Municipal Corporation Commission, 1835.) This undisturbed mono-
poly had its bad side. Wayfaring artisans and pedestrians of all
sorts often found difficulty in obtaining accommodation. The
well-to-do publicans in the small towns became "so high and
saucy," and demurred to receiving travellers " unless they come
by coach, or have a horse or gig " (Eeport of House of Commons
Committee on Sale of Beer, 1833, p. 171). On the other hand, such
public-houses kept themselves free from any kind of disorder.

1 So at Liverpool in 1821, where it was said that " the vast number

FEEE TRADE 105

Presently we see the wave of opinion against
the brewers' monopoly and in favour of freedom
of trade overtaking some of the county benches.
In 1825, as if with the object of encouraging
the smaller alehouses to sell spirits, Parliament
reduced the publicans' spirit licence, hitherto
costing at least five guineas a year, to only two
guineas a year for houses under 10 value.
This led to a large proportion of the alehouses
both in town and country to become also places
for the sale of spirits. There was also an increase
in the number of alehouses. In one county
after another, as in Buckinghamshire about
1826, "the liberal spirit of the age" 1 leads to
new public -houses being licensed, even where
population -and trade were declining. The Surrey
magistrates actually petitioned Parliament in
1826 "to authorise the excise to grant a beer

of public-houses in this town has long been a subject of remark with
strangers and of regret with residents, and never was the licensing
system a topic of discussion here as since the last licensing sessions,
when the magistrates, anxious to reduce the number of public-houses
and dram-shops, refused to renew the licences of many whose mis-
conduct had incurred the penalties of the law, or whose entire pursuit
of the dram -selling trade appeared to be injurious to the morals of
the community. The consequences of this refusal have, in many
cases, been extremely salutary, but in others highly injurious to
respectable and industrious individuals," owing, as the writer
explains, to the Justices' failure to discriminate (Liverpool Mercury,
7th December 1821).

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on the Sale of Beer,
1830, p. 76.

106 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

licence after the manner in which a tea licence
was granted." 1 Other benches virtually adopted
this policy of freedom of their own accord. Thus,
in the Morley division of Devon, the magistrates,
after for years pursuing a restrictive policy, came
to the conclusion that the effect of this was
merely to " raise the price of beer beyond its
natural level/' and decided, about 1827-28,
" to grant a licence to every man of respectable
character who applied for it ; in fact, they opened
the trade in public-houses." The 60 or 70 public-
houses which had for years supplied their 33,000
population were suddenly increased to 110.
" The trade in beer," said one of the acting Jus-
tices, " should be quite as open as the trades of
the butchers and bakers." 2 In part of Cornwall
we are told licences had, about 1827-30,
become perfectly free ; they " are granted to
any one who chooses to ask for them." 3 The
same influences were at work in the northern
counties. In Durham, where a period of laxity
had been, after 1787, followed by one of restric-
tion, and where, during the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, " the habit " of the magis-

1 House of Commons, 13th April 1826 (Plain Papers relating to
tht Excise, by John Owens (Linlithgow, 1878), p. 87).

2 Report of House of Commons Committee on. the Sale of Beer,
1833, pp. 57-58.

3 End. 1830, p. 89.

FREE TRADE 107

trates had been "to impose a considerable
restraint upon the granting of new licences . , .
the feeling . . . gave way to the general prin-
ciples of free trade. It was thought that the
throwing licences more freely open would be the
means at least of an improvement of the article
itself, and restraining the monopoly of brewers
over public-houses." The Justices forgot, said
a repentant member of this very bench, giving
evidence in 1834 as to the disastrous increase
in drunkenness, that spirits were not the " same
as groceries/' l Licences were accordingly multi-
plied freely. " You would scarcely now be able,"
said this witness, " to put your foot down without
meeting with a public-house ; they are found in
all directions." In Leeds, too, it was stated in
1833 that "the number of ... licensed vic-
tuallers has increased. We probably were too
tight at one time : we kept down the number,
and we found that it only had the effect of
increasing the value of the premises. . . . Every
year we have increased the number." 2 Partial
and gradual as was this change of policy among
county benches, we see it reflected unmistak-
ably in the statistics. The total number of ale-

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on Drunkenness, 1834,
p. 311.

2 Report of House of Commons Committee on the Sale of Beer,
1833, p. 109.

108 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

house licences increased from 47,933 in 1824 to
51,482 in 1830, and the number of these en-
joying also a spirit licence bounded up from
37,196 in 1824 to 42,599 in 1826 and 45,675
in 1830. 1

Meanwhile the agitation in favour of freedom
of trade in alcoholic liquors was steadily growing
in the House of Commons. Those who take the
trouble to read the parliamentary proceedings
from 1818 to 1830 become aware, alongside of
the more sensational episodes of the time, of a
persistent clamour by a small knot of people
against the Justices' control of the liquor traffic.
This took many forms. Pathetic petitions from
persons distressed at the withdrawal of their
licences were laid before the House, and these
hard cases were dilated on by Ministers as well
as by private members. Owners of house pro-
perty and newly established brewers found Free
Traders in the lobby ready to hear their tales
of new licences unwarrantably refused. Old-
established publicans were sympathetically
listened to when they complained of being
ordered to close their houses on Sundays or at
fixed hours at night, or to provide a parlour, a
fire, and a newspaper, whilst disorderly coffee-

1 See Appendices to First Report of Commissioners of Inland
Revenue, 1857.

FREE TRADE 109

houses and " night - cookshops " were free to
do as they liked. There were rumours of
political favouritism in the licensing work of the
aldermen of the close municipal corporations ;
whilst as to the metropolis it was continuously
asserted that all the respectable magistrates
withdrew from the Middlesex licensing sessions,
so despicable had become the social status
and personal conduct of the acting Justices.
Even the county magnates were charged with
a selfish refusal to allow alehouses in their
villages, because such places gave them trouble
as haunts of poachers and Radicals. 1 More
influential was probably the alarm felt at
a falling off in the consumption of beer
which not only threatened the interests of the
revenue, but was felt to be a serious loss to
the producers of barley and hops. 2 The old
prejudice against the consumption of ardent

1 See for all this the various petitions, bills, and debates recorded
in Hansard for the period, e.g. vol. xxxix., 28th January 1819 ; vol.
xl., 5th and 21st May 1819 ; 6th, 14th, 24th, and 29th May, and
18th July 1822 ; 28th February 1823 ; 13th and 21st April 1826 ;
7th and 14th March, and 21st May 1828.

2 The revenue statistics indicate that "the production of 1722,
when beer was the beverage of the people at every meal, gave a barrel
of beer per head ; but in 1830 the rate of consumption had fallen to
half a barrel per head. In the meantime the consumption of tea had
increased from 1 ounce per head to 36 ounces, and spirits from half a
gallon to six-sevenths of a gallon per head " (Twenty-Eighth Report
of Commissioners of Inland Revenue (1885), p. 20, quoting that of
the Commissioners of Excise for 1833).

110 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

spirits was revived. Beer, on the other hand,
was still universally regarded as a necessary of
life. Hence the more practical of the reformers
who wanted to abolish the licensing system alto-
gether confined their immediate proposal to
"free trade in beer." Measures in 1823 and
1824 encouraged the manufacture of a cheaper
beer, and permitted the " home brewer " to retail
his product for consumption off the premises
without a Justices' licence. 1 These Acts failed
to shake the increased hold of the great brewing
firms. " Intermediate beer/' as the cheaper pro-
duct was called, did not become popular, and
the unregulated " retail brewers " obtained only
an insignificant fraction of the trade. It so
happened that both the great political parties
were inclined, though for different reasons, to
favour what Sydney Smith called " Free Trade
in ale and alehouses." To the Eadicals it
seemed a step towards the universal freedom
of every one to do what he liked with his own. 2

1 4 George IV. c. 51 (1823), and 5 George IV. c. 54 (1824), the
latter containing also important modifications of the tax on spirit
licences (see History of Taxation and Taxes, by S. Dowell (1888),
vol. iv. ; the Beer Manual (1892), and the Spirit Manual, Historical
and Technical, both by Joseph Scarisbrick).

2 Sydney Smith, writing on 26th December 1826 to Edward
Davenport who was entering Parliament, said, " Advocate free trade
in ale and alehouses " (Memoir of Sydney Smith, by Lady Holland,
vol. ii. p. 271). It is wrongly dated in Temperance in the Victorian
Age, by Dr. Dawson Burns (1897), p. 173. In the House of Commons,

FEEE TRADE 111

The Tories were captivated by the idea of
encouraging the growth of hops and barley to
the benefit of the agricultural interest, and of
enabling the sale of beer to displace that of
spirits or wine to the advantage, it was assumed,
of the public health. Presently the movement
obtained the great aid of Huskisson, who was
then, step by step, liberating the trade of the
country from fiscal fetters. Against all these
forces there seems to have been practically no
opposition. No one at this time asserted the
need for a temperance policy. Whatever may
have been left of the movement for the reforma-
tion of manners had, at any rate, become com-
pletely ineffective in Parliament, in which the
Radicals were, as Daniel O'Connell observed,

Slaney, one of the leading social reformers among the Radicals, em-
phatically declared, in connection with Estcourt's Licensing Bill, that
"he would not put into the hands of .any individual a power affecting
the price of what in England was considered the second necessary of
life : such a power was contrary to the principles of Free Trade ; and
he thought the general principle that the demand for goods ought to
regulate the number of vendors should be applied to this trade as
well as any other " (Hansard, 21st May 1828). The attitude of the
most philanthropic and enlightened Radicals may be gathered also
from an amazing article in the Edinburgh Review for September 1826,
in which beer-drinking by the labourers is justified and glorified, the
licensing Justices are ridiculed and denounced for attempting to
regulate the number or conduct of public-houses, and the utmost
freedom of competition in the liquor traffic is demanded. This
article, though not catalogued by Lady Holland as Sydney Smith's,
is evidently by him. In July 1826 he asks Jeffrey for permission to
do it (Memoir^ vol. ii. p. 266).

112 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

averse from anything like "this perpetual
meddling with, the habits of the poor." 1 So far
as excessive drinking led to disorder and crime,
the answer of the Tory Government of that day
was not any development of the restrictive and
regulative policy of the licensing Justices, but
the establishment of a highly disciplined preven-
tive police. Even the " vested interests " which
were threatened by Free Trade in beer were
unable to offer a coherent opposition. The
licensed victuallers had given themselves away
to the Free Trade party by their persistent
agitation against being regulated by the Justices,
and when they pleaded the " sanctity of pro-
perty," arising out of the monopoly which that
very regulation by the Justices had created, they
were simply not listened to. The brewers had
a divided mind. They naturally desired the
reduction of the taxation on beer, and the aboli-
tion of the existing discrimination in favour of
the home-brewed product. As brewers, they had
all to gain by the throwing open of the retail
trade. On the other hand, as owners of public-
house property, they shared with the licensed
victuallers themselves an alarm lest the selling
value of their houses should be diminished by
the abolition of their monopoly. After various

1 Hansard, 24th August 1831.

FEEE TRADE 113

ineffectual attempts by private members, 1 Goul-
burn, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the
Duke of Wellington's Ministry, determined in
1830, as part of the Budget, both to remove the
tax on beer and cider, and to throw the retail
sale completely open. 2 The brewers thereupon
publicly withdrew all opposition. The country
gentlemen, appeased by the prospect of an
increased demand for barley and hops, seem not
to have realised that the whole control of the
rural alehouse was about to be taken from them.

1 Mention may here be made of a meritorious Act of 1828 got
through, by Estcourt, which codified the law as to the Justices' pro-
cedure in licensing, repealed a bewildering mass of old statutes, and
in 1903 still forms the basis of the law (9 George IV. c. 61). His
attempt to increase the regulative and restrictive powers of the Jus-
tices was successfully opposed by the House of Commons, Sir J. C.
Hobhouse declaring that the magistrates were in general already
" too much disinclined to grant licences " (see Hansard, 14th and
21st May 1828). The Justices' powers of supervision were even
limited in such matters as their right to order licensed premises to
be searched on mere suspicion of offence (Report of House of Commons
Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1833, p. 101), and their general
authority was greatly weakened by abolishing the requirement of
certificates of character, even for new licences, and by permitting an
appeal from the Brewster Sessions to Quarter Sessions, The sale of
beer for consumption off the premises was made free without licence.
The power of two Justices peremptorily to "reject and put away "
that is, suppress a common alehouse, under 11 Henry VII. c. 2.
(1495) was explicitly repealed.

2 Goulburn declared, as one of his reasons, * ' that the consump-
tion of spirits had doubled in twenty years (1807-27), and while
the beer and ale licences had fallen off, the spirit licences had
increased by 11,000" (Beer Manual, by Joseph Scarisbrick (Wolver-
hampton, 1892), p. 19).

I

114 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

A perfunctory select committee, appointed to
endorse a foregone conclusion, gave formal audi-
ence to the exaggerated estimates of ruin appre-
hended by existing licence - holders. 1 But no
attempt was made to inquire what would be
the effect of the measure on drunkenness and
disorder. No one recalled the experience of Free
Trade in liquor between 1689 and 1729 ; or that
of the indiscriminate granting of licences and
neglect of regulation between 1753 and 1787.
No evidence was sought or tendered as to the
relative social condition of districts in which
licences had been restricted and publicans regu-
lated, compared with those in which licences had
been granted practically without limit or condi-
tions. The decision to allow Free Trade in
beer, momentous, as we shall see, in its con-
sequences, may indeed be cited as the leading
case of legislation based on abstract theory on
axioms deduced from first principles without
investigation of previous experiments, without
inquiry into the existing facts, and even without
any clear conception of the state of society which
it was desired to bring about. The proposals of
the Government were adopted in their entirety.

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on the Laws and
Regulations restricting the Sale of Beer by retail, 1830 ; see also A
Few Words on the Licensing System and the Proposed Unlimited
Increase of Public- Houses (1830).

FREE TRADE 115

The second reading of the Beer Bill was carried
by the overwhelming majority of 245 to 29. 1
Attempts to restrict the new beer-shops to sales
for consumption off the premises only were
defeated by large majorities in both houses.
Within a few weeks from the introduction of
the measure it had become law that, from and
after the ensuing autumn, any person whose
name was on the rate-book might open his house
as a beer-shop free from any Justices 7 licence or
control, merely on payment of two guineas to
the local office of excise. 2

So instantaneous and dramatic a transforma-
tion as occurred in October 1830 has seldom

1 Hansard, 4th May 1830 (vol. xxv.).

2 11 George IV. and 1 William IV. c. 64 (1830) ; Hansard, vol.
xxv. 1830, pp. 580, 1104, etc. ; History of England, by Spencer
Walpole (1879), vol. ii. pp. 545-546; History of England during the
Thirty Tears 1 Peace, by Harriet Martineau (1849), vol. i. ch. x. p.
545. It lias been said, we know not on what authority, "that the
Duke of Wellington considered that the passing of this Bill was a
greater achievement than any of his military victories" (The Tem-
perance Movement, by P. T. Winskill (1892), vol. i. p. 18). So fax-
was the Free Trade policy carried by the executive government that
retailers of table-beer only, charging not more than 1 Jd. per quart,
whether for consumption on or off the premises, were exempted evert
from taking out an excise licence or other formality (see Treasury
letter of 9th November 1830 interpreting 42 George III. c. 38, sec.
18 (1802), in the sense most favourable to freedom). Such " swankey
shops," as they were called, remained for a whole generation absol-
utely unenumerated, untaxed, unlicensed, and unrestricted (Report
of Select Committee on the Operation of the Acts for the Sale of Beer,
1850, pp. 44, 54, 75 ; History of Taxation and Taxes, by S. Dowell
(1888), vol. iv. p. 97). ' '

116 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

been effected by any Act of Parliament. The
very day on which the statute came into opera-
tion, a perfect swarm of what, for some in-
explicable reason, were called " Tom and Jerry
shops" or " tiddly winks," were opened in every
town and village. The excise offices were
besieged by householders eager to pay the two
guineas by which they acquired the privilege
of retailing beer. In Liverpool alone there
opened more than fifty additional beer - shops
every day for several weeks. Within less than
six months no fewer than 24,342 new beer-sellers
had paid the excise fee, and the number still
continued to grow with great rapidity. 1 It is
impossible to describe the orgies that ensued.
" The new Beer Bill," wrote Sydney Smith only
a fortnight after it had come into force, "has
begun its operations. Everybody is drunk.
Those who are not singing are sprawling. The
sovereign people are in a beastly state." 2 The

1 "Within nineteen days from 10th October, as many as 800
licences were taken out under the Act in Liverpool alone, and by the
end of the year the total number of licences granted in England and
Wales rose to 24,342" (The Temperance Movement, by P. T. Winskill,
1892, vol. i. p. 18). The number rose to 30,978 in 1831, 33,515 in
1832, and to no fewer than 45,717 in 1838. See p. 44 of Thirteenth
Eeport of Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 1870 ; History of
Taxation and Taxes, by S. Dowell, 1888, vol. iv. pp. 95-96.

2 Sydney Smith to John Murray, 24th October 1830, in Lady
Holland's Memoir, vol. ii. p. 310. Only four years before, as pre-
viously mentioned, he had been advocating Free Trade in ale and in
alehouses.

FKEE TRADE 117

new beer-shops were naturally kept by all sorts
and conditions of men persons who had been
refused public-house licences on account of bad
character, "petty tradesmen who would rather
get their bread by any other way than by hard
labour/' l poor widows set up in an easy business
by the charity of their neighbours, or even by
gifts from the poor rate, unemployed labourers
whose cottages happened to be rated, and all
the nondescript class of those who combined a
little poaching and gambling with the occasional
receipt of stolen property. Many of these per-
sons were mere pawns in the hands of those who
supplied the beer. To take advantage of Free
Trade, a new type of brewer sprang up, whose
agents travelled from village to village to per-
suade all and sundry persons to start selling
beer, even in the smallest way, advancing the
two guineas for the excise fee and supplying
casks on credit. One firm boasted in 1833 of
having itself opened 200 such beer -shops in
the town of Birmingham and the neighbour-
hood. 2 In country villages, "where there was
formerly only one public-house," the workman
had " now to run the gauntlet through three or
four beer -shops, in each of which are fellow-

1 Eeport of the Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1833, p. 7,
2 Ibid. p. 170.

118 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

labourers carousing who urge him to stay and
drink with them. 77 1 The local veto exercised
by the squire, the clergyman, and the principal
inhabitants was ruthlessly broken down. One
large brewer prided himself on having set up
beer-shops throughout Hampshire in one hamlet
after another, where, as he said, the selfish policy
of the farmers had made the labourers " hardly
know the taste of beer/' a commodity which he
intended should become to the rural population,
" as it has to the inhabitants of towns, almost a
necessary of life." 2 The situation and character
of the new drink-shops were as harmful as their
numbers. Hitherto the houses in which in-
toxicants had been allowed to be sold had been
premises of a certain size and prominence of
position, devoted exclusively to this trade, and
situated in such a way as to be always under
public supervision. Not only was beer now sold
at every baker's and petty chandler's shop :
regular drinking - places were opened in cellars
and back premises in every alley in the town
slums ; in lonely cottages in the country by-
lanes ; often, indeed, in mere sheds behind the
village street, by the roadside, or in the remote
recesses of a wood. It is easy to imagine, in

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on Drunkenness, 1834,
p. ai. a IbuL p. 200.

FREE TRADE 119

the absence of any efficient police, the accom-
paniments of gambling, brutal amusements, and
licentiousness, which the competition of beer-
sellers for custom encouraged in such places.
The regulations of Parliament as to hours
of closing, etc., were simply set at naught.
" Houses of this description/ 7 writes one observer
in 1834, " sprung up in every corner of the land,
by the roadside, in every city, town, and village
. . . have become the resort of individuals of
depraved, abandoned, and desperate character,"
who are " encouraged in but too many cases by
the loose principles of those who have adopted
this line of trade." l

It is hard to find a redeeming feature of this
debauch. 2 The optimistic prophecy that an
increased consumption of beer would be accom-
panied by a permanent reduction in dram-
drinking was completely falsified. For the
first two years that the 30,000 new alehouses
were plying the labourers with beer, there was
a slight check to the growing consumption of

1 Bristol Journal, 25th October 1834.

2 Apart from the profit to the public revenue, and to the growers
of barley and hops involved in the greater consumption of beer, the
only thing that can be said in favour of the new beer-houses seems to
be that they did multiply the facilities for lodging the travelling
artisan or .poor pedestrian, a kind of accommodation which had in
some places been deficient (see the experiences given in Bamford's
Early Days).

120 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

spirits. 1 But within a very short time this had
again risen to a total never before reached. Nor
are the reasons for this increase far to seek.
The existing licensed victuallers naturally strove
to develop the sale of the article which the beer-
shops could not supply, with the result, as we
are told in 1834, that " many of the old victual-
ling houses where beer was principally consumed,
and not spirits, have been turned into splendid
gin - shops." 2 It was this new competition of
the beer-shop, in fact, which led to the creation
of the modern " gin-shop rising like a palace,"
which, in the words of a witness of 1834,
" absorbs the wealth and the health and the
life of the labouring class." 3 Contemporary
observers described the transformation " A low
dirty public -house with only one doorway"
would be converted "into a splendid edifice,
the front ornamented with pilasters supporting

1 The amount of British spirits charged to duty in England and
Wales was 3,684,049 gallons in 1825 ; 7,407,204 in 1826, on reduction
of duty ; 7,759,687 in 1828 ; 7,732,101 in 1830 ; 7,281,900 in 1832 ;
7,644,301 in 1834; 7,930,490 in 1838; and 9,076,381 in 1845 (see
Appendix Kb. 19 in First Report of Commissioners of Inland Revenue,
1857).

2 Report of House of Commons Committee on Drunkenness, 1834, p.
115. " The "beer-shops have tended to increase the number of dram-
shops. . . . The publicans complain that they were compelled to
adopt the system of opening a dram-shop ... in order to make up
for the deficiency in the sale of their beer" (ibid. p. 53).

8 lUd. p. 99.

FEEE TRADE 121

a handsome cornice and entablature and
balustrade, and the whole elevation remarkably
striking and handsome ; the doorways were
increased in number from one, and that a small
one only three or four feet wide, to three, and
each of those eight to ten feet wide ; the floor
was sunk so as to be level with the street ; and
the doors and windows glazed with very large
single squares of plate glass, and the gasfittings
of the most costly description ; the whole excited
the surprise of the neighbourhood. , . . When
this edifice was completed, notice was given
by placards taken round the parish ; a band of
music was stationed in front . . . the street
became almost impassable from the number of
people collected; and when the doors were
opened the rush was tremendous ; it was in-
stantly filled with customers and continued so
till midnight. I naturally concluded . . . that
this house had all the customers . . . (but) we
found all the other gin - palaces were equally
crowded as before; they had all lowered their
prices to compete with this new shop, and
attracted a large number of customers ; each
gin-shop, in fact, was as fall as it was possible
to be of customers. " l Moreover, the establish-

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on Drunkenness, 1834,
p. 274. It became increasingly the custom for the licensed victuallers

122 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

ment of new beer-shops was a direct cause of an
increase in tlie number of fully licensed public-
houses. It became the policy of some licensing
benches to press and persuade the beer -shop
keepers to take out a licence for the sale of
spirits in order to get some hold over them,
and so obtain a more effective guarantee of
orderly conduct. 1 Even the regulations which
the Justices had made for the public - houses
had to be relaxed in face of the competition
of the unregulated beer-house. Up and down
the country, as we have described, the Justices
had striven to enforce some measure of Sunday
closing. Parliament had forbidden the beer-
shops to be open after ten o'clock at night or
before five in the morning, but had made no
special law as to Sunday hours. The conse-
quence was that where the Justices had insisted
on the public - houses being entirely closed on

to employ musicians and singers. '* Many of the publicans," we are
told in 1834, * ' have organs in their houses " j and in Manchester,
declared the Boroughreeve, they even played psalm tunes on Sunday
evenings, " as an inducement for the parties to go and spend their
money there rather than go to the beer- shops ' ' ({bid. p. 53). No licence
or permission was then required for public music or dancing except
(by 25 George II. c. 2) within twenty miles of London, and in a few
towns by their Local Acts.

1 Thus, both at Dartmouth and at Torririgton (Devon) the magis-
trates, between 1830 and 1833, deliberately granted new licences in
order to obviate the establishment of more beer -shops not under
their control (First Report of Municipal Corporation Commissioners,
Appendix, vol. i. pp. 475 and 671).

FREE TRADE 123

Sunday, or closed until after divine service,
they were practically compelled to relax these
rules and allow the licensed victuallers, like the
beer-shops, to be open all Sunday, provided that
they respected the general prohibition of drink-
ing during the hours of divine service. 1

By the time the new Parliament met, in
March 1831, the first results of Free Trade in
beer had caused a perfect panic of alarm among
those who were responsible for the peace and
good order of the countryside. The winter had,
in the south of England, been one of almost
constant uproar and sullen rebellion, during
which ricks had been burnt and machinery
destroyed. 2 The new beer-houses, exempt from
magisterial control, were the places of meeting
of the disaffected labourers, and thus, ifc was
said, the centres where rebellion was fomented
and plans of incendiarism were concocted.
Resolutions poured in from Quarter Sessions,
expatiating on the evils which the Act of 1830
had brought on peaceful villages. 3 The bishops

1 See the case of Stockport (Cheshire) in Report of House of
Commons Committee on the Sale of Beer, 1833, p. 238.

2 A description of the riots and rick burnings in Dorset in 1830 is
given in The Jouwial of Mary Frampton, edited by H. Gr. Mundy,
1885, pp. 361-368.

8 The following is but a sample of innumerable contemporary
resolutions : " That it is the opinion of the magistrates here present
that, in villages and country places, the provisions of the Act

124 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENG-LAND

in the House of Lords forcibly urged on the
new Whig Ministry the " alarming increase of
immorality, pauperism, and vice among the
lower orders arising from the great number of
beer-shops." l " Every third or fourth house in
some of the country towns/' said the Bishop of
Bath, " had become a beer-shop." 2

Petitions from Justices and clergymen, church-
wardens and overseers, vividly described the
horrors of the new trade the tippling, the late
hours, the noise and disorder, the indiscriminate
intercourse of young and old and both sexes,
the music and dancing, the gambling, the receiv-
ing of stolen goods or the proceeds of poaching,
the filling of the prisons and the raising of
the poor rates and beseeched the House of
Commons for an immediate repeal of the Act. 5

(11 George IV. and 1 William IV. c. 51) have been productive of great
inconvenience and injury both to the peace and good order and morals
of the people. That in towns similar bad consequences do not appear
to have arisen, but that, on the whole, the multiplication of houses for
drinking beer on the premises has been productive of serious evil"
(MB. Minutes, Quarter Sessions, "Wiltshire, 5th April 1831).

1 Hansard, 24th March 1831.

2 Ibid. 23rd June 1831.

3 Testimony to similar effect was constantly repeated all over the
country. The chairman of the Cheshire Quarter Sessions in 1833,
in charging the grand jury, pointed out "that the castle of Chester
contained a greater number of persons for trial at the ensuing assizes
than was ever known in the memory of man.'* He unhesitatingly
attributed this " to the general demoralisation arising from . . . the
pernicious effects of the Beer Bill. ... He had had repeated com-
plaints against beer-house-keepers for allowing gambling in their

FREE TRADE 125

Brougham, Melbourne, and Althorp all admitted
tlie weight of evidence against the new system,
but they suggested that the county magistrates
and clergymen were exaggerating; that the
evils were local only, not prevailing to the
same extent in the northern towns ; that matters
would right themselves in due time ; and that
the Government were not u prepared to abandon
the principle of the measure, and to place again
under any local authorities the choice of the
places in which there should be houses for the
sale of beer." l No amount of evidence as to
the harm which the new beer-houses were doing
could shake the determination of the doctrinaires.
It was in vain that nearly all the Whig Govern-
ment's own Commissioners notably those who
investigated the Old Poor Law and the Muni-
cipal Corporations brought back to London the
strongest testimony against the new beer-shops.
It was useless for the first House of Commons
Committee on Drunkenness in 1834 to report
in the strongest terms against "the increased
number and force of the temptations ... by
the additional establishment of places at which

houses ; at such places farm-servants were plundered of their earn-
ings, and offences were in consequence increased. ... So long as the
beer-shops were permitted to remain, he feared they (the Justices)
would be impeded in their efforts to do anything for the benefit of
the county" (Chester Courant, 31st December 1833).
1 Lord Althorp (see Hansard, 30th June 1831).

126 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

intoxicating drinks are sold/' amounting to " not
less than one such place to every twenty families
throughout the United Kingdom/' * Practically
nothing was done by the Whig Ministry to alter
the law. Our investigation into the licensing
system thus ends, as it began, with the free sale
of one kind of intoxicant. The student of con-
temporary accounts of the nineteenth century
Free Trade in beer will find it easy to parallel,
almost line for line and word for word, the con-
temporary descriptions of the previous experi-
ment of the eighteenth century Free Trade in
gin.

1 Report of House of Commons Committee on Drunkenness, 1834,
p. iii.

CHAPTER V

LEGISLATIVE REPENTANCE

WE are not in a position at present to carry
beyond the passage of the Beer Act of 1830 our
detailed description of the development of the
English licensing system. When we have com-
pleted the first volumes of our History of Local
Government, bringing the story down to the
reforms of 1832-35, we hope to be able to con-
tinue our investigations down to the end of the
nineteenth century. In due course, therefore,
we anticipate an interesting voyage of discovery
among sessions records and local newspapers,
controversial pamphlets and other contemporary
documents from which we shall hope to describe
other interesting experiments in licensing policy,
and as far as possible chronicle their results.
Meanwhile, in order just to round off the present
fragment of history, we append a few paragraphs
of extremely superficial survey of the legislative
repentance since the Act of 1830.

127

128 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

The widespread discontent of the Justices of
the Peace, and of many of the most practical
social reformers of the day, with the results of
Free Trade in beer, led, for the next few years,
to very little result. 1

A strong House of Commons Committee of

1834, appointed at the instance of James Silk
Buckingham, M.P., to investigate the prevalence
of drunkenness, is important as marking the first
appearance at Westminster of the Temperance
Party. In spite of valuable and voluminous
evidence, which, by Buckingham's energy, was
reprinted 2 and widely circulated, nothing was
done. A House of Commons Committee in
1833 had already found abundant confirmation
of the evil results of the new beer-houses, but

1 A full examination of the effect of the Beer Act of 1830 on the
licensing policy of the Justices, on the brewers' monopoly and the
tied-house system, and on pauperism and crime, must "be left for a
subsequent volume. The student may be referred, in addition to
the authorities quoted, to the following important sources prior to

1835, viz. the Eeport of the House of Commons Committee of 1834
on an inquiry into drunkenness, presided over by J. S. Buckingham,
before which evidence was given by Place, Chadwick, and the
earliest temperance reformers ; the volume entitled Evidence on
Drunkenness presented by the House of Commons by the Select Com-
mittee (1834), 591 pp. octavo ; the reports of the Assistant Com-
missioners in the First Appendix to the Poor Law Inquiry
Commissioners Report of 1834 ; the evidence taken by the Factory
Commissioners in 1833; and the works of Kay, Gaskell and
Thackrah.

2 See the thick volume entitled JSmdence on Drunkenness pre-
sented to the House of Commons by the Select Committee (1834).

LEGISLATIVE REPENTANCE 129

led to no important change. The second Beer
Act of 1834 (4 and 5 William IV. c. 85) imposed
the futile requirement that, for sales on the
premises, intending beer-sellers should, except
in London, produce a certificate of personal
character signed by any six rated householders
of the parish, and raised the excise fee from
two to three guineas. In 1840, by the third
Beer Act (3 and 4 Viet. c. 61), a similar certificate
was required as regards persons subsequently
entering the trade on each annual renewal ; and
such persons were restricted to occupiers of
15, 11, or 8 rateable value in London,
provincial towns, and rural districts respectively.
But it still remained possible for the number of
beer-shops to be indefinitely multiplied. Under
these circumstances no effective regulation of the
traffic was possible.

Up and down the country the Justices found
themselves paralysed by the Beer Act, by the
public opinion which had brought it into law,
and by an administration of the Excise Depart-
ment in fullest accord with the spirit of Free
Trade in liquor. It was useless to attempt any
restriction in the number of fully licensed
houses when beer-shops could be multiplied
ad libitum. In many cases it appeared the best
policy to press the beer-shop-keeper to accept

K

130 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

a spirit licence, in order that his premises might
come under some control. 1 On the whole, the
tendency for the next two decades after 1830
seems to have been for the Justices to take up
a purely ministerial attitude. Whatever control
or authority there was to be exercised over the
sale of liquor was left to the decision of Parlia-
ment, the Commissioners of Excise, and the
metropolitan police. In particular, the regula-
tion of the hours of closing, which, as we have
seen, had always been decided by the Justices
as a condition of their licence, now came to be
entirely statutory, 2 taken up primarily as a
matter of police. This legislation was gradual
and experimental. "In 1839 a Police Act was
passed for the Metropolis, which contained a
clause closing public-houses from midnight on
Saturday till one o'clock on Sunday afternoon.

1 In a few cases we have traced a great increase in licences since
1830, especially in the old corporate towns. Thus Chichester
(Susses), with a population in 1831 of 8270, had, under the close
corporation, twenty-seven licensed houses. In 1891 the population
had only grown to 10,808, hut there were in 1896 no fewer than
ninety -two "on" licences and fourteen "off" licences (vol. v. of
Proceedings of Royal Commission on Liquor Licensing, 1897-99).

2 A clause in the 1830 Acts had prescribed the hours of closing for
the new beer-shops, viz. from 10 P.M. to 4 A.M. every night, and
from 10 to 1 and 3 to 5 on Sundays (11 George IY. and 1 William
IY. c. 51 and c. 64). The Act of 1834 (sec. 6) gave the Justices power
to regulate hours, but this was repealed in 1840 by 3 and 4 Yict. cap.
61, sec. 14) (see The Licensing Acts, by J. Paterson, 13th edition
(1900), pp. 260, 271).

LEGISLATIVE REPENTANCE 131

This provision was extended to Liverpool in
1842, to Manchester in 1845, to Newcastle-on-
Tyne in 1846, and subsequently to Sheffield.
In 1848 a Bill was passed covering the whole
of England, where public-houses were closed from
midnight on Saturday to 12.30 P.M. on Sunday,
except in London and Liverpool, where the
hour was 1 P.M." l

About the middle of the century we see the
effect of the growing force of the temperance
movement in the appointment of successive
parliamentary committees, whose investigations
confirmed the repeated complaints as to the evil
results of the unlimited and uncontrolled beer-
houses. 2 But the current in favour of Free
Trade was still strong. In 1860, by the French
Treaty Act, the Government could even establish,
with much public approval, a new class of
drinking-places, by its wine licence to refresh-
ment houses, and a new source of family supply,
by its off-licence for wine to grocers 3 and other
retail shops. 3

1 The Temperance Movement, by P. T. Winskill (1892), vol. iii.
p. 131 ; see Temperance in the Victorian Age, by Dr. Dawson Burns
(1897), p. 176.

2 These Blue-books are dated 1849-50, 1852-53 (in which the
reports of the previous inquiries of 1817, 1818, 1830, 1833, and 1849-
1850 were reprinted), and 1854-55.

3 23 and 24 Viet. c. 27 (1860). In 1861 and 1863 spirit- dealers
and beer-dealers were allowed to sell by retail in small quantities.

132 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

During these years falls, too, the much
debated Liverpool policy of granting a licence
practically to every respectable applicant ; 1
which was, as we now find, merely a revival of
the experiment tried by several county benches
in 1828-30. Not until 1869 could Parliament
nerve itself to retrace the step taken in 1830
and bring all licensed premises under the
Justices' control. 2

The Act of 1869 seems to us to mark
practically the first step in the path of legis-
lative repentance. Down to this date, though
the fully-licensed public-house was under the
Justices, the retailers of table-beer only were, as
we have already mentioned, neither enumerated
nor inspected, neither licensed nor taxed, by any
authority. The beer -shops, cider -shops, 'and
wine-shops, whether for consumption on or off
the premises, could open on payment merely of
an excise fee. Henceforth, all these sellers of
intoxicating drinks had to obtain the Justices'
licence, though the discretion to refuse a renewal
was limited in the case of then existing beer-
shops to the well-known four grounds of
refusal 3 The privileged status thus given to

1 For this experiment see The Temperance Movement, by T. P.
WinsMll (1892), vol. iii. pp. 135-137.

2 See the Blue-book of 1866-67, which led up to the Act of 1869.

3 82 and 33 Viet. c. 27 (1869). This privileged status of the

LEGISLATIVE KEPENTANCE 133

the "ante-1869" beer-houses is important, as
introducing for the first time a limitation of the
discretion of the Justices in refusing a licence,
and also as making a sharp distinction between
the renewal of an existing licence and the grant
of a new one. There has been no extension of
this distinction. It has, on the contrary, been
minimised.

The Act of 1869 gave a like privileged status
to the holders of licences for the sale of beer for
consumption off the premises, but this provision
was repealed by the Acts of 1880 and 1882, so
that renewals may be refused in these cases
without cause assigned. The Act of 1872, con-
solidating the law as to offences by publicans,
with some minor reforms of value, further
strengthened the Justices' power, 1 and gave
them renewed discretion as to the hours of
closing elsewhere than in the metropolis a
discretion since limited by the Act of 1874,
which fixes the present closing hours. An in-
conclusive parliamentary inquiry in 1877-78 led
only to another thick Blue-book.

Four more statutes remain to be cited, all

" ante-1869 beer-houses " was intended to apply only to their first
application to the Justices, and the Act was temporary only. In
1870 the privilege was extended to all subsequent renewals, and the
Act was made permanent.
1 See the Blue-book of 1872.

134 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

significantly in the direction of restriction. The
Sunday Closing (Wales) Act of 1881 made law
for Wales and Monmouthshire one of the most
important of the conditions imposed by the
Justices of 1787. The Act of 1886 prohibiting
the sale of liquor to children for consumption on
the premises, and that of 1901 forbidding such
sale at all except in sealed vessels, represent an
entirely new departure, never thought of by
the magistrates of the eighteenth century.
Finally, the " black list " established by the Act
of 1902 reminds us of the precisely similar
provision included in the " articles " under
James I. three centuries before.

But the most important part of the history
since 1830 is to be found, we think, in the
wonderful story of the growth of Temperance
organisations and their effect in changing public
opinion. That change, as yet reflected only to
a small extent by the contents of the statute-
book, and unfortunately not much in the total
consumption of alcoholic liquor, 1 began to be
perceptible in legislative projects and parlia-
mentary debates between 1860 and 1870, and

1 See the statistics given in The Temperance Problem, by J.
Eowntree and A. Sherwell (1899). In 1897 the average consumption
per head was 1 '03 gallons spirits, 0'40 gallons wine, and 31'4 gallons
beer per annum (Final Report of the Royal Commission on Liquor
Licensing, 1899, p. 362).

LEGISLATIVE REPENTANCE 135

markedly influenced those of the following
decade. Since about 1877, at any rate, it may
be traced in the growing stringency of the
licensing policy of nearly all benches of magis-
trates. The outcome of this transformation of
opinion sometimes reminds us of the movement
of 1786-87, and sometimes, by its contrasts,
marks the changes of a couple of centuries.

The popular movement in favour of Local
Option and Local Veto recalls one of the widely
adopted devices of 1787. On the other hand,
such powerful aid to the cause of temperance as
has been given by the London County Council
was not looked for in the municipal administra-
tion of the eighteenth century. Still less could
the reformers of that day have contemplated
the idea of municipalising the liquor traffic. It
never occurred to the Justices of the eighteenth
century to bargain with a brewer for the sur-
render of two or three existing licences in return
for one new one, because, as we have seen, it
never entered into their heads, or those of the
lawyers of the time, that there could be any
question of compensation. 1 And it is only within
the last few years that the licensing benches of

1 For a discussion of compensation, see The Place of Compensation
in Temperance fief orm, by C. P. Sanger (1901), one of the publications
of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

136 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

the present generation have plucked up courage
to exercise the discretion which their predecessors
under George the Third used so freely, in sup-
pressing licensed houses which were unnecessary
for the supply of the legitimate wants of the
neighbourhood. 1

It is interesting to notice that, whereas in
the middle of the nineteenth century the tend-
ency seemed to be to take the licensing and
regulation of the liquor traffic out of the hands
of the local authorities, and to make it as exclu-
sively part of the national administration as are
the Factories and "Workshops Acts, the tendency
of the last quarter of a century has been to
restore it to the sphere of Local Government.

On this note we pause. We prefer to draw
no inferences and to come to no conclusion until
we have had opportunities of further investiga-
tion.

1 For the case of Sharp v. Wakefield (1 Appeal Cases, 1891, p. 473),
in which this right of the Justices was elaborately argued, and
ultimately upheld, see The Licensing Acts, by J. Paterson (13th edit.
1900), pp. 397-407, or vol. ix, of the Proceedings of the Royal Com-
mission on Liquor Licensing^ 1897-99.

APPENDIX

THE MOVEMENT FOR THE REFORMATION OF MANNERS

THE Societies for the Reformation of Manners appear to
have been established soon after the Revolution, and
securing, from 1691 onwards, the patronage of the Queen
and repeated commendations from Parliament, they grew
rapidly, during the ensuing years, into a large and
influential organisation. We need not concern ourselves
with the particular forms which they assumed, especially
as the several societies were always dying away and
being resuscitated, according to the waxing or waning of
the feeling that public morals needed to be reformed.
The various groups seem to have been composed of very
different classes of persons. There were, in the grandest
of them, great lawyers and divines, members of Parliament
and other dignitaries in close connection with the Govern-
ment. Others were composed of clergymen of the Church
of England; there was one of Justices of the Peace, and
several mainly of tradesmen ; there was one of persons
connected with parish government in the metropolis ;
one of constables ; and even one of " such as made it
some part of their business to give information to a
magistrate," that is to say, of professional informers. 1

1 The main source of information for the earlier societies is An
Account of the Rise and Progress of the Religiow Societies in the City

137

138 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

These Societies for the Eeformation of Manners, which
sprang up in most of the corporate towns as well as in
the metropolis, set themselves to carry into execution the
various royal proclamations " for the encouragement of
piety and virtue, and for the preventing and punishing of
vice, profaneness, and immorality," which we have already
described. They repressed licentiousness and disorderly
conduct rather than crimes against life or property.
" We are told that many thousands have been brought to
punishment for swearing and cursing; that a multitude
of drunkards and profaners of the Lord's Day, some of
whom kept, as it were, open markets within a few years
past, have been made examples of ... that hundreds of
disorderly houses, which were little better than stews, and
nests for thieves, clippers, and coiners, etc., have been
rooted out and suppressed . . . public disorders are
remarkably cured; and, in short, vice is afraid and
ashamed to show its head, where within a few years past
it was daring and triumphant." 1 What the societies
actually did seems to have been to pay the expenses of
the prosecution of criminals, to encourage voluntary inf or-

of London, etc., and of the Endeavours for Reformation of Manners
which have teen made therein, by Josiali Woodward (London, 1698) ;
see also An Address from the London Society for the Suppression of
Vice (London, 1803) ; An Account of the Societies for Eeformation of
Manners in London and Westminster and Other Parts of the Kingdom,
Anon. (London, 1699) ; An Account of the Progress of the Reformation
of Manners in England, etc., Anon., 12th edition (London, 1704) ;
The Poor Man's Plea in Relation to all the Declarations, Acts of
Parliament , etc., which have leen made or published for a Reformation
of Manners and Suppressing Immorality in the Nation, by Daniel do
Foe (London, 1698) ; Wilson's Memoirs of the Life and Times of
Daniel de Foe (1830), i pp. 301-302.

1 Quoted, in relation to the societies of 16904710, in An Address
from the London Society for the Suppression of Vice (London, 1803),
p. 79.

APPENDIX 139

mation as to breaches of the law, and, occasionally, at any
rate, to employ paid officers, who were often sworn in as
constables or deputy constables, to get up cases and
apprehend offenders. Thus, when in 1698 the inhabitants
of the Tower Hamlets were " much perplexed by pilfering
the people, picklocks, housebreakers, and such ill persons,"
and annoyed by scenes of open profligacy, which the
Justices of the Peace did nothing to repress, the local
Society for the Reformation of Manners set to work, and
were soon able to report that " by means of this Society
alone about 2000 persons have been legally prosecuted
and convicted, either as keepers of houses of bawdry and
disorder, or as whores, night-walkers, and the like. . . .
They have also been instrumental to put down several
music houses, which had degenerated into notorious
nurseries of lewdness and debauchery." 1

It is needless to say that this repressive activity was
wholly directed against the drunkenness and immorality
of the humbler classes, not against the licentiousness of
the rich. This made them unpopular with the people,
and called forth the animadversions of De Foe. His Poor
Man's Plea was a sturdy protest against the prevailing
tendency to repress, with savage punishments, the dis-
orderly amusements and licentiousness of the common
people, whilst allowing practical freedom to the rich to be
as idle and vicious as they pleased. "These are," he
said, "all cobweb laws, in which the small flies are
catched, and the great ones break through. My Lord
Mayor has whipped about the poor beggars, and a few
scandalous whores have been sent to the House of
Correction; some alehouse -keepers and vintners have
been fined for drawing drink on the Sabbath day, but all
1 Woodward's Account, pp. 74, 78, 79.

140 LIQUOB LICENSING IN ENGLAND

this falls upon us of the mob, as if all the vice lay among
us. ... The very benches of our Justices are infected.
Tis hard, gentlemen, to be punished for a crime by a
man as guilty as ourselves ; this is really punishing men
for being poor, which is no crime at all." l After the
death of Queen Anne the Societies for the Kef ormation of
Manners lost the patronage of the Court and of the
fashionable world ; but they evidently continued to exist,
in one form or another, for more than half a century.

In 1786 begins a new outburst of an analogous volun-
tary association of much broader type. We trace this to
the influence of the Eev. H. Zouch, a Yorkshire Justice of
the Peace of great energy and ability. 2 The rapid growth
of a new manufacturing population in the West Riding
had brought about an obvious breakdown of the primitive
organisation of local constabulary. To quote the panic-
stricken utterances of the principal newspaper of the
neighbourhood, " The overflowings of vice and immorality,
the vast increase of crimes, and the precarious situation of
property, are such as to call aloud for the exertion of
every individual who has either the good of his country,

1 Wilson's Memoirs of the Life and Times of Daniel de J?oe t vol. i.
p. 200.

2 The Eev. Henry Zouch, Rector of Swillington and Tankersley,
and chaplain to the Marchioness of Kockingham, was for many years
the most active and influential of the West Eiding Justices. His
pamphlet, Hints respecting the Public Police (London, 1786), marked
by good sense and ability, seems to have had a wide circulation. He
was deputed to go to London in 1790, to confer with the Proclamation
Society as to means of improving the police (Leeds Intelligencer, 21st
July 1789), On Ms death in 1795, it was said that," he displayed an
accurate and comprehensive knowledge of the laws of England, an
unbiassed integrity in the administration of justice, and a most con-
descending attention to the complaints of the lower classes of society "
(Lteds Intelligencer, 29th June 1795).

APPENDIX 141

or the safety of his own person or property at heart." 1
Zouch published a pamphlet entitled Hints respecting the
Public Police, and brought such pressure to bear on his
fellow-magistrates that Quarter Sessions, in April 1786,
u earnestly recommended to the principal inhabitants of
all places to agree in uniting together under certain rules
and regulations for the better purpose of detecting felons,
cheats, vagrants, night-walkers, and night-poachers, pawn-
brokers who are often guilty of malpractices, and par-
ticularly in receiving stolen goods knowing them to be
such, sellers by false weights and measures, persons
adulterating or improperly mixing meal, flour, etc.,
and, in short, all those who are in any way guilty
of a breach of the law." 2 The Justices on the
same occasion resolved to withhold licences from all
public-houses offending against the law, and to organise
privy searches for vagrants in their respective districts. 3
The movement became one for a general vigilance in
every branch of local administration. At a subsequent
meeting, the Justices required all constables " as soon as
may be, to call a meeting of the inhabitants within their
respective districts, and to represent to them the necessity
theva is for all honest men to form themselves into com-
mittees, or otherwise to associate themselves as well in
aid of the civil magistrate, as to superintend and regulate
all parochial matters, more especially relative to the poor
and the highways, where the overseers appointed are
incapable or are negligent in the discharge of their duty." 4

1 Leeds Intelligencer, 26th September 1786.

2 Quarter Sessions, West Riding of Yorkshire, 24th April 1786
(Leeds Intelligencer, 16th May 1786).

3 Leeds Intelligencer, 16th May 1786.

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

142 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Committees or societies of this kind, meeting weekly,
were immediately formed in many West Riding towns. 1
We may judge of their work by the following extract
from the rules of the Pontefract society : " That we will
on every proper occasion encourage and assist the various
parochial officers in the execution of their duty, particu-
larly in suppressing all kinds of irregularities or tippling
in the alehouses in the Lord's Day, and in searching
for vagrants, cheats, etc., and taking them before the
magistrates ; and also in giving information ourselves,
where we have personal knowledge and proof of the
breaking of our excellent laws, for the due observance of
the Sabbath, and against swearing and other notorious
immoralities." 2 That their vigilance arid active co-
operation with the magistrates had, for the moment, a great
effect in repressing disorderly conduct and crime is
universally reported, and is probably true, but this
ephemeral and purely local movement suddenly gained an
importance which it would otherwise have lacked, by the
action of Wilberforce, at that time one of the members of
Parliament for Yorkshire. Deeply impressed by the
prevalence of immorality, he felt, to quote the words
written in the secrecy of his diary, that " God has set
before me as my object the reformation of (my country's)
manners." He was struck by the success of the West
Riding magistrates in uniting all the respectable inhabit-
ants of the county for the suppression of breaches of
the kw, and he set himself, with all his influence among
the governing classes, to convert the movement into a

1 Within a month, the Leeds Intelligencer (23rd May 1786) reports
them as formed in several towns. The rules for that of Pontefract

r@ giTcn in the issue for 19th September 1786.
s Leeds Intelligencer, 19th September 1786.

APPENDIX 143

national one. In his hands it became like the earlier
movement of 1690-1710, principally a campaign
against licentiousness and profanation of the Sabbath,
rather than one for the protection of life and property.
He induced the Privy Council to issue a proclamation on
the lines of those issued at the beginning of each reign ;
the Secretary of State to write to all the lord lieutenants
to incite the Justices to activity, and a large number of
distinguished persons to form a society to see that the
various laws regulating personal conduct were put in force.
The proclamation declared the royal intention to punish
" all manner of vice, profaneness, and immorality," forbade
" playing on the Lord's Day at dice, cards, or any other
game whatsoever, either in public or private houses,"
and commanded special energy in the enforcement of the
laws against "excessive drinking, blasphemy, profane
swearing or cursing, lewdness, profanation of the Lord's
Day, or other dissolute, immoral, or disorderly practices
. . . public gaming-houses . . . unlicensed public shows,
interludes, and places of entertainments . . . loose and
licentious prints, books, and publications," and the
supplying of refreshments during the time of divine
service. 1 But though the scope and wording of the
proclamation reveals Wilberforce's own preoccupation
with the personal morals of his fellow-citizens, the Home
Secretary's covering letter lays stress upon " the depreda-
tions which have been committed in every part of the
kingdom, and which have of late been carried to such an
extent as to be even a disgrace to a civilised nation," and
urges action "for the preservation of the lives and
properties of His Majesty's subjects." 2 These two strains,

1 Proclamation, 1st June 1787; in London Gazette, 2nd June 1787.

2 Lord Sydney's Letter of 23rd June 1787, given in full in A General

144 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

that of " depravity, dissipation, and profanation of the
Lord's Day" on the one hand, and that of "alarming
depredations on life and property" on the other, are
about equally mixed in the resolutions which Quarter
Sessions everywhere hastened to pass. 1

"We have elsewhere described the spurt of vigilance
and activity which, doubtless in consequence of the Royal
Proclamation and the Home Secretary's letter, the Justices
in 1787-88 every where put into execution of the vagrancy
and licensing laws. Meanwhile, the society established
by Wilberforce and his aristocratic friends was setting
energetically to work, holding in 1790 a national con-
ference of two Justices of the Peace from each Quarter
Sessions, prosecuting the purveyors of blasphemous or
obscene literature and indecent shows ; 2 getting
convicted those who opened places of entertainment
on Sunday, gaming-houses or places of resort for
immoral purposes, stopping the collusive transfer of
liquor licences, enforcing the vagrancy laws, and "main-
taining the sancity of the Lord's Day." That this agita-

Plan, of Parochial and Provincial Police, by W. M. Godschall

(London, 17S7).

1 Among these we may cite Gloucestershire, Berkshire, Somerset,
Flint, Surrey, Norfolk, Lincoln, Northamptonshire, Cumberland,
Xorth and West Ridings of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Middlesex, and
Kent, which we hare examined, either in the MS. Minutes or in the
reports in local newspapers for 1787-88. See also A General Plan of
Parochial Police, by W. M. Godschall (London, 1787) ; Correspondence
of William Jl'ilberforcc, by R. and S. Wilberforce (London, 1840),
TO! i. p. 130, etc. ; Keport of the Committee of the Society for
currying into effect His Majesty's Proclamation against Vice and
Immorality (London, 1799); and the "Ironical Defence of Yice
mad Immorality," in the Annual Register for 1788 (vol. xxx.),
p. 140.

9 Among the publications it sought to suppress was Paine's Age

APPENDIX 145

tion for setting the law in motion produced a considerable
effect is abundantly proved by contemporary evidence. 1

1 Thus, to quote only one case, we read that "in the town of
Stroud a great diminution of irregularity and misbehaviour has of
late been observed, to the comfort and satisfaction of the inhabitants.
Such a change shows what may be effected in time by the uniform
but gentle perseverance of a worthy minister, when supported by a
few active and exemplary characters. The present High Constable
has proved that our laws give full power for the suppression of every
enormity, when the execution of them is consigned to men of spirit
and integrity " (Bristol Gazette, 10th April 1788). The following
record of the action taken in a Hertfordshire village gives us a picture
of its contemporary local government. "An extraordinary meeting
of the committee was held on 31st October 1787, for the purpose
of taking into consideration the Proclamation for preventing and
punishing profaneness, vice, and immorality, by order of the Rev. Mr.
"Weston ; present (eight names and the chief constable).

Words of the Act : No drover, horse courier, waggoner, butcher,
higgler, or their servants shall travel on a Sunday.

Ordered that the above be prevented so far as relates to carriages,
punishments 21s. ; and for default, stocks two hours.

No fruit, herbs, or goods of any kind shall be cried or exposed to
sale on a Sunday. N.JB. Goods forfeited.

No shoemaker shall expose to sale upon a Sunday any boots,
shoes, or slippers, 3s. 4d. per pair, and the value forfeited.

Any persons offending against these laws are to be prosecuted,
except butchers, who may sell meat till nine o'clock in the morning,
at which time all barbers' shops are to be shut up, and no business to
be done after that time.

No person without a reasonable excuse shall be absent from some
place of Divine Worship on a Sunday Is. to the poor.

The constables to go about the town, and particularly the Cross,
to see that this is complied with, and if they find any number of
people assembled together, to take down their names, and return
them to the committee that they may be prosecuted.

No innkeeper or alehouse-keeper shall suffer any one to continue
drinking or tippling in his house. Forfeit 10s. and disabled for three
years.

Ordered that the constables go to the public-houses to see that no
tippling or drinking is done during Divine Service, and to prevent
drunkenness, etc., any time of the day.

L

146 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

But in a very few years the activity of the "Proclamation
Society," as it was usually termed, came to a natural
end; its meetings ceased to be held, and though it
lingered on into the nineteenth century, it calls for no
further notice.

The voluntary associations of 1690-1710 and 1786-
1795 were succeeded by a third movement which started
in 1802. We find, in that year, established a "Society
for the Suppression of Yice and the Encouragement of
Eeligion and Virtue throughout the United Kingdom,"
which took up the work of the moribund " Proclamation
Society," but confined its operations still more exclusively
to the prevention of " profanation of the Lord's Day "
and the suppression of indecent literature and sexual im-
morality. This society appears to have found its sup-
porters entirely among the rising Evangelical party, and
to have had no very close connection with the official or
governing class. We have but scanty records of its work,
which was carried on by three committees, each meeting
weekly, but though branches or imitations of this society
long continued to exist in many towns, the organisation
does not appear to have exercised any important influence
on local government. 1

Persons who sell by false weights and measures in market towns
6s. 8d. first offence ; 13s. 4d. second offence ; 20s. third, and
pillory.

Ordered that the constables see that the weights and measures
were good and lawful" (Fragments of Two Centuries t by Alfred
Kingston (Royston, 1893), pp. 26-27).

1 Proposal for establishing a Satiety for the Suppression of Vice
(London, 1802) ; Address to the Public from the London Society for
the Suppression of Vice (London, 1803). For a similar society at
Gloucester in 1818, and at Carmarthen 1816-20, see Carmarthen
Jwm&l, 6th ^Torember 1818, and 14th January 1820 ; for one newly
formed at Leeds in 1825, see Leeds Intelligencer, 31st March 1825.

APPENDIX 147

These three distinct outbreaks of voluntary associations
for reforming the manners and morals of the poor were
only manifestations of a spirit which we trace continuously
in the moralists and statesmen of the whole period. What
the educated classes always had at heart was the re-
clamation of " the lower orders " to a life of regular and
continuous work. 1 For this desire there were several
different motives, variously combined. What Queen Mary
and Wilberforce were most concerned about was the fact
that the common people were defying God's law, and
incurring the penalty of eternal damnation. The magis-
trates, manufacturers, and quiet folk generally wanted,
like the Home Secretary of 1787, to stop the depredations
on life and property. To the employers and " principal
inhabitants " of each district the worst part of the evil
seemed to be the waste of time and money by the poor,* 2

1 " A journeyman," it was said in 1749, "can no more afford to
throw away his time than a tradesman can his commodity ; and the
best way of preventing this useful body of men from this species of
extravagance is to remove from their sight all temptation to idle-
ness " (An Account of the Origin and Effects of the Police set on Foot
"by the Duke of Newcastle on a, Plan of Henry Fielding, London, 1758).

2 " How often do we see the whole inhabitants of a country village
drawn from their harvest -work to see a cudgel playing or a cricket
match ? and how common is it to behold the vulgar people thronging
from every quarter of the Metropolis to some of its environs to
partake of the silliest pastimes that can be invented for the excite-
ment of their curiosity. On these occasions the poor do not only
suffer from the loss of a half or whole day's labour, which is often to
them a matter of great importance, but also spend as much as they
can earn in another day, or perhaps two, and besides disqualify them-
selves by intemperance for working on the next. ... It is a
mortifying consideration that so many of our labouring people mis-
spend at least a fourth part of the week, and an equal proportion of
its earnings, in the most idle gratification and most destructive intem-
perance " (London Chronicle, 4th-6th October 1764). " To prevent
gaming among the lower sort of people is principally the business of
society ; and for this plain reason, because they are tfce most useful

148 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

which checked production and increased the poor rate.
All three motives pointed, as it happened, to one main,
device, the adoption of which was accordingly always
attempted. What seemed to be required was to suppress
the opportunities for the idleness, drinking, and licentious-
ness of the common people. This meant the suppression,
wherever possible, of the old fairs and village festivals, a
reduction in the number of alehouses x and the prohibition
of all games and amusements in them, 2 and as strict a
limitation as possible of musical and theatrical perform-
ances. Each outburst of zeal for the reformation of
manners was accordingly marked, as De Foe complained,
by attempts to put down popular amusements. This
is specially characteristic of the movement of 1786-95.
" In London and other large towns/' urges one thoughtful
critic in 1787, "diversions calculated to slacken the in-
dustry of the useful hands are innumerable; to lessen,
therefore, the number of these is the business of the magistrate" 3

members of the society, winch by such means will lose the benefit of
their labour" (Charge to the, Grand Jury of Westminster, June 1749,
by Henry Fielding (London. 1749), p. 161).

1 "These little pot-houses, it is a known fact, are the rendezvous
of these nocturnal villains, where they plan, their depredations, and
where not infrequently they divide their spoil. The landlord con-
nives at their malpractices it is his interest so to do perhaps his
daily bread depends upon itperhaps he is connected with them "
(Leeds Intelligencer, 25th April 1786). " There are villages in remote
country places which can date the commencement of their poor
rates from the introduction of a public -house " (Bristol Journal, 19th
January ITS 8).

1 " Amongst the number of diversions that call for redress are

carried on in public-houses, such as cards, dice, draughts,

huHk-bounds, billiards, and skittles. These are the places that rob

the journeymen and labourers of their time, their little property, and

thttr leas morals" (Bristol Journal, 18th August 1787).

"Reflections on the great Importance of magistrates licensing
to proper persons," in Bristol Journal, 18th August 1787.

APPENDIX 149

"As this is the season when country feasts, wakes, etc.
usually begin," observes the principal newspaper in York-
shire in 1786, "a correspondent earnestly recommends it
to the ministers and officers in every parish to prevent
them from being held on the Lord's Day. Indeed, it would
be much better to suppress these feasts 'entirely, for, as the
Eev. Mr. Zouch justly remarks in his excellent pamphlet
on the police, it is found by long experience that, when
the common people are drawn together upon any public
occasion, a variety of mischiefs are certain to ensue ;
allured by unlawful pastimes, or even by vulgar amuse-
ments only, they wantonly waste their time and money
to their own great loss and that of their employers. Nay,
a whole neighbourhood becomes unhinged for many days,
quarrels are too often promoted, and the young and in-
experienced are initiated into every species of immorality." 1
The same period saw the suppression of many unnecessary
alehouses in small villages, and, in many places, also a
partial and temporary prohibition of bull-baiting. 2

1 Leeds Intelligencer, 2Qth June 1786. It is interesting to find the
zealous Zouch specially reprobating, in this connection, f t the practice
of performing oratorios in country churches," which he thinks "very
exceptionable, not only by the indecencies committed therein, but
by giving occasion for great numbers of persons of all kinds to be
brought together, so that the adjoining villages do often become
scenes of drunkenness, disorder, and riot." The Archbishop of York
has disapproved of "introducing sacred music in this way" (SMs
respecting the Public Police, by the Eev. H. Zouch, J.P., p. 7).

2 At the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, held at Stamford
in October 1789, it was ordered "that there shall be no bull-running
on the said 13th day of November, nor at any other time, as bull-
runnings are productive of vice, profaneness, immorality, disorder,
riot, drunkenness, and mischief among many people, inhabitants of
this borough and the neighbourhood thereof; of every species of
inhumanity in the lower order of the people to an unhappy animal ;
and of great annoyance, danger, and delay to all travellers passing

150 LIQUOE LICENSING IN ENGLAND

There is, to our modern feelings, something unsavoury
in this combination of concern for the spiritual welfare of
the poor and for the security and profit of the rich, especi-
ally when it led merely to attempts to deprive the lower
orders of their margin of leisure and opportunities for
amusement. The sturdy protest of De Foe was, in fact,
repeated in 1787 by an outspoken country gentleman.
At a meeting of the Norfolk Justices (4th August 1787),
"after many observations had been made upon the
depravity of the lower orders of the people, and the
necessity there was for lessening the number of alehouses
and other places of fashionable resort, Sir Thomas Beevor
reprobated the plans proposed. He said ' he was very far
from thinking the sum of iniquity in this country was
greater than it had been, and still further from believing
the poor were either more vicious or more abandoned
than their forefathers. That it was, and ever had been,
the cant language of every age to condemn the present
time and to applaud the past. That, from his reading
and acquaintance with the history of England, he would
venture to affirm that the police of it was never more
strictly attended to than at present . . . that this was a
frivolous rather than a wicked age; but if gentlemen
thought otherwise, and really wished to amend it, he was
ready to concur most heartily with them in the good
design. He must, however, warmly reprobate the plans
proposed as both ineffectual and oppressive. They are/
said he, 'ineffectual and partial as beginning with, and
being confined solely to the reformation of the lower class
of people ; they are oppressive, as they tend to deprive
the poor of a great part of that scanty pittance of happi-

and repessing npon the King's Highway in this Borough " (Lincoln,

Mutl&nd, and Stamford Mercury, 9th October 1789).

APPENDIX 151

ness which their lot in this life can afford.' Sir Thomas
Beevor went on to recommend that the Justices them-
selves should set an example of temperance." The usual
resolution was, however, passed. 1

1 Leeds Intelligencer, 4th. September 1787.

INDEX

Acts of Parliament

11 Henry VII. o. 2 : 6, 9, 13
19 Henry VII. c. 12 : 6

5 and 6 Edw. VI. c. 25 : 5, 6, 7,
9, 14, 98

7 Edw. VI. c. 5 : 18, 19

11 Jac. I. c. 9 : 62

21 Jac. I. c. 7 : 19

12 Car. II. c. 25 : 19

15 Car. II. c. 14 : 19

22 and 23 Car. II. c. 26 : 19
12 and 13 Wm. III. c. 11 : 22
9 Anne c. 16: 7

9 Anne c. 23 : 19

2 Geo. II. c. 17 : 24, 25

2 Geo. II. c. 28 : 5, 6

6 Geo. II. c. 17 : 25

9 Geo. II. c. 23 : 25-26, 78

10 Geo. II. c. 17 : 19

16 Geo. II. c. 8 : 29, 33

17 Geo. II. c. 17 : 37

24 Geo. II. c. 40 : 37, 38
26 Geo. II. c. 13 : 37, 79
26 Geo. II. c. 31 : 7, 36 } 38, 62

28 Geo. II. c. 19 : 38

29 Geo. II. c. 12 : 36, 37

29 Geo. II. o. 25 : 56

30 Geo. II. c. 19 : 19
32 Geo. III. c. 59 : 19
42 Geo. III. c. 38 : 115
48 Geo. III. c. 143 : 47
56 Geo. III. e. 104 : 99

4 Geo. IV. c. 51 : 110

5 Geo. IV. c. 54 : 110

9 Geo. IV. c. 61 : 19, 113

11 Geo. IV. and 1 Wm. IV. c.
51: 124

Acts of Parliament

11 Geo. IV. and 1 Wm. IV. c.

64: 115

4 and 5 Wm. IV. c. 85 : 130
3 and 4 Viet. c. 61 : 130
23 and 24 Viet, c, 27 : 131
25 and 26 Viet. c. 22 : 19
32 and 33 Viet. c. 27 : 132, 133
35 and 36 Viet. c. 94 : 133
37 and 38 Viet. e. 49 : 100

43 and 44 Viet. c. 20 : 19

44 and 45 Viet. c. 61 : 134
49 and 50 Viet. c. 56 : 134

1 Edw. VII. c. 27 : 134

2 Edw. VII. c. 28 : 134
Aldermen, city of London, 64 ;

licensing work of, 109
Ale, increase in consumption of,

17-18. See also Beer
Alehouse-keepers, rules for, 59-60
Alehouses, distinction between inns
and, 5 ; licensing of, ib. ; sup-
pression of, by Justices, 6, 10-
12, 15, 68-74, 149 ; by Judges
of Assize, 13 ; power of Jus-
tices to suppress repealed, 113 ;
multiplication of, 15, 33, 42,
105, 106 ; licences for, easily
obtained, 41 ; given to needy
persons, 44 ; in villages and
country places, 42, 44, -46, 51,
103 ; cause of, innumerable,
43 ; number of, in Westminster,
40-41 ; in Leeds, 46 ; without
a licence, 51 ; reduction in
number of advocated, 51, 53 ;
number of, reduced, 53, 58-

153

154 LIQUOB LICENSING IN ENGLAND

59, 113 ; preference given to,
78 ; licensed to sell spirits, 80,
105 ; statistics of, 80-81, 82,
108 ; temporary ones, at fairs,
99; "free trade" in, 110;
owned by brewers. See Tied
Souses

Althorp, Lord, 125

Anne, Queen, 140

Articles of 1618, 54, 62, 102,
134

Assize, Judges of. See Judges

Aylesbury (Bucks), 103

Aylesford (Kent), 55

Bacon, Nathaniel, 10

Bagshot (Surrey), 19

Ballard, A., 46

Bampton (Oxon), 56, 66

Barclay, C., 93

Barnsley (Yorks), 53

Barnstaple (Devon), 99

Bars, drinking, 78

Bathsorum Division (Somerset), 64,
69

Bathurst, Lord, 27, 28, 30

Beadles, not accepted as sureties,
56

Beccles (Suffolk), 66

Beer, assumed to be a necessary of
life, 2, 86, 110, 111, 118 ; sale
of,' in unlicensed premises, 17 ;
increase in consumption of,
17-18 ; statistics of duty OB,
48 ; preference given to, over
spirits, 78, 79, 111 ; quality
of, in "tied houses," 89, 91 ;
price of, 92-93, 106, 111 ; sale
of, atfairs, 98-100 ; brewing of,
without a licence, 98-99 ; "free
trade" in, 106, 110, 111, 113,
115, 131 ; effects of "free
trade " in, 116-126 ; decrease
in consumption of, 109 ;
** home-brewed," retailed with-
out licence, 110 ;" off" sale of,
without licence, 113 ; tax on,
withdrawn, ib. ; decrease in
number of licences for sale of,
i&. ; Eeport of House of Com-

mons Committee on Sale of,
by retail (1830), 114; uni-
versal sale of, 118 ; average
consumption of, per head, 134

Beer Act, the First (1830), 115,
116 ; petitions for repeal of,
124 ; effects of, 128 ; powers
of Justices rendered useless by,
129-130

the Second (1834), 129
the Third (1843), 129

Beer-shops, no licence required for,
115 ; in Liverpool, 116 ; in-
crease in number of, 117 ; in
Birmingham, ib. ; set up by
brewers, 117, 118 ; hours of
closing, 122, 130 ; evils of
unlimited number of, 131 ;
brought under control of Jus-
tices, 132 ; privileges of those
established before 1869, 133

Beevor, Sir Thomas, 150, 151

Berkshire, 60, 61, 62, 70, 89, 102,
144

Bethnal Green, 94

Beverley (Yorks), 104

Birmingham (Warwickshire), 99,
117

Bishop Wearmouth (Durham), 47

Bishops, attitude of, towards Act of
1743, 30, 31

Black list, 11, 134

Bodmin (Cornwall), 104

" Books of Orders," 10

Bowles, John, quoted, 86

Brandy, importation of foreign, 20 ;
English, manufacture of, en-
couraged, 21 ; " Parliament,"
25

Breweries, Report of House of
Commons Committee on (1818-
1819), 91, 93

Brewers, promotion of liquor traffic
by, 43 ; as sureties for good
behaviour of publicans, 57 ;
monopoly of public-houses in
hands of, 87-93, 112 ; break-
down of monopoly of, 105 ;
price of porter fixed by, 92 ;
"home" brewers, 110; "re-

INDEX

155

tail " brewers, i&. ; new type
of, 117 ; attitude of, towards
"free trade" in beer, 112, 113

Brewing, encouragement of, 3 ; de-
velopment of, 87-88 ; private,
82 ; without a licence at fairs,
98-99

Brewster Sessions, origin of, 5, 6 ;
referred to, 36, 57, 76, 77, 80,
85 ; description of scene at,
45 ; rules prescribed by Jus-
tices in, 54 ; at Barnsley, 53 ;
at Bamptou., 66 ; at Salisbury,
70 ; at Sheffield, 71 ; special,
66 ; recommendations to Jus-
tices in, 79 ; appeal from, to
Quarter Sessions permitted,
113

Brighthelmstone (Sussex), 63-64

Brighton. See Brightkdmstone

Brougham, Lord, 125

Buckingham, James Silk, M.P.,
103, 128

Buckinghamshire, 105

Bull-baiting, 53, 87, 149

Burns, Jitstice of the Peace by,
quoted, 102

Burns, Dr. Dawson, 110, 131

"Bush-houses," 99

Cambridge, 27

Carlisle (Cumberland), 70

Carmarthen, 146

Cartaret, Lord, 26

Carter, Bonham, 7

Cartwright, J. J., quoted, 12

Certificates of good character, 54,

58, 63, 66, 129 ; requirement

of, abolished, 113
Chadwick, Edwin, 128
Charter, of Vintners' Company, 19 ;

of St. Albans, #.
Chelsea (Middlesex), 40, 74
Cheshire, 124
Chester, 124
Chesterfield, Lord, 29
Chichester (Sussex), 104, 130
Children, sale of liquor to, 134
Cider, tax on, withdrawn, 113
Cider-shops, 132

Clerk of the Peace, fees received by,
47 ; blank licences filled up
by, &.

Clerks, Justices', fees received by,
43

Closing, hours of, 11, 60, 96, 108,
119, 131, 133 ; in beer-shops,
122, 130 ; not fixed by Par-
liament, 9 ; prescribed by
Justices, 40 ; not enforced in
St. Luke's, 41

Clutterbuck, Kobert, quoted, 19

Cock-fighting, 52, 53, 54

Coffee-houses, alcoholic drinks sold
in, 17 ; in Shrewsbury, ifo.

Colquhoun, Dr. Patrick, 77, 94

Company, Vintners', 19 ; Dis-
tillers 5 , 20

Compensation, 135 ; instances of
suppression of public -houses
without, 8, 68, 85, 101,
108

Constable, High, of Stroud, 145 ;
Chief, of Brighthelmstone, 64

Constables, licensed victuallers as,
35, 56 ; required to visit public-
houses, 65 ; of Westminster,
instructions to, 72 ; directions
to, by Fulham Vestry, 74 ; a
society for ^Reformation of
Manners formed by, 137 :
special, sworn in, 139

Constabulary, breakdown of local,
180

Corfe Castle (Dorset), 8

Cornwall, 106

Couling, Samuel, 39

Cox, J. C., 10

Crimes, produced by drunkenness,
2 ; encouraged by retailers of
spirits, 35 j originated in
public-houses, 46; diminution
of, 82

Cruden, E. P., 19

Cumberland, 144

Dalton, Michael, 11
Danvers, Sir John, 94
Davenport, Edward, 110
Dayies, J. S., 11

156 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

De Foe, Daniel, 17, 20, 138, 139,
140, 148, 150

Denham, Baron, 13

Derby, 60, 61

Devonport. See Plymouth Dock

Devonshire, 71, 103

Disorderly houses, suppression of,
138

Distillation, of spirits, a monopoly,
20 ; monopoly destroyed, ib.

Distillers, free to open retail spirit
shops, 21, 33 ; and to permit
free sale of spirits in shops, 21-
22 ; prohibited from retailing
even -with licence, 33 ; pro-
motion of liquor trade by, 43 ;
ownership of licensed premises
by, 88

Distillers 1 Company, 20 ; power to
inspect spirits sought for, 22

Distilling, encouragement of, by
Government, 3, 21 ; illicit, 38,
48, 82 ; development of, 87-88

Doncaster (Yorks), 104

Doran, Dr.. 34

Dorchester (Dorset), 12

Dorset, 123

Dover (Kent), 104

Dowell, S. 0., 18, 19, 20, 110,
115, 116

Dram-shops, in London and West-
minister, 22-24 ; description
of one, 23 ; unlicensed, in
London, 36 ; licence of, to
lapse, 55 ; refusal to license,
57 ; suppression of, at Sheffield,
71

Drunkenness, from free sale of gin,
22 ; from free sale of beer,
116 ; prevalence of, 28, 107 ;
in London, 22, 23-24, 39 ; in
Tillages, 44, 149 ; in manu-
facturing districts, 51, 52 ; at
Mrs, 98, 99 ; laws against,
neglected, 32 ; proposed tax on,
42 ; Report of House of Com-
mons Committee on, 125-126,
128

Itatam, 47, 66, 106

Duties, preferential, on manufacture

of brandy, 21 ; on sale of spirits,
25, 33, 81, 105 ; on manu-
facture of spirits, 52'; on sale
of gin, 32; statistics of, on
malt and British spirits, 48 ;
on beer, ib.

Earle, John, quoted, 18

Early closing, 49. See also Closing,

hours of, and Sunday Closing.
Edinburgh Review, 95, 111
Edwards, Thomas, LL.D., 95
Essex, 58, 61
Estcourt, 111

Excise, Commissioners of, 99, 130
duty, on spirits, 25 ; on ale,

47
Exeter (Devon), 13

Factory and Workshops Acts, 136
Commissioners, 128

Fairs, sale of beer at, 98-100 ; sup-
pression of, 148, 149

Falmouth (Cornwall), 103, 104

Faversham (Kent), 104

Fazeley (Staffs), 99

Fearon, H. B., 79

Fees, received by Justices' Clerks,
43 ; received by Clerk of the
Peace, 47

Felons, societies for the prosecution
of, 141-142

Feret, C, J., 1, 74

Fielding, Henry, 33, 76, 148

Flint, 144

Flower, Richard, 88

Frampton, Mary, 123

"Free trade" in beer, 112-113,
115, 131 ; effects of, 116-126

Freemen, of Vintners* Company,
19

French, R. V., 13, 27

Frome (Somerset), 65

Fulham (Middlesex), 74

Gaming, 40, 65, 72, 74, 124, 143,

144, 148
Gardiner, 99
Gaskell, 128

INDEX

157

Gentleman's Magazine) 22, 27, 30,

39, 42, 43, 45
Gin Act, the First (1729), 24-25 ;

repeal of, 25 ; effects of, 38
the Second (1736), 25-26 ; not

approved of by Walpole, 27-28 ;

effects of, 28-29, 38 ; repeal

of, 29
Gin, free sale of, 20 ; excessive

drinking of, 22, 28 ; excise

duty on, 25
"Gin Lane," 34

Gin palaces, rise of, 78, 120-121
Gin-shops, 40, 120
Gisborne, T., 76
Gloucester, 68, 146
Gloucestershire, 60-63, 69, 144
Godschall, W. M., 144
Goulburn, 113
Gravesend (Kent), 19
Great Glenham (Suffolk), 62
Grocers' Licence. See SJiops

Hammersmith (Middlesex), 74, 94

Hampshire, 103, 118

Hansard, 92, 109, 111, 112, 113,

115, 124, 125
Hertfordshire, 145
Hervey, Lord, 31, 42
Hey, William, 54
Hobhouse, Sir J. C., 113
Hogarth, 34

Holborn (Middlesex), 39, 75
Holland, Lady, 110, 111, 116
Horseley (Glos.), 69
Hours of closing. See Closing
Hull (Yorks), 104
Huskisson, 111
Hyde, William, 94

lies, Miss C. M., 1

Informers, a Society for the Ke-
formation of Manners formed
by, 137

Inns, distinction between inns and
alehouses, 5 ; might be in-
dicted under common law as
a nuisance, ib. ; brought under
regulation, ib.

Ipswich (Suffolk), 66
Islay, Earl of, 26

Jeaffreson, J. C., 10

Jeffrey, 111

Jekyll, Sir John, 25

Judges of Assize, enforcement of
Privy Council Orders by, 12-
14 ; suppression of alehouses
*>?, 13

Justices' Clerk, fees received by,
47

Justices, licensing powers given to,
5, 6, 19 ; suppression of un-
necessary alehouses by, 6 ;
administration of Licensing
Act (1552) by, 9-14 ; "articles"
drawn up by, 11, 54, 62;
motives of, in granting licences,
15, 16, 42-43,44 ; .collapse of
authority of, 26 ; condemna-
tion of licensing policy of, 31 ;
powers of regulation neglected,
33-36, 40, 41, 43, 47, 102;
authority of, made more effect-
ive, 36-38 ; laxness in granting
of licences, 41, 43, 44, 46,
105-108 ; at Brewster Sessions,
45 ; powers of regulation, and
discretion in licensing exercised
by, 34, 49-50, 52-74, 141 ; in-
cited to activity by Privy
Council, 53, 143 ; confusion
of mind between judicial and
administrative duties, 56 ; use
of local option by, 62, 103 ;
arbitrary authority of, con-
demned, 85, 97-98, 108 ; ap-
proved of by Tories, 86 ; dis-
cretionary powers of, limited,
96, 113, 133; power of, to
suppress alehouses, repealed,
113 ; powers rendered useless
by Beer Act, 129-130 ; control
of, over all licensed premises,
re -established, 132, 133 ; a
Society for the Beformation of
Manners formed by, 137
of Middlesex, 41, 76-79, 87, 93-
95, 100, 109

158 LIQUOK LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Kay, 128

Kensington (Middlesex), 74

Kent, 144

Kent (distiller), 29

Kirby (Essex), 62

Laissez-faire, doctrine of, prevalent,
87 ; recommended by Com-
mittee of House of Commons,

98

Lancashire, 52, 144

Lancaster, 104

Larwood, J., 10

Lecky, Bt Hon. W. E. H., 26

Leeds (Yorks), 46, 54, 58-59, 60,
61. 104, 107, 146

Lees, F. R., 26

Legislation regulating liquor trade,
See Regulation

Leonard, Miss E. M., 10

Licences, for alehouses, 5, 7, 41,
51, 58, 80-81, 82, 105, 106,
110, 113 ; for sale of wine,
19, 20, 131 ; Eoyal, 19 ; for
retail sale of spirits, 21, 47,
80, 81, 82, 113; refusal to
grant new, 31, 50, 57, 58, 59,
73, 80, 95, 104, 105, 108, 133 ;
granted indiscriminately, 31,
32, 76 ; to be granted only at
annual Brewster Sessions, 36 ;
certificates required from ap-
plicants for, 37 ; given to
needy persons, 44 ; annual re-
newal of, 46; filled tip by
Clerk of the Peace, 47 ; increase
IB number of, 47, 116-122, 130 ;
withdrawal of, 50, 53, 68, 69,
70, 71, 73, 74, 80, 85, 95, 97,
98, 100, 101, 103, 108, 136,
141 ; restriction in granting
of, recommended, 51, 53, 57,
101 ; for drain-shops, 55, 57 ;
allowed to lapse, 55, 59 ; notice
of application for, required,
57 ; consent of Vestry required
for granting of new, 63 ; for
renewal of old, 64 ; conditions
of grating w, in. city of
& ; monopoly in,

condemned, 97; occasioned, at
fairs, 98-100 ; number of, in
small boroughs, 103 ; in larger
towns, 104 jjjin provinces, 105-
108 ; for sale of beer, 106, 115-
116 ; granted to respectable
applicants, 132

Licensed nouses, increase of, in
London and Westminster, 39

Licensing, different aims of, 4 ;
different forms of control, 5 ;
first licensing act, 5 ; of taverns,
19 ; in Cambridge, 27 ; fees,
29 ; procedure regulated, 36-
38, 55, HE ; conditions of, en-
forced by Justices, 52-55, 59-
62, 72-73 ; rules prescribed by
Justices, 53, 54 ; conditions
of, enforced by Vestries, 74-76 ;
business relating to, discon-
tinued at Quarter Sessions, 80 ;
effects of increased stringency
in, 88-89 ; in Tower Hamlets,
93-95 ; discretionary powers
of Justices in, limited, 96,
133 ; change in policy of, 99-
102 conditions of, not en-
forced, 102 ; restrictive policy
of borough magistrates in,
103-104

Lincoln, 144

Liquor, alcoholic, consumption of,
82 ; sale of, to children, 134 ;
municipalisation. of traffic, 135

Liverpool, 104, 105, 116, 131, 132

Local option, instances of applica-
tion of, 50, 62, 63-68, 103,
118, 138
veto. See Local Option

London, 16, 18, 21, 22, 33, 36, 39,
40, 64, 72-79, 87, 90, 130,139

London County Council, 135

London Magazine, 30

Lonsdale, Earl of, 70

Lords, House of, 30-33, 123-124

Lotteries, 42

Haefarlane, Charles, 26
Mahon, Lord, 26, 30
Haidstone (Kent), 56, 104

I

INDEX

159

[ainwaring, W., 40

Canchester, 60, 131 ; Court Leet
Records of, 1

tanners, movement for the re-
formation of, 50-53, 96, 111
Societies for Eeformation of,
137, 139, 140-143

[anorial Court, 1

Cansfield, Lord, 8

Carlborougli (Wilts), 90

tartineau, Harriet, 115

Cary, Queen, 147

[arylebone (Middlesex), 74, 75

[assinger, 10

[eadley, George Wilson, 47

[elbourne, Lord, 125

Cerceron, Joseph, 94

[iddlesex, 34, 35, 40, 41, 76, 77,
78, 79, 93, 94, 95, 109, 144

[ontgomery, B. M., 19

Monthly Review, 40, 47

Eorley (Devon), 106

Mug-houses," 17

[unicipal administration, 135

[unicipal Corporation Commis-
sioners (1833-37), 46, 103

[unicipalisation of liquor traffic, 135

Cundy, H. G., 123

"ewbury (Berks), 89

'ewcastle - on - Tyne (Northumber-
land), 59, 131

Night-houses," 40, 46

"orfolk, 144, 150 ; pamphlet by
magistrate of, quoted, 56

"orthamptonshire, 144

'ottinghamshire, 57-58, 61

'ourse, Timothy, 16

'Connell, Daniel, 111
wens, John, 19, 106
xford, 56
xfordshire, 56, 57, 61, 102

aine, Tom, 144
aley, Rev. William, D.D., 47
arliament, Acts of. See Acts
arliamentary History quoted, 26,

27, 28, 30
iterson, J., 19, 100, 130, 136

Pearson, John, 54

Penryn (Cornwall), 104

Petitions, from Distillers' Company,
22 ; from Middlesex Justices,
24 ; from distillers of Cam-
bridge, 27

Pitchcombe (Somerset), 69

Place MSS., 23, 79, 128

Plymouth (Devon), 60, 71-72, 104

Plymouth Dock (Devon), 71

Poachers, 45

Police, 119, 140 ; Eeport of Com-
mittee on, in metropolis, 77-
79, 87, 90, 91, 94, 95-100,
102

Police Act (1839), 130

Pontefract (Yorks), 142

Poor Law Inquiry Commissioners,
128

Poor Law, Old, 83

Poor rates increased, 148

Portsmouth (Hants), 104

Privy Council, circular letter to
Mayors and Justices, 5, 11 ;
" Orders" to Justices, 10, 13 ;
proclamation issued by, 143.
See also Proclamation

"Privy searches," 141

Procedure of Justices in licensing
codified, 113

Proclamation, Royal (1618), 7, 9,
12 ; (1787), 53, 59, 69, 143 ;
influence of, on policy of
Justices, 56 ; societies formed
to carry into execution, 138,
140, 144, 146

Prohibition, impracticable in seven-
teenth century, 2 ; of spirits,
virtual, under Gin Act of
1736, 26, 30

Prostitutes, 40, 99, 139

Publicans, not to be appointed
constables, 5 6 ; popular election
of, 68 ; politics of, 86

Public-houses, reduction in number
of, advocated, 57 ; suppression,
68-74 ; number of, in Plymouth
Dock, 71 j in Tower Hamlets,
77 ; monopoly of, in hands of
brawers, 89-93 ; unnecessary

160 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

number of, 101 ; number of, in
Tillages, 103 ; suppression of,
138 ; licences of, withdrawn,
141. See also Alehouses
"Punch houses, "21

Quarter Sessions, licensing business
discontinued at, 80 ; appeal
to, permitted, 113

Quarterly Review, 101

Bates, Poor, 69

Reading (Berks), 90, 104

Recognisances, for good behaviour,
37, 47 ; estreated, 56, 59

Refreshment-houses, wine licence
to s 131

Register, Annual, 144

Regulation of liquor trade, origin
of, 2 ; conflicting motives for,
3 ; of licensed houses neglected
by Justices, 16, 17, 33-36, 39,
40, 41, 47, 51; powers of,
exercised by Justices, 49-50,
52 - 74, 441, 142 ; Justices'
policy of, condemned, 85, 111,
112 ; Justices 1 powers of,
limited, 96 ; policy of, aban-
doned by Justices, 102 ; sale
of beer without, 98 - 100 ;
Justices 7 powers of, restored,
132 ; beer-shops brought under,
132. See also Licensing

Retailers, of wine, 19-20; of spirits,
21, 25, 29 ; set up by brewers
and distillers, 43. See also
Spirits and Beer

Reenue, taxes on alcoholic drinks
a source of, 3 ; royal licences
a source of, 19-20 ; duties on
manufacture of spirits, 29 ;
gin duty designed as means of,
32 ; Justices influenced by
desire to increase, 42-43 ; from
sale of beer, decrease in, 109

Rewards, offered for information of
sale of beer or spirits without
licence, 62

Ricardo, David, 93
Richardson, Judge, 13

Ripon (Yorks), 12, 104
Roch, Thomas, 46
Rochester (Kent), 104
Rocldnghani, Marchioness of, 140
Rowntree, J., 134
Rugeley (Staffs), 99

S., Vicar of, in Kent, 40, 45

St. Albans (Herts), 19

St. George's, Hanover Squar<
(Middlesex), 34

St. G-iles-in-the-Fields (Middlesex
39

St. Luke's (Middlesex), 41

Salisbury, Bishop of (1743), 28, 2

Salisbury (Wilts), 57, 70

Samuelson, J., 26

Sanger, 0. P.. 135

Saxmundham (Suffolk), 62

Scarborough (Yorks), 104

Scarisbrick, Joseph, 18, 20, 11
113

Seeker, Archbishop, 30

Sheffield (Yorks), 70-71, 131

Sherwell, A., 134

Shops, sale of spirits in, 21-2!
sale of beer in, 118 ; "off
licence for wine, 131

Shrewsbury (Salop), 17

Shropshire, 99

Signboards, 10

Sittingbourne (Kent), 19

Slaney, 111

Smith, Sydney, 111, 116

Smithfield, East (Tower Hamlet
23

Smollett, Tobias, 23-24, 26, 39

Societies, parochial, for prosecuti
of felons, 141-142. See a
Proclamation and Vice

Somerset, 13, 64, 69, 102, 144

Speen Division (Berks), 70

Spirits, distillation of, a monopo
20 ; free sale of, by distill*
21 ; licences for retail sale
21, 25, 26, 29, 33, 47, 80, I
82, 113 ; free sale of, in sho
21-22 ; increased consumpt:
of, 20, 22, 79, 120 ; statisl
of consumption o 38, 48, IS

INDEX

161

practical prohibition of retail
sale of, 25 ; duties on manu-
facture of, 27, 29, 52 : clandes-
tinely retailed, 28-29, 34, 36,
39 ; licences for sale of, refused,
58 ; sale of, in Leeds, on Sun-
days prohibited, 61 ; incite-
ments to excessive use of, 7S ;
sale of, discouraged in London,
78, 79 ; sale of, in alehonses
encouraged, 105

Stamford (Lincolnshire), 149

State Papers, calendar of, domestic,
quoted, 12

Stipendiary magistrates in Middle-
sex, 77

Stockport (Cheshire), 60, 123

Stroud (Glos.), 145

Suffolk, 57, 62, 66

Sunday, closing, 11, 40, 49-50, 55,
60 3 61, 71, 96, 108, 130, 131,
134, 142, 144 ; rules relaxed,
123 ; sale of spirits on, pro-
hibited in Leeds, 61 ; receiving
of guests, stage-waggons, and
carts on, prohibited, ib.

Suppression, of alehouses, 6 3 7, 10,
11-12, 13, 15 ; of taverns, 18-
19 ; of public-houses, 56, 68-
74 ; of dram-shops, 71 ; of
disorderly houses, 138 ; Jus-
tices' power of, repealed, 113

Sureties for good behaviour of
publicans, 56, 57

Surety bonds, 47

Surrey, 55, 56, 79, 94, 102, 105, 144

Sussex, 102

Swaffiing (Suffolk), 62
" Swaukey shops," 115

Swillington (Yorkshire). 140

Sydney, Lord, 143

Tankersley (Yorks) 140

Taverns, definition of, IS ; suppres-
sion of, 18 ; licensing of, 19 ;
at St. Albans, 19

Tax, on alcoholic drinks, a source
of revenue, 3 ; on retailers of
spirits, 25 ; on beer and cider
withdrawn, 113

Temperance movement, 131

Temperance party, S6, 128, 134-
135

Thackreh, C. T., 128

Tiddly winks, 116

Tied-house system, S8-93, 97

Tied houses, number of, 91

Timberland, Ebenezer, SO

Tom and Jerry shop*, 116

Tories, licensing policy of, 86, 111,
112

Tower Hamlets, 77, 94, 95, 100,
139

Trading Justices, 76. See also
Justice* of Middlesex

Transfer of licensed houses, pro-
cedure of, regulated, 36

Travellers, 11

Treaty Act (French), 131

Tusford, 19

Twerton (Somerset), 67

Vagrants, harbouring of, 54 ; ap-
prehension of, 141 : "privy
searches" for, 141

"Vested interests," 112

Vestries, rewards offered by, 62 ;
consent of, and condition of

(1) granting new licences, 63 ;

(2) renewing licences, 64 ;
special meetings of, (1) for
signing certificates of good
character, 63 ; (2) for recom-
mending the licensing and
suppression of public -houses ;
regulation of public-houses by,
74-76

Vestry, at Brighthelmstone, 63-64 ;
proceedings of, at Wanstead,
65 ; at Marylebone, 74, 75

Veto, local. See Local Option,

Vice, prevalent in public-houses, 39 ;
encouraged by innkeepers, 52 ;
proclamation against Society
for the Suppression of, 140.
See Pr&damaiim

Victuallers, licensed, as coBStabk^,
56 ; in Westminster diaqntt-
fied to be constables, A- ; agi-
tation against Justice* y r IW

162 LIQUOR LICENSING IN ENGLAND

Villages, public-houses in, 42, 44,
46, 98-100, 102, 103, 116,
117 ; licences not to be granted
to public -houses on the out-
skirts of, 57 ; increase of Poor
Rates in, 148 ; suppression of
fairs in, ib. ; suppression of
alehouses in, 149

Vintners, Company of, 19

"Wakes," 99, 149

Wales, 134

Walpole, Rt. Hon. Spencer, 115

Walpole, Sir Robert, 27, 29, 30

Walter, Chief Baron, 13

Walton (Esses), 62

Wanstead (Essex), 65

Wellington, Duke of, 113, 115

West Looe (Cornwall), 104

West, Synibolceography by, referred

to, 7
Westminster, 21, 22, 39, 40, 41,

56 ; Burgess Court of, 40, 41 ;

St. James's, 72, 73 ; pamphlet

by Inhabitant of, 41
Weston, Rev. Mr., 145
Weston (Somerset), 69

Widcomb (Somerset), 69

Wilberforce, William, 50, 53, 142-
144, 147

"Wilson, Walter, 20

Wiltshire, 57, 70, 124

Wine, licences to sell, given to
tavern-keepers, 19; privilege
of Vintners' Company to sell
without licence, 19 ; retailers
of, required to be licensed
victuallers, 19-20

Wine-shops, 18, 131

Winskill, P. T., 115, 116, 131, 132

Woodbridge (Suffolk), 66

Woodstock (Oxfordshire), 45

Woodward, Josiah, 138

Worth, R. N., 71

Wyndham, Rt. Hon. Wm., 87

Yorkshire, JSTorth Riding of, 66,

144
West Riding of, 53, 57, 66, 67,

70, 71, 140, 142
Yoxall (Staffordshire), 103

Zouch, Rev. Henry, 50, 140, 141
149

THE END

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