Drink in Victorian Part II

Rob Donovan

Chapter 3: Drinking places and their Victorian period and, if there was change, importance for what reasons.

In order to understand the social as well A number of sources shed light on such as the economic importance of the drink- questions.1 Newspapers provide a vital ing place for the inhabitants of Victorian primary source and can help establish a Norwich, the historian needs to have an hierarchy of social importance for the understanding of the events and activi- drinking places of Norwich. It is clear from ties associated with these buildings. It is newspaper reports that throughout the obvious that the working class drank and Victorian period a few select inns are the met together in their public houses and venues for the dinners of various political, beerhouses, but other issues related to business and trade organizations at their leisure-time are less clear. How which members of the urban elite are in many drinking places also served food? attendance.2 Careful reading of other How important was musical entertain- items can provide glimpses into the social ment? How many women went out to world of the drinking places of the working drink? Which sporting activities took classes: the public houses and beerhous- place there? What other kinds of activity es that comprised the great majority of the may have taken place there - legal or ille- drinking places of Norwich. The reports of gal? How many drinking places also court proceedings - criminal, civil, and of served as brothels? What kinds of soci- the coroner - can offer insights into the eties and clubs were associated with games played, the music heard, the rela- drinking places? Not all such questions tions between the sexes, as well as the are easily answered - there are occasion- relations between drinkers and the police. al contemporary references to the provi- With respect to Victorian Norwich, the sion of food, for instance, but the extent pages of the Chronicle, the of the practice remains problematic - but Eastern Daily Press and the Norwich they do all bring into focus the wider Mercury have been informative.3 issue of how the working class used their leisure time and raise the further question Working-class memoirs and diaries that of how far this use changed during the shed light on the social world of the drink-

Brewery History Number 132 67 ing place would have provided valuable wrought iron and underneath them walls of evidence. In the absence of any discov- sinuously bending and elaborately engraved eries of these, I have nevertheless been glass were lit from the inside by an inner row fortunate in being able to use two early of blazing globes. secondary sources - Hawkins (1910) and Wicks (1925). Both provide evidence for Innumerable glass-paned doors swung open the social world of the public house in and shut to reveal the warmth and glitter the Victorian period, particularly in the inside: little secret sparkling private bars, big second half of the reign, but also, in the public bars with deal-lined walls and sawdust case of Wicks through his research for on the floors, or saloon bars rich with ferns, example on 'The Pleasure Gardens of carpets, mirrors, a glowing fire and a view Old Norwich', in the first half too.4 through to the billiard room and to distant fig- ures leaning out of the dark over the brilliant- A comparative perspective is also impor- ly lit tables.6 tant. Knowledge and understanding about the importance of the drinking Most drinking places in Norwich would place in other urban locations during the not have matched the opulence of their Victorian period helps provide a context counterparts but a description of for the analysis of the social importance the vista along Norwich thoroughfares of the Norwich drinking places. Mark like St. Martins Street (Oak Street) and St. Girouard's study of Victorian , Augustines Street in the north, and King focussed on London, offers conclusions Street, Ber Street and St. Stephens Street about their social importance in the capi- in the south, would have been similar in tal and is of particular value.5 At the end essentials.7 Engraved glass, decorated of the Victorian period, most of London's plasterwork, and the bold sign and working population still walked to and advertisements for the brews and spirits from work, often several miles a day, along on sale inside are all evident in surviving such main thoroughfares as Bishopsgate, photographs, and the game of billiards and the Mile End, Bethnal was an essential part of Victorian pub life Green, Tottenham Court and Old in Norwich too.8 These Norwich drinking roads which were 'studded and in places houses were offering access to a world of crowded with pubs' whose function was solace and comfort far removed from the to provide drink and comfort for weary still unsanitary and crowded conditions of workers. Girouard's description of such a much working-class accommodation at vista is both scholarly and evocative: the end of the Victorian period.

As the street lights dimly lit up in the twilight Girouard acknowledged the importance the pubs lit up far more brightly; long rows of of the London pubs not just for travellers monstrous lanterns stretched out into the but also for residents who would become street on curling and caparisoned tentacles of 'regulars' at their 'local':

68 Journal of the Brewery History Society The pubs on the main thoroughfares usually auctions were held in them. In spite of bitter had a residential hinterland behind them opposition from Lord Shaftesbury and others, which they served as well; residential areas wages were still often paid out in pubs: work- had their quieter and smaller neighbourhood men went there to pick up jobs or read the pubs … Markets, barracks, the docks, newspapers and tradesmen to change business and commercial areas … produced banknotes. Most pubs let rooms or took their own drinking pattern in the surrounding lodgers, often on a sufficient scale to justify area.9 their calling themselves hotels.11

The pattern of drinking places in Norwich As in London, so too in Norwich - sport, was similar to that of the capital. There entertainment, societies, inquests, letting was, for instance, a greater density of of rooms to lodgers: all these played their public houses on the main thoroughfares part in Norwich pub life. However, before and around the markets, and around the continuing with the analysis of Norwich Pockthorpe barracks and the docks area drinking places, a study of pubs and to the south. Sales and profits could be beerhouses in two other urban locations significantly higher in some of these pubs with some points of similarity in terms of - as for instance at the 'Queen Caroline' density of drinking places and size of in St. Martin Oak, the 'Light Horseman' in population will help widen still further the Pockthorpe, and the 'Clarence Harbour' comparative framework and demonstrate in Thorpe.10 the degree to which the social importance of the drinking place for the working Despite the introduction of Sunday morn- classes was universal. Bradford in the ing closing in 1839, and the further cur- industrial north of England had around tailment of opening hours in 1864, 1872 600 drinking places at its peak in the late and 1874, London pubs were still open 1860s serving a population of 140,000; for fourteen and a half hours from Portsmouth on the south coast had near- Monday to Saturday and for seven hours ly 900 public houses and beerhouses in on Sunday at the end of the Victorian the late 1860s serving a population of period. As Girouard pointed out, these around 118,000. Norwich at this time had long opening hours were one reason for a smaller population of nearly 80,000 and their intensive use by the Victorian work- around 675 drinking places.12 ing class at a time when many alternative attractions and meeting places now taken In Bradford, Paul Jennings has shown for granted were not then in existence: how the public house functioned as an informal information exchange for the Pubs were local centres for sport and enter- various trades as well as a source of tainment and for dissemination of information, more general news because of the news- as well as meeting places for innumerable papers kept there.13 As elsewhere, public local groups and societies. Inquests and houses were also used by working men

Brewery History Number 132 69 pirit 18 26 51 30 49 53 57 33 5 9 25 11 1 4 7 Gallons of S 77 27 26 42 1 15 15 17 30 179 138 99 53 84 28 247234 194 178 264 193 998379 40 70 15 226 103 21 317 61 70 1 Barrels of Beer 329 149 122 121 1 ar ales Arms Arms t ue Arms swain Call arn Factory Duke of Connaught Gardeners Distillery Prince of W Mancrof Orchard Belle V Dolphin Rose Royal Oak Shuttles Boat Bushell Kings Head Green Hills Denmark Fortune of W Y Flower Pot Royal Oak Public Public House Queen Caroline Little Buck Keys Castle Dun Cow Kings Augustine t. Lawrence t. t. George t. Edmund t. Martin Oak Colegate S S S Heigham S S Parish pirit 77 24 83 27 42 40 9 71 24 61 15 63 Gallons of S 42 20 60 24 18 31 63 40 102 9058 66 25 105 143104 132 177 105 149 145 111 84 8356 72 16 181 154 99 31 1 131 143 322 Barrels of Beer 282 180 171 151 Arms avern T avern tores T sters rade Arms T ard fin indsor Castle aterloo Theatre S Popes Head Coachmakers Free Kings Club House Black Prince W Cellar House Leop Cross Keys Bull Cat & Fiddle Jolly Malt Half Moon Kings Head Black Chequers Horse Barracks W Bird in Hand Light Horseman Public Public House Dun Cow Robin Hood Anchor Grif t est t. Paul t. Peter Mancrof t. James S Centre and W S S North of the river North of the Pockthorpe Parish

70 Journal of the Brewery History Society 50 38 47 27 48 90 53 15 22 s, 1894-1947.' 56 68 290 174 136 130 87 18 244 120 168 1 352 173 Arms Arms uns Cock Clarence Harbour Evening Gun Redan Bakers Duke of Norfolk Duke T Coach & Horses Alma Cricketers Cricketers Inn arishes in 1894. t. Giles Thorpe S Lakenham 38 64 36 47 teward & Patteson's public houses in select p teward & Patteson's public 69 61 138 77 21 102 83 80 65 22 84 28 125 181 84 52 s in S ales 13 43 1 sters ar t teward & Patteson Register of public houses giving licensees, annual sales and profit of public houses giving licensees, annual teward & Patteson Register shire Hog ain urkey Cock urkey Black Horse Green Man Black Horse Pheasant Cock Jolly Malt Hamp Prince of W Lord Camden New S T Fout Annual sales of Beer and Spirit Annual sales of Beer and t. Julian t. John t. Peter t. Swithin t Lawrence t. Gregory t. Simon & Jude t. Simon t. Benedict Sepulchre Southgate able 8. South S S S T S S S Source. NRO, BR1/157, 'S Source. NRO, BR1/157, S S

Brewery History Number 132 71 for more organized activities, in particular until it was finally forbidden by the the friendly clubs or societies, formed to Licensing Act (1902), but even then only provide collective insurance against if other suitable premises existed.17 unemployment, illness, disability and death. Already well established by the Politically, the public house in Bradford beginning of the Victorian period, their played a key role in the electoral process numbers grew. By 1883 all but six of the in the early and mid-Victorian period, as it forty-one trade societies in a directory did in Norwich, although in Bradford there listing gave a public house as their place is a clear decline in importance from the of meeting.14 Talk, music and games 1870s unlike in Norwich where drink and were the basic activities at any time in corrupt practices remained prevalent into any public house or beerhouse in the 1880s and beyond.18 Jennings noted Bradford; in this respect Jennings noted that the Ballot Act (1872) had abolished an underlying continuity through the nomination day, replaced open voting Victorian period but also suggested that with the secret ballot and ended the sport and gambling together seemed to hourly announcement of the progress of have assumed a greater importance in the poll; he argued that the old methods the later years. By the 1880s the use of were expensive and inefficient and saw a the electric telegraph provided starting- definite shift in Bradford away from elec- price odds and speedy results for betting toral links with the drink culture, a trend on horse racing and pubs came to be confirmed by the national legislation in used extensively for such betting, despite 1883 banning committee rooms on its illegality.15 Nearly two-thirds of the licensed premises for parliamentary elec- publicans in Bradford applied for a tions, extended the next year to cover licence when a licensing system for pub- municipal elections.19 lic performance of music and dancing was introduced in 1881 and a decade In Portsmouth, too, the social importance later eighty-three beerhouses and 147 of the drinking place is clear. As R.C. public houses had music licences.16 Riley and Philip Eley have shown, the majority of beerhouses and public hous- Administratively, the importance of the es exemplified two of the three major public house declined sharply from the roles that Brian Harrison has traced for 1830s as alternative public buildings drinking places in nineteenth century were constructed, with the one exception, society: those of recreation centre and as in Norwich, of the practice of holding meeting place. It was left to the coaching coroner's inquests in drinking places. inns of old Portsmouth and Portsea in the However, in 1877 a room was allocated early Victorian period, and later those in the new Town Hall for that purpose premises linked with the railway passen- although it remained convenient on occa- ger traffic, together with the few others sion to use public houses for inquests that lined the principal walk-to-work

72 Journal of the Brewery History Society routes in the town, to represent their third decade in which there was much concern role: as transport centre.20 about sexually transmitted diseases weakening the military and naval forces; Some forms of recreation seemed partic- The War Office report into The ularly important. Riley and Eley noted Prevalence of Venereal Disease in the that skittle alleys were 'remarkably com- Army and Navy (1862) was followed by mon', and by the mid-century the provi- the Contagious Diseases Acts sion of a room for dancing, often larger (1864,1866 and 1869), under which than the bar and bar parlour combined, women suspected of being infected could had become 'typical'. The 1850s and the be confined to 'lock wards' in hospitals - 1860s saw the rapid rise in the popularity in Portsmouth, the Royal Portsmouth of the music hall. In addition, working Hospital.23 men's clubs and societies used the accom- modation available in drinking places, The study of the drinking places of normally free of charge on the expectation Victorian Norwich indicates many paral- of the drink to be consumed, since public lels with the research findings of Girouard buildings were few in number.21 in London, Jennings in Bradford, and Riley and Eley in Portsmouth. Walter The presence of the Royal Navy and the Wicks' volume offers an appreciation of garrison in Portsmouth explains the the drinking place in Norwich as a social remarkable number of beerhouses and institution, a meeting place for individuals pubs in that town, the importance of and organizations intent on making recreational activities like skittles, danc- meaning from their leisure time not only ing and music hall entertainment - and through drinking alcohol but also through the fact that 'Unquestionably, the fore- social activities that mirror those in most recreational activity associated London, Bradford and Portsmouth.24 with drinking houses (in Portsmouth), Written at the end of the first quarter of more particularly beerhouses, was the twentieth century, his work contains prostitution'.22 Government policy, by dis- hints of nostalgia for a leisure culture couraging servicemen from marrying, centred on the drinking place that had had itself fuelled the custom of landlords become less pervasive. Wicks saw 'the supplying prostitutes in dockyard and march of modern improvement' as the garrison towns. Beerhouse profits may explanation for the reduction in the num- have depended on this auxiliary trade. ber of drinking places in Norwich. It had The Public Housing Closing Act (1864), been the combination of: requiring premises in London to close between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., was design- the tramways, the Royal Arcade, the ed to address this issue of prostitution. Hippodrome, and other structural alterations, Portsmouth Borough Council adopted and the widening of some of our picturesque this legislation in 1866. The 1860s was a streets … and (the acquisition of their sites)

Brewery History Number 132 73 as business places … Sunday Schools and ues for the 'exhibitions of plays and solicitors' offices …(that had led to their ‘drolls’, of ‘natural curiosities’, and fat removal) … leaving but a dim memory of the oxen'.26 All these roles, and others, are nights of revelry, the stirring and amusing examined in the following analysis. incidents, social and political, which had been there enacted, the sports and pastimes and Certain public houses were associated time-honoured associations which still cling to with , a sporting activity of particu- them.25 lar significance in Norwich because of its link with both drink and politics. It was a Wicks had passed some of his own leisure-time need that appealed not only leisure-time in such drinking places in to the working classes but other social Norwich and his evidence has value for groups too. Wicks related the stories of a any assessment of their social impor- number of boxers-turned-publicans in tance. Norwich. The 'noted pugilist' Ned Painter, shortly after taking over at 'The Sun and Throughout Wicks' text there is substan- Anchor' in 1820, fought his last fight tial support for his claim that 'Practically beating Tom Oliver at North Walsham in every social and political function was Norfolk before a crowd of 20,000.27 The held at a public-house'. He himself attraction of such sporting spectacles, on offered his own five-fold justification that which bets would be placed, was felt has a particular value in highlighting the across all classes; for the working class- functions that seemed to him the most es, such men as Painter must have been important. He began with the role of the heroes from their own background, public house in local politics, citing its use worthy of respect and admiration, and as a venue for dinners given to visiting their fights brief periods of excitement in politicians, for nominations of parliamen- the course of a difficult existence; for tary candidates, and for meetings of com- brewers, such men were business assets mittees of political parties 'less than fifty attracting drinkers to their hostelries and years ago'. There was also the role of their brews. individual public houses in serving the leisure-time needs of particular social Later landlords who owed part at least of groups. (Wicks cites, as an example, the their popularity and trade to their former use by the medical fraternity of the abilities in the boxing ring included ‘Cock’ Norfolk and Norwich hospital of the near- Blyth who was landlord at the 'Bulls by 'Rampant Horse' in St. Edmunds.) Head' in Ber Street, a Morgan public There was the association of friendly house, between 1867 and 1872 and who societies with particular public houses, then moved west, outside the walls, to and also the use of public houses as the 'Villa Gardens' in Lakenham, privately locations for the coroner's inquests. owned by Edward Trafford of Wroxham, Finally, public houses were used as ven- from 1872 to 1880. Blyth was one of

74 Journal of the Brewery History Society

Green Hill Gardens (Aylsham Rd.) . Angel Gardens . (Catton)

West End Retreat (Dereham Rd.). R. Wensum

. Hop Pole Gardens

Greyhound Gardens . Gentle Mary Ann's . Tea Gardens . Ranelagh or Victoria Gardens White Horse . . Richmond Hill Gardens

Figure 5. The Pleasure Gardens of Norwich around the early 1840s.

Source. Walter Wicks, Inns and Taverns of Old Norwich, (Norwich, 1925)

several who brought together not only a (his) abilities in the boxing ring made him a connection between fighting and drink valuable asset at Liberal Party meetings, but also a link with politics since he when disturbance was anticipated, and in the served as a 'minder' for the leading old roaring days of fifty and sixty years ago Liberal politician in Norwich, Jacob Henry (c.1865-1875), "Cock" Blyth usually followed Tillett. Wicks stated: closely in the wake of Mr. Jacob Henry Tillett,

Brewery History Number 132 75 ready to deal with obstreperous opponents in and Patteson public house from 1880 to the event of a fracas.28 1901, before retirement and his death in 1903.29 Blyth had served as a coadjutor for another boxer-cum-political 'minder', the Another publican-cum-political 'minder' Norfolk-born Jem Mace, who kept the with a fighting pedigree was Richard 'Swan' in Swan Lane after retiring from 'Dick' Nickalls, landlord at the 'Arabian the ring following his defeat around 1850 Horse' in Oak Street, a Morgan public by John Pratt (henceforth 'Licker' Pratt), house, from 1872 to 1886.30 He was: at Drayton outside Norwich, the police having intervened to stop the intended … for several years connected with the meeting on Mousehold Heath. Wicks Conservative Party in a minor official capacity wrote of seeing Jem Mace's 'magnificent as a guardian of the peace at meetings and form in Norwich streets'; he was evidently demonstrations whenever rowdyism was a contemporary hero. When Mace had anticipated. Dick was generally in charge of a fought his last fight he had been wearing band of tasty stewards engaged to render the Whig colours of 'blue and white'; his assistance in the tactful duty of ejecting turbu- opponent, 'Licker' Pratt, had worn the Tory lent interrupters; and judging from external colours of 'orange and purple'. The link appearances these gentlemen had in the between boxing and the world of politics days of the prize ring suffered heavy battery is again clear. Even before parliamentary and apparently were equally capable of legislation had further widened the administering it.31 'political nation' by extending the fran- chise to members of the working class, The link between the prize-fighting pub- the political parties and their representa- lican and the new democratic politics tives within the urban elite of Norwich was not likely to last but for as long as it were 'adopting' boxing heroes from the did survive Norwich remained the object working class for both political and busi- of national censure and scorn.32 With ness reasons. 'Licker' Pratt had been born 'Cock' Blyth organising the 'protection' in a public house, the 'Jolly Gardeners' in for the Liberals and 'Dick' Nickalls doing Pockthorpe, in 1825, and in adult life not likewise for the Conservatives, the exten- only excelled in the ring but also became sion of the franchise and widening of landlord in turn at the 'Jolly Skinners', the democratic rights in Norwich got off to a 'Rose', and the 'Prince of Denmark' - all troubled and fractious start in the late within the city walls - and then the 1860s and early 1870s. 'Brickmakers Arms' at Sprowston, before moving back into the city to his final pub- The connection between the worlds of lic house - the ' Hog' in St. fighting and drink was not just through Swithins Alley - where he remained the individual publicans. The 'Green Dragon' landlord of this Tory-supporting Steward in Little London Street in the centre of

76 Journal of the Brewery History Society Norwich was 'another house of repute local case, in which one of the contestants amongst the boxing fraternity' and was died, was one arranged in March 1878 at the the scene of a number of contests, in par- Sun beerhouse …34 ticular that between ‘Bob’ Cordran (still living in 1925 but approaching eighty) London, however, like Norwich, main- and ‘Northampton Jim’. This was the tained the link late into the Victorian 'grimmest fight' of Cordran's life accord- period with Girouard noting: '… many ing to Wicks who must have heard at first publicans were ex-prize fighters … and hand Cordran's account of how he had often had a boxing school and ring been having a 'friendly box' with a young attached to their pubs.’ man when ‘Northampton Jim’ came in, issued his challenge, and the ensuing He further made the important point: fight went on for 'longer than an hour'. ‘Northampton Jim’ died two weeks later. A boxing match was still treated as a breach Cordran further recounted many conflicts of the peace, and was therefore illegal, until at the 'Spread Eagle' in the Haymarket, the replacement of bare-fisted by gloved the 'Arabian Horse' in St. Martins, and fights and the use of the Queensberry Rules other resorts 'celebrated in the annals of gradually made it legally acceptable in the local fisticuffs'.33 Since Cordran would 1890s.35 have been born around the mid-1840s, his own fighting career must have been The demise of the boxing pub followed in from around the mid-1860s to the early- this last decade of the reign, even in cen- 1880s; thus, in the same period as the tres like Norwich and London that had male working class were being enfran- maintained the link between fighting and chised, individual heroes of the working the drinking place. Symptomatic of this class like Cordran were making meaning significant change in the leisure-time for themselves and their many followers pursuits of the working class, the licence in a more traditional, illegal, primitive and of the 'Green Dragon' (‘Bob’ Cordran's violent way. former boxing centre) was not renewed in 1894; it was given up by the holders, Norwich was unlikely to have been Morgans, on the grant of a licence to the exceptional in this link between the 'Museum Café Hotel', a name resonant drinking place and the world of the of a new refinement.36 As the social con- pugilist, although it may have kept the science of the governing classes tradition for longer than some urban cen- became more sensitive, so they sought tres. In Bradford, Jennings concluded: to refine the outlook of those beneath them in the social order. That more bloody human sport - the prize fight - seems to have declined like animal If the 1890s saw the end of the boxing fights during the 1870s … (although) … A late pub in Norwich, it also by coincidence

Brewery History Number 132 77 saw the extinction of the licence of a for- rounded Norwich and had enjoyed their mer cricketers' pub, the 'Rampant Horse heyday in the first half of the century Hotel' in St. Stephens. This drinking place before the coming of the railway widened had achieved the reputation of being 'the people's horizons. In 1833, the proprietor home of Norfolk cricketers' when George had been Fuller Pilch, the 'famous local Figg, a professional cricketer whom cricketer … and lessee of Lakenham many could still remember, according to Cricket Ground'. It was one of several Wicks, as a 'tall, athletic figure', had held such gardens noted also for balloon the licence. Figg seems to have made ascents in the 1820s and 1830s. Perhaps money from cricket; he not only held the watching cricket or ballooning appealed licence but also owned the hotel from to less violent instincts than prize fighting before 1867. By 1879, Figg had sold the and contributed to the long-term stability business which then 'degenerated con- of this drinking place. Whatever the rea- siderably', changing its name from 1888 sons, the 'Richmond Hill Tavern' as it to become the 'Crystal Lounge'. In 1892, became - a Bullards house - had only two the magistrates took the unusual step of licensees recorded in the later part of the refusing to renew its licence 'on account century, Peter Youngs from some time of the bad character of the house', the before 1867 through to 1874, and then chief constable, Robert Hitchman, claim- William Copeman from 1875 to 1900. In ing that it was 'a well-known resort of their time: prostitutes'.37 The charisma of the work- ing-class sporting hero had created the the house was a favourite resort of Mr. popularity of the drinking place with which Robert Hitchman, a former chief constable of he was associated. But such renown Norwich (from 1859 to 1897) … and others. could be transitory. The urban elite would Each had his own particular seat, and his applaud an upright figure like Figg as a own special churchwarden's pipe.38 model for the working class to emulate; the degenerate world of the 'Crystal Evidently, a public house graced by the Lounge' may not have been any worse regular attendance of the chief constable than a number of other drinking places of the Norwich police was in a different but would have seemed so when the social category from say the ill-fated memory of Figg's halcyon days were so 'Crystal Lounge'. Yet there is a sense in recent. which the 'Richmond Hill' remained a working-class drinking place, albeit an One former cricketing drinking place that elite one. Hitchman had chosen to make did retain its popularity was the this public house his 'local'; although 'Richmond Hill Gardens' on the edge of he served their interest he seemed to the city at Bracondale, by the Ber Street remain outside the drinking circle of his Gates. This was one of the pleasure employers and social 'betters', the urban gardens-cum-drinking places that sur- elite.

78 Journal of the Brewery History Society The 'Richmond Hill' had made a success- increasing facilities for cheap railway travel to ful transition during the Victorian period, the seaside'.40 serving the leisure needs of the working class at both the beginning and end of Radical changes in the transport infra- the reign. Those needs, however, were structure41 and shifts in the definition of not static and numbers of the public 'respectability' within the social groups houses linked to the pleasure gardens that made up the working-class popula- did not maintain their popularity.39 Wicks, tion of Norwich were clearly important in however, provided a rare insight into the shaping the new developments in the use period of their working-class heyday and of leisure-time in the second half of their links with family leisure-time and Victoria's reign. The pleasure gardens drinking: were perceived to have 'deteriorated' once those who might have gone in the The local pleasure gardens … used to be past would do so no more. Perhaps much in vogue during the first half of the last 'respectability' had had to be redefined by century, and as recently as forty years ago those making a relative social advance (c.1885), when few people thought of taking that took them beyond the world of the their families to the seaside on Bank pleasure garden; perhaps those social Holidays, parties of six, or perhaps twelve, groups within the working classes who would be taken to some pleasant gardens once would neither have been able to outside the city. Sometimes (they) would be a afford to nor have dared to set foot in a mere quiet retreat, where the pleasure pleasure garden were now confident seekers would spend the afternoon playing enough to do so. What becomes more harmless games - the younger children certain as the argument of this chapter gambolling on the green, fathers at bowls. develops, is the degree to which a man These gardens were attached to public could be defined in social terms by the houses, but those who sought them did not public house in which he drank. A full necessarily spend all their time and money in understanding of the social hierarchy of consuming alcoholic drink. There were tea the drinking place in Victorian Norwich is gardens … probably no longer possible; yet there is sufficient evidence to point out that it Wicks' perception, as ever, is shaped by once existed. Such nuances of social nostalgia but his explanation for the loss hierarchy were subtler than the crude in popularity of several of these gardens division between rough and respectable sounds plausible: that contemporaries made and some later historians have followed.42 Drinking As time went on, several of these gardens places and their customers gained their deteriorated … and were consequently reputations not least because of the avoided by the more respectable class of activities associated with them. All drink- citizen; others dropped out because of the ing places shared the convivial, pleasure-

Brewery History Number 132 79 seeking features common to that way of available and in the numbers of people life, but important social differences were who played and watched them.46 registered by the leisure-pursuits that Although some developments came later accompanied the drinking and those to Norwich than other cities - the Norwich nuances became more significant in the City soccer club was not founded until last few decades of Victoria's reign as the 1902 - there is much other evidence for a range of leisure activities widened. If the significant widening of the parameters of Norwich drinker was watching fewer involvement in sport in particular and prize-fights or walking-matches by 1901, leisure activities in general, with the he might be more likely to be a a member public house continuing to play a pivotal of a pub-based cycling club, or caged role. bird society, or a club for fishing or bowl- ing or gardening.43 The pub remained the The pace of these late-Victorian develop- main organising centre for these new ments was remarkable, but it is important developments within the working classes to stress that leisure activities and sport, and their ways of making meaning when generally centred on the public house, not at work.44 had always provided significant ways for the working class to make their Within the wider society, whatever the meaning in life. The evidence presented continuities, the pace at which develop- so far in this analysis of the social impor- ments occurred in the use of leisure in tance of the drinking place in Norwich the late-Victorian period was without supports Cunningham's argument that precedent. Hugh Cunningham has the twin processes of accelerating rates emphasised the importance of illuminat- of population growth and rapid urbanisa- ing 'such changes over time', as well as tion were likely to encourage popular 'the boundaries of class, of gender, of sport and leisure activity, and with real age and of geography', in any analysis. incomes rising in the last quarter of the Leisure cultures were never static: century new commercial opportunities '(They) were constantly changing, both in were available for the entrepreneur.47 In themselves and in relation to other cul- Norwich, prize-fighting was one of the tures'.45 favoured sports from which the enterpris- ing could make money throughout most With specific reference to sport, Neil of Victoria's reign. Pleasure-gardens, too, Tranter has argued that there was a rev- had provided such financial opportunities olution in sporting practice in the late for part of this period. But in the last Victorian and Edwardian period that was decades the range of opportunities evident not only in such areas as codifi- began to multiply. cation, institutionalism, commercialism and professionalism but also in the dra- Before considering further the range of matic increase in the range of sports leisure-pursuits, it is important to empha-

80 Journal of the Brewery History Society sise the physical attraction of the public sometimes inadequate housing stock house or beerhouse as an alternative was marketed at high rents by landlords place of temporary residence for an hour who - faced with ever increasing or more away from the squalor of the demands from rates to meet mounting rented home. The drinking place public expenditure - would seek to pass remained the main leisure-time location on the costs of rates increases to their for the working classes, the preferred tenants, and secondly, a crisis in local space for their recreation, in part because government finance had arisen from the the rate of urban growth and population slow growth in rateable values as public increase in industrial Britain produced a expenditure increased, coupled with the nineteenth century housing problem that crucial fact that local taxation fell wholly remained seemingly intractable. Martin upon real property, and particularly upon Daunton's study of working-class housing houses. The owners of house property has shed new light on the importance of naturally complained that the rates fell the land question in the Victorian debate directly on their source of income whilst about the housing problem, especially in others, like shopkeepers and manufac- the 1880s when working-class accommo- turers who did not pay local taxes on dation in London seemed to have their turnover, were not contributing reached a crisis point. Housing policy their share to local taxation. With the was not shaped by an inexorable move greater concern to provide sanitation, towards subsidised public housing and water supply, schools, and other public municipal socialism; rather it was the land utilities for the common good, the cost of question that provided the ideological local government was rising. Since there framework for those who sought to solve was a point at which landlords would be the continuing problems of inadequate unable to pass increased rates on to the and unsanitary rented accommodation tenants through a higher weekly rent for the working classes.48 (because the tenants could not afford to pay the increase), that increased cost of The land question comprised a complex urban government was falling very large- set of issues. Rents tended to exceed the ly on these property owners.49 ability of tenants to pay because of the high cost of urban land. A reduction in All this contributed to a housing problem the charge for land, either by the reduc- that remained intractable in the Victorian tion in the cost of transport to make a period. It was the outbreak of war in wider area available for residential use, 1914, wartime government action, and or by taxes on the increase in site values local authority housing policies after the to discourage land hoarding, seemed to First World War, which together signalled offer solutions to two linked problems more effective action by local and nation- (although these 'solutions' were never al government in the twenties and thir- successfully implemented). First, a ties.50 Only after the First World War did

Brewery History Number 132 81 per capita consumption of alcohol fall sig- Billiards, too, was a popular indoor game nificantly.51 There seems to have been a in many public houses. The extent of that causal link between an impoverished popularity is clear, thanks to the later housing stock and a less than effective Victorian need of the urban elite to record property market on the one hand, and the the licensing and control of the working popularity of the drinking place and drink class: the Register of Billiard Licences for on the other. Norwich drinking places from 1869 through to 1966 is extant.53 The legisla- Returning to the range of leisure-pursuits tion that controlled billiards had been in the drinking places of Norwich, indoor enacted in two stages, firstly through the sports like billiards and card games like Gaming Act (1845) and then through whist provided regular entertainment the Licensing Act (1872) (followed in throughout the Victorian period. Wicks' 1910 by the Licensing (Consolidation) account of the whist played at the Act). The aim of these laws with respect Morgans public house, the 'Freemasons' to so licensed was: 'to maintain Arms' in Lakenham, when George Rye, a good order and rule therein'; the place of professional at the Norfolk County play was usually also licensed for the Cricket Club and a football referee, was sale of alcoholic drink so 'drunkenness or licensee between 1886 and 1911, gives other disorderly conduct' was expressly the impression that Wicks himself had forbidden.54 been present. It is also suggestive of the power of the public house culture. The It is difficult perhaps to realise fully the older men are seen as characters in their fear of disorder and loss of control that own right, each with their own nickname must have underpinned the original and personal history of achievement usu- Westminster legislation and its imple- ally associated with sport. Whist itself is mentation by an urban elite such as in raised to the status of a sport: Norwich. Those who had power were seeking to monitor the leisure-time The 'Freemasons' Arms' was the rendezvous activity of the working class to a degree of all classes of sportsmen: cricketers, foot- that may almost appear paranoid, but is ballers and boxers and whist players … and indicative of class suspicions that were what games of whist were played between prevalent throughout the nineteenth ‘Cock’ Blyth, ‘Shindy’ Betts, ‘Spider’ Haylett century. Cunningham has sketched the (father of the well-known walker ‘Paddy’ of emergence of a male, intellectual, social- ‘Hoppole Gardens’ fame), ‘Bones’ Howlett, ly concerned and distinctly middle-class the old Carrow Cricketer, and ‘Bob’ Chadwick, urban culture that saw the purpose of groundsman at Lakenham! … there was no leisure as actually the re-creation of a whist drives in those days, and the boys person for the serious business of would stand around in absolute silence work.55 The urge to control the recreation watching the old veterans play.52 of the working class was strong and had

82 Journal of the Brewery History Society its roots in economic, social and political 'Black Horse' on the Earlham Road had insecurities. 'one of the finest bowling greens in the county' and claimed the best local In 1869, there were seventy-one places bowlers.58 The 'West End Retreat' off the licensed for billiards in Norwich; nearly all Dereham Road had been one of the of these were drinking places. In other noted pleasure gardens of the early- words, around one-in-ten of the premises nineteenth century with four acres of licensed for the consumption of alcohol ground; by the end of the century the were also licensed for the playing of bil- house and the 'excellent bowling green' liards. Its popularity had grown even still remained.59 In the city centre, the more by the end of the Victorian period. '' in St. Swithins Alley was By 1901, a total of thirty-two (45%) of the last house in Norwich in which the old these original billiard licences had been English game of logats was played in held continuously over the previous thir- which pins were tossed as near the jack ty-two years, the remainder having been as possible.60 dropped or lost. A further seventy-seven new billiard licences had been issued, The blood sport of cock-fighting had been making a total of 148 licences issued banned through Westminster legislation between 1869 and 1901. At least fifty-two in 1835 and 1849 as opposition to the (67.5%) of these seventy-seven licences cruelty inflicted on the birds developed in were issued to pubs with off-licences the early-nineteenth century. In 1806, the which is indicative not only of the popu- 'Maids Head' in Tombland had five cock- larity of billiards but also of the growing pits that were 'much favoured by local importance of the off-licence retail drinks sportsmen' but no references to cock- trade in beer, wines and spirits, and fighting surviving into the Victorian period cider.56 Forty - nearly a half - of these have been found (although it would be new licences were still held in 1901, mak- surprising if there had not been survivals ing a total of seventy-two places licensed of the practice in a market city like for the playing of billiards in Norwich at Norwich).61 During the Victorian period the end of the Victorian period and near- other less bloody spectacles were ly all of them were connected with the available. The 'Maids Head', like most of drinks trade. Two licences had been the principal inns, had: issued to temperance groups who were endeavouring, unsuccessfully in these its quota of itinerant performers, providing all instances, to break the connection be- sorts of sights and entertainments - panora- tween leisure-time activity and alcoholic mas, puppet shows, freaks and fire-eaters.62 drink; the licences were soon dropped.57 Wicks had singled out such entertain- Some public houses outside the city cen- ments and exhibitions as one of his five tre had outdoor bowling greens. The reasons for emphasising the social

Brewery History Number 132 83 importance of the public house in by the bicycle sounded the death-knell of Norwich.63 pedestrianism since individuals could now perform their own feats of speed and Pedestrianism, like boxing, was an exhi- stamina more easily on their cycle. By bition-cum-sport that involved skill and 1886, Morgan, the brewery that owned athletic ability - and like nearly all other the 'Green Hill Gardens', had dropped the sports was the subject of bets. Unlike licence.66 boxing, it did not seem to survive into the twentieth century but it was very popular Although the first music hall or variety in the Victorian period, not least at the entertainment in Norwich failed soon 'Green Hill Gardens' off the Aylsham after its establishment in 1854 - 'in a room Road, where the gardens were: for 200 visitors, tastefully fitted up by the proprietor' at the 'Boars Head' in St. much frequented by the sporting fraternity Stephens67 - the leisure-time activities and dog and bird fanciers … while pedestri- of the working class did become more ans and boxers exhibited their skills, an occa- diversified. Yet the association with the sional balloon ascent provided enjoyment and drinking place remained vital. In the late- diversion for the Norwich sightseers … and Victorian period, public houses became there was also plenty of amusement, with the headquarters and meeting places for vocal and instrumental music on Bank societies and clubs formed by those in Holidays.64 the working class who were creating new institutions for their leisure-time roles as In June 1841, these 'Green Hill gardens' gardeners, fanciers (keepers of caged were the venue for Coates, the 'great birds, particularly canaries), anglers and London pedestrian', to walk fifty miles in cyclists. This working-class link between twelve hours each day for three consecu- public house and leisure-time society or tive days, half the distance walking back- club mirrored the middle-class associa- wards, half walking forwards - which he tion between hotel or inn and society or did with ten minutes to spare. In 1842, at club that had been apparent in the first the same venue, Deerfoot of Brighton half of the century. The '' in St. (wearing his Indian costume) met Long of Peters, for example, had been the venue Middlesborough in a walking match with in November 1829 for the first show of the Duke of Wellington and Sir Samuel the Norfolk and Norwich Horticultural Bignold among the spectators. Walking Society that had been formed in October matches were still very popular at the of that year.68 Then, even before the 'Hop-Pole Gardens' in St. Faith's Lane in 1850s, the first recorded Canary Show Mountergate in the 1870s. In July 1874, was organised at the 'Greyhound Madame Angelo covered a thousand Gardens' in Ber Street in November 1846 miles in a thousand successive hours.65 when three hundred specimens were However, the transport revolution created exhibited.69 Typical of the development in

84 Journal of the Brewery History Society Total = 68 licences

(Four of the seventy-two licences issued in 1901 have no parish location recorded)

Figure 6. The distribution of billiard licences in Norwich in 1901 in licensed premises. (Shaded areas show parishes in which no billiard licenses were issued).

Source: NRO, PS/10/1, 'Register of Billiard Licences, 1869-1966'

Brewery History Number 132 85 the later Victorian period of clubs and for an unspecified number of these. The societies that were attached to public Anchor Bowling League, with seven affil- houses was the formation of the Norwich iated clubs, was organised by Steward Amateur Bicycle Club at the 'Volunteer and Patteson, the Pockthorpe brewers. Stores' in Chapel Field Road in 1879.70 Hawkins noted that generally working men did not take too much interest in the The research of Hawkins (1910) sheds game of bowls since there were too many further light on the world of working-class incidental expenses.72 institutions serving leisure-time needs. His picture, informed by the trained eye Workingmen found a more popular of the sociologist, cannot be that different amusement in either their allotments or from the one that existed at the end of the 'the fancy', which in Norwich meant the Victorian period. He claimed that for the breeding of canaries. Hawkins estimated workingman: that around two thousand men had allot- ments, and that they were between two The popular amusement in Norwich is and three thousand breeders in the city. beyond doubt the royal art of angling … Canary breeding apparently demanded (with) at least 100 fishing clubs connected 'a good deal of skill and infinite trouble, with public houses … with an average and on the whole appealed to the steady membership of thirty to forty … mostly from man who is in regular work'. It involved a the ranks of the better-paid but with at least a considerable outlay on seed but the suc- dozen clubs amongst labourers earning less cessful breeder could make enough from than 20s a week.71 sales to pay his rent; in the shoe trade, men were said to save up against the Significantly, Hawkins had distinguished slack season by selling their birds when between an artisan elite and the mass of they needed the money. There were thir- general labourers. But both groups had teen canary clubs, meeting regularly in their own clubs or societies in their own public houses to exchange information, local public houses. The attraction of the with the publican usually a prominent drinking place in Norwich was very often official. Canary shows were held two or more than just drink. three times a year; Hawkins described these as 'solemn festivals, celebrated There is a group just above the artisan by a club breakfast and a half-day's elite that is represented by Hawkins as holiday'.73 Drinking would have been 'the clerk who wears a collar and tie'. part of that ritual. They too had their own local drinking places, and their particular leisure-time Hawkins' evidence from the end of the activity seems to have been bowling. first decade of the twentieth century adds There were twenty-six bowling clubs in weight to the argument that the drinking the city and publicans were responsible place retained its central role for the

86 Journal of the Brewery History Society working class, however diversified their Charles Hardwick, a member of the Odd leisure-time activities became. He noted Fellows, emphasised, responding to criti- the remarkable popularity of watching cisms of the link with public houses, professional football and thought it likely Friendly Societies did not make people that the 'increasing sobriety of Norwich' go to the public houses; they had ‘devel- owed something to this new habit of oped there spontaneously’.79 Gosden devoting Saturday afternoon to the has noted that 'the local inn was the only match. Hawkins did not, however, consid- suitable place for a number of men to er the time spent in the public house after meet together' and that landlords were the match although he acknowledged often involved in establishing these soci- that 'it still remains true that the public- eties that would also serve to benefit their house is the centre of social intercourse business. Brewers also recognised their amongst working men in Norwich'.74 value.80 Wicks (1925) gave an undated reference to the setting up of one such Hawkins also acknowledged: 'in these Friendly Society in the 'Red Lion' in hostelries the typical recreation of the London Street in Plea; very many of Norwich working man go hand in hand these courts and lodges began in public with the serious business of his trade houses, and remained there, in the union and his friendly society'.75 Even by Victorian period - as in Bradford.81 1910, the trade unions were not numeri- cally strong in Norwich - there were no The pub, as Cunningham has noted, 'was unions in the manufacture of food, drink a major space for leisure, and the publi- and in clothing - but Hawkins considered can a major organiser'. However, the their influence was growing through the publican's main business 'was the sale of Norwich Trades' Council and the Labour alcohol, and drinking in the pub was the Party.76 The Friendly Societies, however, main way most men spent their leisure'.82 had sixteen to seventeen thousand mem- The issue of how much was actually bers in Norwich; their ninety-one courts spent on alcohol by the working class has and lodges controlled funds in excess of been the subject of much debate.83 nearly a quarter of a million pounds that Rowntree's figures from his survey of had all been saved from wages.77 The alcohol consumption in 1899 indicated a two largest in Norwich were the sample average of 3s 8d (18.3p) a week. Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Baxter's figures for 1869 are particularly Manchester Unity, and the Ancient Order significant since they distinguish between of Foresters; such Friendly Societies had the 'temperate' urban labourer - the developed in response to the New Poor majority of the working class - and the Law Act (1834) that forced working-class 'temperate' urban artisan - the minority men to think of self-help. Financial contri- that constituted the 'labour aristocracy'. butions ensured sickness benefit, med- The former was earning £50-60 a year ical assistance, and funeral benefit.78 As and spending, with his wife, 2s to 2s 6d a

Brewery History Number 132 87 week on alcohol, that is around £5-£6.50 more a worker earned, the higher his a year on 75 gallons of beer a year and a expenditure on alcohol. Cunningham modest amount (1-2 gallons) of spirits. indeed argued that: The latter was earning £90-100 a year and spending, with his wife, 4s 6d to 5s a … artisans were notorious for their drinking week on alcohol, that is around £11.50- habits, both on and off the job. The celebra- £13 a year on 150 gallons of beer and 2.4 tion of St. Monday was particularly associated gallons of spirits a year. As Wilson with artisans - and with drinking. Independent observed, 'Both estimates … underline colliers, for example, regularly took a holiday the fact that beer was the largest item of on the Monday after pay day, and spent it working-class expenditure, ranking well drinking, often associated with sport and above amounts spent upon meat or gambling no respectable person would con- bread'. Contemporary observers believed template.86 that between 14 and 25% of working- class incomes was spent on drink.84 Giving evidence before the House of Lords Select Committee in 1877, Mr. J.E. However, Dingle has made the case that Davis, legal advisor to the Commissioners from the 1880s onwards the range of of the Metropolitan Police but formerly a commodities within reach of the working stipendiary magistrate in first Stoke, then class was widening considerably, both in Sheffield, explained: variety and price, at the same time as drink remained unchanged in price at When trade is good, the number of com- 2½d per pint. It was therefore becoming plaints of absence of workmen increase. … proportionately more expensive relative Most of the men are on piece work … they to an increasingly wide range of con- begin drinking on Saturday and continue on sumer goods, and as prices fell and real Monday … apparently all over England, wages rose between 1880 and 1895, the Monday, which ought to be the best working level of drink consumption stagnated. day is kept entirely as a holiday.87 Around 1900, as money wages rose, there was some recovery in the figures for drink consumption per head, but after Within Norwich, members of the urban 1900 with stagnation in the level of real elite perceived the extended drinking wages, the decline in the consumption of 'binge' as a problem, even within the drink can be seen as an attempt to safe- factory system that, with its disciplines of guard new patterns of consumption in the clock and regular time, has been which drink played a lesser, if still signifi- viewed by historians as a counterweight cant, role.85 to such indulgences. Mr. Simms Reeve, a Norwich magistrate, in his evidence before Nevertheless, it does seem likely that at the Lords Committee in 1877, argued that least until the late-nineteenth century the drunkenness was on the increase:

88 Journal of the Brewery History Society Many complaints are made all round. I heard waged general workers. In the new staple for instance a proprietor of a very large works trade of shoemaking, wages varied from complain very much of these extensions of 9s at the lowest to 30s to 35s at the high- licences at holiday times, because he said, it est, with Reeve taking 18s a week as is so difficult to get our people back for two or being 'a fair and ordinary man's earn- three days; they get off drinking, and then ings'. His report on incomes continued: they cannot get them back again.88 The 1500 to 1600 who were employed at Although anecdotal, Reeve's evidence is Messrs Colman's mustard and starch works suggestive of a working-class culture in were well paid, earning 24s to 28s a week, Norwich that had been shaped by the but still less than the average for Northern piecework traditions once central to its workers. A small portion of the 600 employed urban economy when textiles had been at Messrs Barnard and Bishop's iron casting the staple industry. There was still, as late works had good earnings but a large number as the 1870s, resistance to the disciplines were employed as general labourers and of more regulated forms of production. earned 14s to 16s a week. There were per- Dependence on alcohol had become haps around 2000 weavers who earned not assimilated into patterns of making much more than 10s to 12s on average with meaning from leisure-time. Workers still many less than 9s a week.89 sought - through absenteeism - to control and define the boundaries of their time It seems a reasonable conclusion to draw away from work. that within Norwich, as elsewhere, in all groups in the working classes the drink- In Norwich, some could afford to drink ing that took place stretched in many more than others. The decline in the tra- cases the limits of family budgets. If as ditional staple textile industry that had seems likely there was a slight trend to once created a measure of prosperity for more temperate drinking towards the end numbers of artisans had led to lower of the period than the explanation lies, at incomes. By the second half of the centu- least in part, in the development of that ry, observers were commenting on the wider range of leisure pursuits that that relative poverty of the Norwich working been examined above. classes. Simms Reeve, in his 1877 evi- dence, claimed: '… the wages earned by For most of the urban working class, the people in Norwich are much less than expenditure on alcohol was a regular those earned by the people in the North.’ daily outlay, an indispensable part of the ritual of relaxation when not at work. Yet However, his figures do suggest the exis- for some, drinking and work were not tence still of a labour aristocracy formed separated. Those who worked in the mar- by skilled workers in the new staple kets - for example, the drovers of cattle - industries, alongside the mass of low- consumed drink as a natural part of the

Brewery History Number 132 89 rhythm of the day.90 Norwich was not Norwich itself became the focus for those only an important industrial centre; it was Norfolk and Suffolk rural and urban work- also the great market centre for East ing class who made the journey in Anglia where livestock, fish, vegetables, reverse. Correspondence in the Eastern groceries, and household items were Daily Press in 1900 indicated that a day sold, and on market days the population out and drinking were inseparable for in the city increased considerably.91 most.94

Even allowing for the movement of pop- Sex and the drinking place were linked ulation away from the centre of the city directly through prostitution in this to the suburbs during the second half of Victorian period, as the evidence above the century, there was still a plethora of for Portsmouth clearly revealed. The 'old- drinking places to cater for the market est profession' needs to be taken into population of traders and buyers. account in any assessment of the social Individual drinking places had their own importance of the drinking place. It can, connection with particular markets; for however, be a difficult area to research instance, when the fish market was since many 'respectable' Victorians pre- closed in 1912, Steward and Patteson ferred that the trade remained disguised shut the 'Popes Head' in the same year, and unrecognised, but the evidence I under the compensation scheme, have uncovered points, as might be because its trade had dwindled.92 The expected, to the significance of prostitu- market areas in the heart of the city were tion in Norwich. John Dunne, the Chief hard-drinking centres and likely to pro- Constable from 1851 to 1853, was one vide breweries with greater profits. Norwich citizen who did not conceal the Drinking places here could have a much existence of prostitution and brothels and higher consumption of spirits than those the link with drinking places. His extraor- outside this inner area.93 dinary testimony in June 1853 before the House of Lords Select Committee into Drinking, as well as being a regular daily Policing was an act of premeditated occurrence and part of the cycle of work 'whistle-blowing' he seems to have pre- and leisure, was also for high days and pared for by planning his resignation. His holidays. The working class enjoyed their letter of resignation was received and few holiday breaks throughout the period accepted and a testimonial offered by his but with the arrival of the railway, the employers, the Watch Committee, on 10 scope of the day out dramatically June, before they would have heard widened and the egress from Norwich about his testimony concerning prostitu- was no longer limited to the pleasure tion in Norwich and the vested interest of gardens and pubs on the fringe of the brewers as magistrates and members of city, but now extended to Yarmouth and the Watch Committee.95 Dunne claimed Lowestoft. Conversely, of course, that:

90 Journal of the Brewery History Society 200 houses it is said are used for the purpos- area of the market; it had been the site of es of prostitution … it is difficult to supervise the public executions that had drawn them … some of these houses are kept by crowds by the thousands, coming into the returned convicts, or by men who have been city by 'cheap excursions', until the last convicted of felony; and in many of these low public hanging in 1867. Here, there was public houses crime is fostered.96 bound to be bought-sex as well as heavy drinking. Yet twenty-four years later, in 1877, Simms Reeve, in his testimony before the Not only sex but death, too, had its place Lords' Select Committee, was disclaim- in the public house. As in London and ing any significant link between drinking Bradford and other urban centres, the places and prostitution in Norwich. drinking place served the needs of the Confronted by Lord Aberdare with an Norwich coroner for space that could be actual case that had come before the designated temporarily as 'official' in the Norwich magistrates a few days earlier, aftermath of sudden or unexplained he replied that until now he had been death. Harrison has made the telling 'unaware that there was any drinking in points that a modern Englishmen set brothels'; Norwich did not have a problem back in the 1820s would immediately in this respect.97 Dunne's 1853 figures notice the lack of public buildings and may be exaggerated but his version that the explanation for this lay in the par- sounds more plausible. simony of the public authorities.99 At the beginning of the Victorian period, coro- Wicks (1925) also provided other rele- ners still had no alternative building in vant evidence, noting that: 'a colony of which to hold their inquests other than disreputable houses were cleared away the public house and the inertia of this in 1862 … opposite the 'Golden Ball' and traditional practice ensured that inquests running down from the Castle to Rose were still being held in public houses at Lane'. the end of the period. The continuation of this practice in Norwich did not escape He also pointed out that many taverns in criticism. The journalist from the Eastern the Castle "Dikes" had been swept away Daily Press who reported on the coro- in recent years but gave no explanation. ner's inquest held at the 'Waterman' in In fact, the 'Napier' was closed under the King Street in the parish of St. Julian on compensation scheme by Morgan in February 12th, 1900, commented the 1909, having had convictions against it in next day that there had to be: 1904 and 1908 for 'Harbouring Prostitutes', and the 'Cattle Market Inn' more convenient accommodation than the lost its licence in 1891 after its landlord limits of a small room in a private house yes- was convicted of permitting the premises terday created near … (the unhealthy) … to be used as a brothel.98 This was the Shuttle Alley.

Brewery History Number 132 91 The coroner himself, Mr. R.W. Ladell, Although the political importance of the made an appeal to the Corporation of drinking place did grow less towards the Norwich for better accommodation for end of the reign, as did the significance of holding the coroner's court.100 Nationally, the boxing pub and the connection inquests were being gradually removed between pugilism and politics, the social from the public house; in London by the importance of the public house remained 1890s only 8% were held there.101 extraordinary. Given the accelerating diversification in leisure interests in the The Coroners' Records for Norwich are second half of the period, and the pivotal missing from 1836 through to 1896, but role that the public house seems to have those records that are extant for 1835 played in many of these developments, provide an illuminating picture of how its social importance may actually have extensive a circuit the coroner had in deepened. The public house was a Norwich and how many drinking places remarkable institution, providing personal were used as locations for inquests. and social meaning for so many of the Although one public house, the 'Trumpet population, serving as one of the key Inn' in St. Stephen, provided the location elements in the working of the local for around a quarter of the fifty-seven economy, and, not least, acting as a inquests held in 1835, there are another critical agency for social cohesion. By thirty-seven public houses that were used 1901, there were still over 600 drinking to accommodate the coroner's court.102 places in Norwich, the great majority of These drinking places were spread these owned and controlled by a handful across the city of Norwich, located in of wealthy brewing families who in turn twenty-six of the forty-three parishes.103 were key figures in the urban elite of the The inquest would have been not only a city. That urban elite, through its Watch matter of crown business but also an Committee, employed its own police opportunity to sell beer. Publicans and force to ensure, as one of its functions, brewers had an interest in keeping the that there was no serious threat to pub- connection between drinking place and lic order through the consumption of inquest, just as they had in keeping the alcohol. The public house could indeed link between drinking and other leisure be regarded as a bastion of social order, activities. It meant all the more profit from a bulwark against the threat of revolution. the increase in sales of alcohol. The Temperance movement, however, well meaning its intentions, was unlikely In conclusion, this analysis of the social to succeed in its efforts to diminish so importance of the drinking place for those powerful a social and economic institu- who lived in Victorian Norwich has added tion as the public house. yet more weight to Wicks' claim that: 'Practically every social and political func- tion was held at a public house'.104

92 Journal of the Brewery History Society Totals: 57 Inquests 38 Drinking places 26 Parishes

Figure 7. Coroners' Inquests in 1835: their location and frequency. (Shaded areas show parishes in which no inquest was held).

Source: NRO, CASE 6a/30-42, 'Norwich Coroners' Inquests, 1824-1836'

Brewery History Number 132 93 Parish Drinking places and frequency used Total as locations for coroners’ inquests

North of the river

Hellesdon The Mile Cross (1) 1 St. Martin at Oak The Angel (1) 1 St. Michael Coslany The Sun (1) 1 St. Augustine The Magpie (1); The Rose Inn (1) 2 St. Clement The Bakers Arms (1); The Sun (1) 2 Pockthorpe The Red Cow (1) 1 St. Paul The Dog (1) 1 St. Edmund The Jolly Dyers (1) 1 St. James The Black Chequers (1) 1

Centre and West

St Benedict The Crown (1); The Crocodile (1) 2 St. Swithin The Drum (1) 1 St. Margaret The Queen of Hungary (1); The Three Kings (1) 2 St. Lawrence The Three Turks (1); The Bear and Ragged Staff (1) 2 St. Andrew The Red Lion (1) 1 St. Martin at Palace The White Lion (1) 1 St. Michael at Thorn The Plough and Horses (1); The Carpenters Arms (1) 2 St. John Timberhill The Lion and Castle (1); The Bakers Arms (1) 2 St. Peter Mancroft The Swan Inn (1); The Wounded Hart (1); The Lamb Inn (1); The Vine Tavern (1) 4 St. Stephen The Trumpet Inn (15) 15 St. Giles The Cock (1) 1 Heigham The Half Moon (1); Unnamed (1) 2 Lakenham The Lord Nelson (3) 3 St. Peter per Mountergate The Cellar House (1) 1

South

St. John Sepulchre The Lock and Key (1); The Pheasant Cock (1) 2 St. Peter Southgate The Carrow Inn (4) 4 Thorpe The Coach and Horses (1) 1

Parishes total = 26 Drinking places total = 38 Inquests total = 57

Table 9. Drinking places used as locations for Coroners' Inquests in 1835.

Source. NRO, CASE 6a/30-42, 'Norwich Coroners' Inquests, 1824-1836'.

94 Journal of the Brewery History Society Chapter 4: Publicans and social grounds for finding parallels between the cohesion role of the church and that of the pub for individuals and social groups.106 The key issue explored in this chapter is the social importance of the publican. In To pursue the analogy of the pub as a the introduction and first three chapters church, it seems plausible to suggest of this study an argument has been that within working-class communities developed that the Victorian pub was an lacking any alternative religious experi- important agency of social cohesion with- ence the publican may have taken on in urban communities experiencing rapid some of the functions of the priest. There growth. A corollary of this study is that the would have been within the working landlord or landlady - the licence holder - classes a social and personal need to could and often did serve a significant find meaning and security in a world that function within the community of people was changing so rapidly, although such a that regarded themselves as 'regulars' dynamic is difficult to analyse within the at his or her public house. The particular disciplines of historical research. The emphasis in this chapter is to discuss population of England had nearly doubled the length of time that publicans from 8.6 million to 16.5 million between remained the licence holders at their 1801 and 1851, with industrialisation and public houses. It is presumed that the urbanisation transforming the social longer the length of that licence holding, landscape and leading sometime in the the more significant is likely to have been early years of the nineteenth century to the role of the publican as an agent of the identification by contemporaries of social cohesion. the 'working classes'.107 Most of these working classes avoided institutional The term 'regular' was first coined in the religion. fourteenth century to describe a person who was subject to a religious rule.105 The Census of Religious Worship (1851) There are perhaps parallels to be drawn indicated that around 40% of the popula- with the way the term came to be used in tion had not attended any place of reli- later centuries to describe those who gious worship on Sunday 30th March in drank regularly in the same pub - their 1851. It was a figure far higher than con- 'local'. These latter-day 'regulars', too, temporaries had expected.108 The figure were bound by ties of obligation and for non-attendance within the working familiarity, drawn by their neighbourhood classes alone would have been higher links to share time with friends and still. Within Norwich, 53.9% had not acquaintances in an activity - drinking - attended, compared with the national and that had its own rituals and - through Norfolk figures for non-attendance of the inebriating effects of the alcohol - its 41.9% and 34.7%, respectively.109 The own transcendent qualities. There are curate in charge of the parish of St.

Brewery History Number 132 95 Edmund in Norwich noted in the Census between size of population and non- that: attendance may be drawn, albeit hedged with caveats. It is significant that only six this parish consists principally of working peo- of the forty-one towns below Norwich in ple engaged in the different branches of the table for non-attendance have larger Norwich manufacture very few of which can populations.113 be prevailed upon to attend any place of Public Worship [384].110 Moreover, urban centres that had experi- enced a significant increase in population Such frankness is singular, but the obser- were likely to have difficulties in providing vation would have held good in many of ecclesiastical accommodation for all its the thirty-five parishes within Norwich. population. Norwich might pride itself on its numerous places of worship - eighty- In general, the conclusion holds that reli- one are recorded in the 1851 Census - gious practice in the large towns ran at but once the Census was published in much lower levels than in other smaller January 1854 a local newspaper calculat- communities. In the sixty-five large ed that whereas in Norfolk sittings in towns, including London, identified by the churches and chapels across all denomi- Census Report, aggregate attendances nations were available for 70% of the for all denominations were about two- population, in Norwich only 42% (around thirds of those for the rest of England and 29,000) of its population of 68,706 was Wales.111 Nationally, Norwich was ranked provided for.114 The urban working class- in the top half of this table for non-atten- es may have preferred to make meaning dance: twenty-fourth out of the sixty-five in their lives through time spent in the large towns. Significantly, as Ede and drinking place rather than the church or Virgoe themselves noted, Ipswich and chapel but it is important not to overlook , the nearest major towns to the social geography of church and pub: Norwich, each have populations half the there were more than enough pubs and size of Norwich and come towards the too few churches and chapels to accom- bottom of the table: fifty-eighth and sixty- modate the working classes. first respectively.112 An examination of Table 10, however, indicates the danger The development of social relations at a of over-generalising and concluding sim- particular pub, as 'regulars' made a drink- ply that the larger the town (and therefore ing place their own 'local', would have the higher the number of the working been a pattern repeated across the net- classes within it), the lower the percent- work of public houses and beerhouses age of those attending church. There are within any urban community and is likely numerous exceptions to this conclusion, to have played a key part in the develop- suggesting the importance of local and ment of working-class communities in regional factors. Nevertheless, a link Norwich. A general need, common to all

96 Journal of the Brewery History Society New Public House Parish Ownership Numbers of Nos. of Convictions Reg. . (1867 - 1901) Long- Medium- Short- long-term gainst the No term term term 1894 - 1901 Licence Licence - holders 1867 - 1901

13 Arabian Horse Lakenham Morgan 0 4 7 1 1885 71 Canterbury Hall St. John Timberhill Morgan 0 3 6 0 1884 88 Crown Lakenham Free / Cann & 0 0 15 1 NIL Co. Morgan 104 Crown St. George Youngs 0 3 8 2 NIL Colegate 177 George IV St. John Youngs 0 4 6 1 1883

Brewery History Number 132 Sepulchre 179 Eastern Union St. Stephen Seaman / 0 4 8 1 NIL Railw'a Tavern Grimmer / Lacon 282 Nelson Tavern St. Andrew Free / Cann & Co. 0 3 9 2 1875 + 1897 Morgan 283 Nelson Tavern / Heigham Youngs 0 4 10 0 NIL West Pottergate Stores 287 Corn Exchange St. George Youngs 0 4 7 1 1873 + 1889 Tavern Colegate 325 Prince of Wales St. Lawrence S & P 0 3 9 1 1880 + 1882 Feathers 334 Queen Adelaide Heigham Free / S & P 0 4 6 1 NIL 36 Queen's Head St. Giles Youngs 0 3 8 0 NIL White Rose St. James Morgan 0 3 10 0 1896 + 1900 418 Somerset House Heigham Arnold / Lacon 0 4 7 1 NIL 419 Sons of Commerce St. Julian Morgan 0 5 6 1 1882 (twice)

Total: 15 Public Houses Totals: 0 51 122 13

Table 10. Norwich pubs with six or more short-term and no long-term licence holders, 1867 - 1893.

Sources. First Register of Victuallers Licences; Second Register of Victuallers Licences 97 (See also Table 15 from which the above table is drawn). 98 New Public House Parish Ownership Numbers of Nos. of Convictions Reg. . (1867 - 1901) Long- Medium- Short- long-term gainst the No term term term 1894 - 1901 Licence Licence - holders 1867 - 1901

16 Bakers Arms Heigham Morgan 1 2 10 1 1885 92 Coach & Horses St. Stephen Morgan 1 2 8 1 1879 101 Corkcutters Arms St. George Free / Colemans 1 2 8 0 NIL Colegate 114 Derby Arms Heigham Morgan / Lacon 1 2 6 1 NIL 116 Distillery Heigham Free / Seaman / 2 0 6 0 NIL Journal of the Brewery History Society Youngs / S & P 126 Duke of York / St. Giles S & P 2 1 6 1 1877 Alma Tavern 127 Duke of York Thorpe Youngs 1 3 7 1 NIL 147 Evening Gun Thorpe S & P 1 1 11 1 NIL 148 Excise Custom St. Gregory Free 2 2 7 0 1873 House / Empire Coffee / New Theatre Stores 221 Duke of Heigham S & P 1 2 8 1 NIL Connaught 222 Jolly Farmers Inn St. John Timberhill Youngs 1 2 6 1 NIL 254 Lion & Castle St. John Timberhill Youngs 1 2 7 1 1878 257 Lock and Key St. Michael Thorn Morgan 2 1 6 0 1879 263 Locomotive Heigham Morgan 1 2 7 2 NIL 276 Mitre Tavern St. Stephen Seaman / Grimmer 1 3 6 1895 refused NIL 309 George and St. Stephen S & P 1 1 10 1 1890 (twice) Dragon 310 Oxford Tavern Heigham Seaman / Grimmer 1 1 10 1 NIL / Lacon 323 Prince of Wales St. Augustine Morgan 1 2 11 1 NIL 347 Red Lion St. Andrew S & P 1 1 8 1 NIL 373 Rose St. Michael Thorn Grimmer / S & P 1 2 6 1 NIL 393 Saracens Head Heigham Morgan 2 0 7 1 NIL 1877 + 1879 NIL NIL 1878 + 1881 NIL 1874 + 1894 NIL 23 12 1 212 10 33 42 1 1 9 1 1 2 8 1 0 6 1 1 1 1 2 6 1 1 1 6 0 1 1 6 1 172 198 29 227 95 103 ictuallers Licences. ictuallers Licences als: Ind Coope ot T Arnold / Lacon Free / Morgan Free / Morgan Morgan Free Morgan / Free Morgan / Morgan Thorn tephen Augustine t. Paul t. Michael t. Giles t. t. Giles t. S S S Heigham S S S S ictuallers Licences; Second Register of V ictuallers Licences; Second ictuallers Licences; Second Register of V tores tores avern avern T sman tores illiam the Fourth port t. Giles Gate t. Giles Gate olunteer S Duke of Fife S / Loyalty S / Loyalty wo Brewers opers / S S T W T V Sardinian Sardinian 1. Norwich pubs with six or more short-term and at least one long-term licence holders, 1867 - 1893. or more short-term and at least one long-term 1. Norwich pubs with six al: 28 Public Houses al No. of convictions ot able 1 able 12. Norwich pubs and convictions against their licences, 1867-1901 able 12. Norwich pubs and convictions against ot Sources. First Register of V Sources. First Register T 425 532 436 484 439 533 T 394 No. of pubs with at least one conviction No. of convicted licensees No. of licensees convicted more than once T No. of convicted licensees, no longer licence-holder next year No. of convicted licensees, no longer licence-holder next year No. of convicted licensees, remaining licence-holder T Sourves. First Register of V

Brewery History Number 132 99 S & P Bullard Youngs Morgan Other Non- Total Breweries Brewery

Ownership 147 75 108 70 7 195 602 in 1867

Ownership 138 118 98 79 10 104 547 in 1893

Table 13. Norwich pubs and their ownership in 1867 and in 1893.

Sources. First Register of Victuallers Licences; Second Register of Victuallers Licences.

those who consumed alcohol (barring the the publican. His accounts of the pugilist few solitary drinkers), would be for a landlords who were also linked with local sense of belonging and attachment. A politics, such as ‘Cock’ Blyth, ‘Licker’ publican who remained the licence hold- Pratt and ‘Dick’ Nickalls, offer a rare er in a public house for a long period glimpse of this particular type of working would be likely to be serving an important class leader.116 And most significantly for social function within his or her own com- this research, quantitative data for the munity. This would seem to be true not length of licence holding has survived. only of the publican but also of his or her Initially, I analysed the 'Registers of family. Pubs were places where people Victuallers Licences for the City of went not only to drink but also sometimes Norwich' that cover the later Victorian to eat food that had to be cooked, and to period.117 In Bradford, the records of be entertained as well as to entertain licensing sessions earlier than the twen- themselves. The family pub could play its tieth century were not available, apart part in all three activities in a way that the from a few fragmentary survivals.118 The single publican could not. Regrettably, survival of the Norwich registers has any examination of the role of the publi- meant that for the first time such a study can is constrained by the dearth of is possible. Moreover, another important extended direct primary source material source later came to light: 'The Schedule such as private journals or newspaper of Agreement for the hire of Bullards' obituaries.115 Public Houses' which covered the period from 1843 to 1867.119 This discovery However, as is evident in Chapter 3 allowed the analysis to be extended back above, Walter Wicks provided significant into the earlier Victorian period and evidence for the importance of the drink- served both to confirm the conclusions ing place as a social institution and some drawn from the analysis of the registers specific detail for the social importance of and to develop new insights.

100 Journal of the Brewery History Society Town Attendance Population Town Attendance Population as % of as % of population population

1 Preston 25.5 69,542 34 Wigan 53.2 31,941 2 Oldham 31.7 52,820 35 Kidderminster 53.6 18,462 3 Sheffield 32.1 135,310 36 Chatham 54.3 28,424 4 Gateshaed 32.9 25,568 37 Plymouth 55.1 52,221 5 Manchester 34.7 303,382 38 Dudley 55.3 37,962 6 Carlisle 35.0 26,310 39 Great Yarmouth56.0 30,879 7 36.1 232,841 40 Devonport 56.5 50,159 8 Salford 36.6 63,850 41 Bristol 56.7 137,328 9 Bolton 36.8 61,171 42 Chester 57.4 27,766 10 London 37.0 2,362,236 43 Nottingham 57.7 57,407 11 Blackburn 37.7 46,536 44 Swansea 58.4 31,461 12 Newcastle 40.0 87,784 45 Derby 59.0 40,609 13 Coventry 40.2 36,208 46 Warrington 59.1 22,894 14 Stoke-on-Trent 40.9 53,835 47 Newport 59.2 19,323 15 Halifax 41.4 33,582 48 Oxford 59.3 27,843 16 Bradford 42.7 103,778 49 Huddersfield 59.6 30,882 17 Stockport 42.8 53,835 50 Maidstone 60.8 20,740 18 Walsall 43.3 25,680 51 Southampton 61.1 35,305 19 Macclesfield 44.0 39,048 52 Leicester 62.3 60,584 20 Tynemouth 44.1 29,170 53 York 62.3 36,303 21 Bury 44.1 31,262 54 Northampton 63.4 26,657 22 45.2 375,955 55 Cheltenham 66.2 35,051 23 Ashton-under-Lyme45.8 30,676 56 Worcester 66.2 27,528 24 NORWICH 46.1 68,195 57 Dover 67.1 22,244 25 South Shields 46.2 28,974 58 Cambridge 67.8 27,815 26 Leeds 47.4 172,270 59 Reading 68.5 21,456 27 Sunderland 48.5 84,027 60 Wakefield 71.1 22,065 28 Gravesend 48.6 16,633 61 Ipswich 71.2 32,914 29 Hull 49.6 84,590 62 Bath 79.1 54,240 30 Rochdale 49.8 29,195 63 Exeter 84.5 32,818 31 King’s Lynn 51.9 19,355 64 Merthyr Tydfil 88.5 63,080 32 Brighton 52.5 69,673 65 Colchester 89.5 19,443 33 Wolverhampton 53.1 119,748

Table 14. Census of Religious Worship, 1851 - a table, for non-attendance in the 65 large towns including London.

Source. B.J. Coleman, The Church of England in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, (The Historical Association, 1980), Table D: Attendances in London and the 65 large-towns, p.41.

Brewery History Number 132 101 Convictions NIL Licence 1867 - 1901 1882 1885 NIL NIL NIL NIL 1881 1880 NIL NIL 1884 1876 gainst the gainst 1875 + 1897 NIL NIL NIL NIL 1883 NIL NIL Nos. of Nos. 0 1894 - 1901 + 1894 1 long-term - 10 Short 15 Medium- Numbers of Numbers 0 4 Long- term term term Licence - holders 0 3 4 1 0 4 7 1 0 4 5 0 0 5 0 2 0 5 2 1 0 5 3 1 0 5 5 1 0 3 3 1 00 0 3 8 2 0 3 6 0 0 5 3 1 0 3 9 2 0 6 0 2 0 5 4 1 0 6 1 1 0 6 2 1 0 4 6 1 0 5 5 0 0 4 8 1 Co. Morgan Co. Morgan Grimmer / Lacon oungs oungs oungs oungs oungs (1867 - 1901) (1867 Ownership Y S & P Morgan Free / Bullard Free / Morgan S & P Bullard S & P Free / Cann & Morgan Morgan Y Y Free / Cann & Free / Bullard Free Free / Morgan Morgan Y Seaman / Y t imberhill imberhill T T tephen tephen tephen Andrew t. S t. John Sepulchre t. John t. Gregory t. John Sepulchre t. Gregory t. George t. John t. t. Michael t. S t. John Sepulchre t. Peter Mancrof t. Michael t. S t. John Sepulchre Colegate Coslany Coslany Parish Heigham S S S Lakenham S Lakenham S Heigham S Lakenham S S S S S S S S S S Arms avern ar t avern T avern / avern T T T Arms Arms est Pottergate tores W S Grt. Eastern Railw'y Public House Public Anchor Black Horse Bakers Arabian Horse Black Horse Inn Bold Napier Bulls Head Bricklayers Blue Bell Grapes Crown Crown Canterbury Hall Nelson Golden S BeeHive / Kings Nelson George Inn Eastern Union George IV Reg. . Reg. New 8 38 21 13 45 44 64 51 47 171 88 104 71 No 283 192 199 238 282 176 179 177

102 Journal of the Brewery History Society 1874 NIL NIL 1880 + 1882 1880 1879 1873 + 1889 1873 NIL 1884 1882 (twice) 1880 + 1881 1896 + 1900 0 10 0 6 3 0 0 3 8 0 0 4 6 1 0 3 9 1 Licence dropped between 1869 - 1886 Licence dropped between 0 6 3 1 0 4 7 1 00 6 4 3 7 1 1 0 5 6 1 0 4 5 1 0 3 ictuallers Licences. yatt / S & P oungs oungs / Bullard oungs / Coleman & Co / Coleman / S & P Seaman / Grimmer Seaman / Grimmer Arnold & W S & P Y Y Y Arnold / Lacon Seaman / Grimmer Morgan Morgan oungs / Bullard Y Andrew t. Lawrence t. t. Giles t. Helen t. George t. George t. Julian t. James Colegate S S S Heigham S Heigham S Heigham S Heigham Heigham S ictuallers Licences; Second Register of V ictuallers Licences; Second ales avern avern T T avern T Adelaide avern ictoria Feathers T Rainbow Prince of W Prince Queen Hotel Queens Head Queen Reindeer Red Lion Corn Exchange Corn Sons of Commerce Somerset House White Rose V able 15. Norwich pubs with no long-term licence holders, 1867 - 1893. able 15. Norwich pubs 342 325 337 336 334 357 351 287 419 418 T of V Source. First Register 366 389

Brewery History Number 132 103 In order to make a more effective com- may such figures call into question the parison of the figures from the registers, I argument that publicans were agents of decided to divide the licence holding social cohesion? If there are so many publicans into three groups, according to publicans serving for two years or less, whether they were long-term licence then the picture is suggestive perhaps of holders (a term that was defined as overall instability. seven years or longer); medium-term licence holders (a term that was defined It is clearly essential to address this issue as less than seven years and more than of the high number of short-term publi- two years); or short-term licence holders cans. Some insight into the reasons (defined as two years or less).120 In total, underlying the fluidity of licence holding there were 2,902 holders of annual in some pubs at particular times is provid- licences recorded in the first Register, ed in the source material itself. Not only 1867-93. Of these, the number of long- do the registers record the names of the term licence holders was 804 (27.7%). annual licence holder at each public Therefore, over a quarter of the publi- house but also they include the names of cans of Norwich had served what may the holders of any temporary licence at justifiably be termed a long-term period each public house. Individuals could behind the bar. Eighty-eight of these obtain a temporary form of licence 804 were female (10.9%), most becom- through securing a transfer from the pre- ing the publican after the death of their vious holder at one of several transfer husband, the previous licence holder.121 sessions that were held during the year. The number of medium-term licence The temporary licence was then convert- holders was 872 (30.0%). Therefore, ed into the annual certificate in the over a half of the publicans of Norwich August general annual licensing session. had served behind the same bar for However, not all the holders of the trans- more than two years. Ninety-five of these fers did proceed to the stage of securing 872 were female (10.9% again, a consis- the full annual licence; there might, tent figure). indeed, be as many as three or four transfers to different individuals during Nevertheless, the number of short-term the year before the eventual issuing of licence holders was 1,226 (42.2%). the annual certificate.122 Both the rea- Approaching a half of the publicans of sons for these transfers and the reasons Norwich had served for two years or less. why individuals did not necessarily pro- One hundred and thirty-two of these ceed to become the annual licence 1,226 were female (10.8%, again a holder are often not apparent but a notably consistent percentage). An initial number of explanations are possible and reaction to such statistics is to be struck some of these would also serve to help by the high number of short-term licence explain the phenomenon of short-term holders and raises the question: how far licence holding.

104 Journal of the Brewery History Society Is there a policy of vetting being operated in Norwich, as elsewhere, that were in by the brewery in some instances, in effect themselves de-stabilising. a system of probation? Do some of these new landlords fail to make the grade with Death, or illness, through disease and the customers on the other side of the epidemic, remained an ever-present bar? Did some of them fail to produce threat for the Norwich working class.127 sufficient capital, as required by the brew- Very significantly, the industrial founda- ery to match the valuation of the proper- tions of working-class life in Norwich ty? How many proved incompetent? Or had been shaken by the decline in the did some find the competition was too traditional textile manufacturing industries. much and they could not make ends meet By 1876, the two Royal Commissioners, in a low barrelage pub? Does an offer of investigating electoral corruption, report- more attractive employment provide the ed that these staple industries had explanation? Sometimes the explanation been: is clear enough since death may intervene and this has been recorded - publicans … replaced by wholesale shoemaking and did have a higher than average mort- clothing trades, in which labour is very ality.123 Or the register entry may detail low-priced. the perils of falling foul of the law.124 They found that large sections of the poor Brewery or customer disapproval of the population of the city - with estimates publican, financial problems, alternative varying between 2,000 and 7,000 men - employment opportunities, death, or the constituted: hand of the law provide a range of expla- nations for both temporary transfers and … a floating or migratory section, which wan- short-term licence holding. Certainly, dered from ward to ward … and tenement to those who 'couldn't fit in' or 'didn't care for tenement.128 the trade', to use a brewery official's phrases,125 would not remain behind the The 1871 Census had recorded a bar. In order for a publican to act as an Norwich population of 80,386 so these agent for stability, he or she needed to be estimates are a significant part of the accepted by both the customers and the adult male population. Such an official brewery if the pub was 'tied'. They also picture of the city's economic instability needed to be healthy, and sufficiently suggests a milieu in which some of those content with the trade not to seek 'to who aspired to rise from this floating sec- improve his position', again to use the tion of the population would have tried brewery official's phrase.126 It is perhaps their hand at running a pub. Some might unsurprising that many publicans did not have succeeded; others would have satisfy all these criteria - not least failed. In the context of such fluidity in the because there were aspects of urban life labour market, a measure of temporary

Brewery History Number 132 105 and short-term licence holding becomes However, when the forty-three 'unstable' less surprising. pubs and their 334 short-term publicans are deducted from these totals, the Moreover, my analysis of the statistics for resulting figures - 487 pubs with 866 those pubs that had a large number of short-term publicans - produce an aver- short-term publicans indicates that the age of 1.8, a further decline of 0.5. It picture of instability was not all that it seems reasonable to conclude that the seemed. I decided to take the figure of six phenomenon of publican instability was or more short-term publicans between concentrated in only a small number of 1867 and 1893 as indicative of an unsta- Norwich pubs. ble pub and found a total of forty-three such public houses.129 Fifteen of these Does it then follow that these relatively pubs only had no long-term tenants.130 few 'unstable' public houses are located All of the remaining twenty-eight pubs in particular areas of Norwich? Are there had at least one long-term publican, and specific 'trouble-spots' in the city where five of them had two long-term publi- the pubs are evidently not yet acting as cans.131 This way of analysing the statis- agencies of social cohesion and where tics produces a different emphasis from the drinking places and the associated the initial observation that there was a drunken behaviour were actually con- high percentage (42.2%) of short-term tributing to the social disorder? How far publicans. Out of a total of 530, there may the statistics for convictions against were forty-three (8.1%) public houses the licences of publicans support this that experienced a significant measure of idea of pockets of social difficulty that instability as a result of short-term licence were resistant at least for a time to the holding and only fifteen (2.8%) of these general trend towards social cohesion? experienced nothing but the short-term At first sight, it might seem so. Taking the publican. Within these forty-three pubs, fifteen pubs in Table 10, there appears to 334 (28.3%) of the 1,200 short-term pub- be a significant concentration in what can licans are concentrated and produce an be termed the 'western frontier' area of average of 7.8 short-term publicans per Norwich that some contemporaries were pub.132 Over a quarter of the short-term referring to as 'the new city'.133 Forty per publicans are to be found in less than a cent of these pubs were outside the city tenth of the pubs. walls - three pubs were in Heigham, two in Lakenham and one in St. Stephen out- The exceptional nature of this instability side the walls. is made even clearer when the figures for all Norwich are considered. The total of However, appearances can be deceptive. 530 Norwich pubs and the total of 1,200 There had been a very large increase in short-term publicans produce an average the population of Heigham and a large of 2.3 short-term publicans per pub. increase in Lakenham between 1851 and

106 Journal of the Brewery History Society 1881. By 1881, 30,409 (34.6%) of the The 'unstable' and 'difficult' pub was the 87,842 population of Norwich were exception to the general case that the recorded as resident in these two areas. drinking place in Norwich provided regu- Predictably, there had been a related lar contact with a publican who had held increase of fifty-five drinking places in the licence long enough to have become these two suburbs within the same peri- a well-known local figure and therefore a od.134 Given these population and public key character in the process of social house densities, there is less significance cohesion. than might at first seem in 40% of these 'unstable' pubs being outside the city My analysis also suggests that a signifi- walls since over 35% of the population of cant number of those public houses that Norwich were living in the area made up have been categorised as 'unstable' and of Heigham, Lakenham and St. Stephen 'difficult' on the basis of their number of outside the walls. Given the size of both short-term licensees may be viewed dif- the population and the number of public ferently from another perspective. One houses in the 'new city', there does not might expect drunkenness to be more of after all seem to be a significantly large a problem in such drinking places and number of 'unstable' and 'difficult' pubs also their number of convictions against outside the walls. the licence to be higher than elsewhere. However, this would appear to be the Within the walls of Norwich, too, a similar case for around only half of the fifteen conclusion holds. The nine pubs from most 'difficult' pubs and when one takes Table 10 that are in the old city are into account all forty-three pubs with six spread across a range of different parish- or more short-term licence holders es.135 Furthermore, taking the twenty- between 1867 and 1893, less than half of eight pubs in Table 11, a pattern emerges this larger group. Within the group of fif- similar to that in Table 10. Around a third teen, seven pubs have no convictions of these twenty-eight pubs are in the against the licence during these twenty- west, outside the city walls. Eight pubs six years; the other eight, however, share are in Heigham and one - the 'Coach and thirteen convictions (5.7% of the 227 con- Horses' - in St. Stephen outside the walls. victions against the licence in Norwich This concentration, however, is again not between 1867 and 1901). The figures for exceptional given the population and the larger group of forty-three pubs pro- public house density. The remaining vide a similar pattern, albeit more nineteen pubs are also spread across a emphatically. Within this larger group, range of different parishes within the city over a half - twenty-five pubs (58%) - of walls.136 It seems reasonable to con- the forty-three have no convictions; the clude that there were no markedly obvi- other eighteen (42%) share twenty-seven ous areas of publican instability either convictions (11.9% of the total of 227 within or outside the city walls of Norwich. convictions).137 This data indicates that

Brewery History Number 132 107 al ot 30+ 32 32 32 36 31+ 30+ 35+ 33+ 37 30+ 44 42 32+ 34 31+ 32+ 42 36 34+ Nos of yrs T pre 1867 - 1896 1887 - 1918 1885 - 1916 1872 - 1903 1881 - 1916 pre 1867 - 1897 pre 1867 - 1896 pre 1867 - 1901 pre 1867 - 1899 1885 - 1921 pre 1867 - 1896 1882 - 1925 1868 - 1909 pre 1867 - 1989 1872 - 1905 pre 1867 - 1897 pre 1867 - 1989 1878 - 1919 pre 1867 - 1900 pre 1867 - 1886 - 1921 holding period License - License Andrew t ./ Ann / Bullard from 1873 oungs from 1893 Y Bullard from 1895 Churchwardens of S Barker / Lacon from 1895 oungs oungs / / Lacon from c 1895 Miss Burrows / Morgan Morgan Seaman / Grimmer Y S & P John Boswell & Son John Barker / Y John Boswell & Son Morgan S & P Fred Brown & Son S & P S & P Charles Pigg Seaman / Grimmer S & P Bullard Bullard Ownership t ombland T tephen tephen Andrew Andrew t. Clement t. Michael Coslany t. Peter Mancrof t. S t. t. Saviour t. S t. Martin Oak t. George t. Julian t. Peter Mountergate t. Peter Southgate t. t. Giles t. George Colegate t. Clement Heigham S S S S S S Heigham S S S S S S S S S Thorpe S Heigham Parish Arms avern Army Arms / T tores Arms Arms Arms Angel avern T avern / T Arms Railway & Navy S uns Kimberley Jack of Newbury Hot Pressers Duke of Sussex T Hope Brewery Globe Elm Crown Fellmongers Club House Grocers Cock Cellar House City Cock Cellar House Bishopbridge Inn Bishopbridge Bull Inn Black Horse Public House Public iddows field Thurlow ebsdale ench uf T orledge T Alfred Hall illiam right Jarrett Leuwinson George Boswell Dowson Russell Frederick W Thomas Daynes James John & Henry Henry Whiting Elizabeth John W Henry W James W Robert Page John Clarke Charles W James Peacock Edward Christmas James Hobrugh Samuel Henry George Learner Publican

108 Journal of the Brewery History Society 32 38+ 33+ 33+ 31+ 35+ 34 41 37 35 40 37+ 30 40 36 34+ 40 30 30 33 34 36 42+ 40 33 1 1889 - 1920 pre 1867 - 1904 pre 1867 - 1899 pre 1867 - 1899 pre 1867 - 1897 pre 1867 - 1901 1868 - 1908 1885 - 1918 1879 - 1915 1886 - 1920 1872 - 191 1889 - 1925 1872 - 1901 1873 - 1912 1880 - 1915 1892 - 1925 1869 - 1908 1885 - 1914 1894 - 1923 1875 - 1907 1880 - 1913 1875 - 1910 1875 - 1925 1884 1883 - 1922 1893 - 1925 Anguish Charity arkes / p rustees of Lacon from 1900 Morgan from 1890 T oungs oungs from 1873 oungs / Wm Livock / oungs S & P Edward S Philip Back Philip Back Y Henry Brown Bullard Bullard George Harman Morgan from 1873 S & P Y S & P Seaman / Grimmer / S & P S & P Bullard Y Norwich Corn Hall Co. Bullard from 1890 Bullard S & P S & P Y S & P t ombland ombland Thorn T T imberhill T Andrew t. Clement t. Peter Mancrof t. George t. George Colegate t. Swithin t. t. Peter Mountergate t. Paul t. Peter Mountergate t. Martin Oak t. Michael t. Martin Oak t. Clement t. George t. John Maddermarket t. John t. Gregory t. Martin Oak t. Martin Heigham S S S Thorpe S Heigham S S S Heigham S S S S S Heigham S S Lakenham S S S Hellesdon s / ault avern T avern ar s S t T alley Albert Arms avern T Apple fin ineyard ine pread Eagle / Eagle t. Christopher t. Faiths New Corn Exchange King George wo Quart en Bells The Shuttles V Grif T V Ship T S S S Swan Great Eastern Hotel Royal Oak Rose V Prince Queen Caroline Pine Old Lobster / Beaufort Hotel Old Lobster / Beaufort Park Corn Exchange V King of Prussia / Prussia / King of Lion & Castle King's King's Morning S Mile Cross illiam Blyth illiam Godsall illiam James illiam alter George alter George Boswell Deacon Greenacre Kelf Sadd Desborough Robert Brown James Freeman (Philip Back) * James Cooper (Philip Back) * Michael Rout Henry Brown Horace Campling George Harman Oscar Farrow John Cook W Charles Brown James Joseph Maria Coleman James Utting W Ebenezer Earl John Money Alfred Seaman John Barrett John Henry Roll W W Edward

Brewery History Number 132 109 48+ 33 36 32 42 31+ 45 31+ 44 31+ 30 1886 - 1918 1878 - 1925 1883 - 1914 1878 - 1913 1883 - 1924 1883 pre 1867 - 1897 pre 1867 - 1880 - 1924 1897 pre 1867 - 1878 - 1921 pre 1867 - 1897 1878 - 1907 1878 artner oungs from 1873 oungs from ild ain / Y illiam Henry Smith W Bullard from 1900 Bullard oungs oungs Y S & P Y James Chamberlain and Morgan Henry Carter's p Henry Bullard Morgan / Morgan Edward W Mrs Fount ictuallers Licences. t Thorn imberhill T tephen tephen t. James t. John t. S t. Paul t. John Maddermarket t. Michael t. Peter Mancrof t. Clement t. S t. Saviour S Thorpe S S S S S S S S s S avern T ictuallers Licences; Second Register of V ault ack Inn illiam IV illiam ine V oolp Swan W Coach & Horses W White Horse White Lion Mischief Monument House Plough Inn Monument House W ild al no. of pubs = 56 al no. of publicans = 56 Chamberlain Baldwin able 16. Norwich publicans who held a pub licence for 30 years or more, 1867 - 1925. able 16. Norwich publicans who held a pub ot ot Henry Fitt George Squires Samuel Sullivan 52 male - 92.9% 4 female - 7.1% T Sources. First Register of V George Beverley Beverley George George Gibson Emily Randall T Henry Cooper James Eliza Coe Edward W (*) Owned by Back, managed by other (*) Owned by Back, managed T Henry Carter Henry

110 Journal of the Brewery History Society the presence of at least one long-term wide variations between the four main licence holder in these 'unstable' and breweries of Norwich in terms of avoiding 'difficult' public houses did make it less publican instability and police charges. likely that they would face convictions Morgan - the firm with the least public against the licence. It also suggests that houses139 - was likely to have had an within this exceptional group of forty- unenviable reputation for owning pubs three pubs, there is a significant variant in with a high turnover of publicans. 'instability and 'difficulty' with only a hard- Eighteen of the seventy-nine pubs they core of less than twenty drinking places owned in 1893 - nearly a quarter - were having faced police charges. among the forty-three most 'unstable' pubs in Norwich. None of the other three If, as seems to be the case, the great breweries approach this number; all have majority of publicans and drinking places a figure of less than ten per cent for 'diffi- were helping bring communities closer cult' pubs in their ownership. There are, together, this was clearly in the interests however, variations between these of the group who owned the majority of remaining three. In the case of Youngs, the pubs of Norwich - the city's four main nine (9.2%) of the ninety-eight pubs they breweries: Steward and Patteson, owned in 1893 were among the forty- Bullard, Youngs, and Morgan. As busi- three 'difficult pubs, whereas Steward ness enterprises, it was in their financial and Patteson have relatively fewer - nine interest to try to ensure that their proper- (6.5%) of their 138 pubs are in this group. ty did not suffer from a high turnover of But most striking of all, none of the 118 licence holders or from a reputation for public houses owned by Bullard in 1893 being a disorderly house that allowed appear as 'unstable'.140 drunkenness. Tenants who served long periods in one pub and who did not fall Is the success of Bullard in avoiding pub- foul of the police were likely to produce lican turnover due to better management more profit for the brewery. There is there- skills? Did they have a better selection fore a direct connection between the role process with more effective interviews? of the publicans and the public houses in How far were they able to attract the best helping the development of more stable candidates because of their own reputa- communities and the financial interest of tion as the Norwich brewery that was the breweries. Breweries, too, can be expanding most rapidly, yet with firm seen as agents of social cohesion.138 foundations based on an established pat- tern of long-serving publicans? Bullard Nevertheless, an analysis of the brewery had increased its ownership of pubs by ownership of the forty-three 'unstable and 63.6% in the twenty-six years from 1867 'difficult' pubs, and in particular of the to 1893 - from seventy-five to 118.141 hard-core of eighteen that had faced Prior to 1867, it is clear from the surviving police charges suggests that there were papers that longevity in licence holding

Brewery History Number 132 111 al ot 59+ 43+ 43 41 55+ 53+ 59+ 59+ 37+ 34 59+ 43+ Nos of yrs 47 59+ T 39+ 31+ 39+ 34 48+ pre 1867 - 1925 pre 1867 - pre 1867 - 1909 1871 - 1913 1882 - 1922 pre 1867 - 1921 pre 1867 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1919 pre 1867 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1903 1887 - 1920 pre 1867 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1909 holding period 1879 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1925 pre 1867 - License - License pre 1867 - 1897 pre 1867 - 1905 pre 1867 - 1905 1888 - 1921 1878 - 1925 ford / raf T 1887 t Martin at Oak armouth Lacon c1895 S & P S Y oungs oungs Back Bullard Bullard S & P Barwell Roll Barwell S & P Y S & P Edward Barker / Back Back Ownership Churchwardens at Bullard S & P Y Barber & Co. t t Thorn s tephen Andrew ombland t. Peter Mancrof t. Michael t. Paul t. S t. t. Martin Oak t. Martin Oak t. Julian t. Julian t. Peter Mancrof t. George t. Martin Oak t. James t. Swithin T S Thorpe S S S S S Heigham S S S Lakenham S S Parish S All Saint S S Lakenham Arms * Arms Arms avern avern Arms * T Arms T Arms fin * swich ine * / Railway uns * Bishopbridge Inn * V Carpenters Cat & Fiddle Duke of Sussex * T Dun Cow Earl of Cardigan Fellmonger Nursery Green Man Grocers Ip Adelphi Grif Public House Public Farriers Kings Head New Brewery Kings Alice illiam to Ann to Ann to Albert Ann to illiam Ann to George atling illiam illiam illiam to John & Bertrum John & Bertrum Edward W W W Martha French Selina W James to James Samuel Philip to Philip Edward Philip to Philip James to Maria James to Leonard to John & Henry George to John & Henry George John & Henry George to John & Henry George Samuel to Mary Edward to Mary John to Sarah Frances Robert to Robert to Mary W James to Ernest Robert to Mary Philip to Philip Edward Philip to Philip Philip to Philip Edward Philip to Philip Family members Family John French to Joseph to Elizabeth Mary Elizabeth to W John to John orledge ebsdale pratt Hobrugh S (Back) (X) Morris Barwell Barwell Smith Roll W Allen W Nelson Fuller (Back) (X) (Back) (X) Surname Calver Lemmon Darby Jolly

112 Journal of the Brewery History Society 59+ 53 40 57 41+ 56 55+ 59+ 35 41+ 34+ pre 1867 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1873 - 1925 1868 - 1907 1869 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1907 1870 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1921 pre 1867 - 1925 1891 - 1925 pre 1867 - 1907 pre 1867 - 1900 pre 1867 ain / Bullard c1900 oungs oungs Bullard Y Bullard S & P Bullard Morgan Brown Y Bullard Mrs Fount Bullard t t Thorn Thorn tephen t. Michael t. Peter t. Benedict t. Paul t. Michael t. Swithin t. Peter Mancrof t. S t. Peter Mancrof t. Peter Mountergate S S S S S S Heigham S Pockthorpe S S ictuallers Licences. Albert * sman Theatre Theatre avern illiam IV illiam IV * t. Christopher * t. Christopher port Hotel * T en Bells Prince Great Eastern Great Eastern Benedict White Lion * S Plough Inn * T S W W Old able 16) T Thomas Ann to illiam Herbert Henry Herbert ictuallers Licences, Second Register of V illiam to Maria to illiam to Maria illiam to W illiam to Emily the younger Richard Eliza Jane Robert to Leah & back to Robert Robert to Leah & back Ann Maria W W James to Agnes James to Leonard to George and Leonard to Mark to Edward to Henry to Henry George Samuel to Samuel James to Mary Robert to George Beverley W Samuel to Susan to to Susan Samuel ard arred pubs (*) have already been recorded in arred pubs (*) have already been recorded in able 17. Norwich publican families who held a licence for 30 years or more, 1867 - 1925. able 17. Norwich publican families who held T Sources. First Register of V Coleman Blyth Carter Harman Coe Brown Browne (X) Owned by Back, managed by others. (X) Owned by Back, managed St W Baldwin Randall King

Brewery History Number 132 113 was already an established feature of profit could lead to publican stability and Bullard as an institution.142 Reputations therefore contribute to social cohesion; tend to stick; inertia becomes a factor of only one brewery - Morgan - seems to significance. It seems likely that the name have been less successful in meeting this of Bullard would have been associated criteria of business effectiveness. The with 'good' pubs; the name of Morgan - in analysis that follows shows that even this addition to its connection with sportsmen limited degree of publican instability was and pugilists in particular - would have subject to significant improvements in been coupled with those pubs that were stability in the last couple of decades of 'difficult'.143 Fifteen of the twenty-seven the Victorian period. police convictions against licences - over a half - are linked to pubs bearing the It is a remarkable fact that a considerable name of Morgan.144 Was there, perhaps, number of the forty-three pubs with a a connection between the high rate of high turnover of publicans between 1867 convictions and the association with the and 1893 experienced a period of publi- sport of fighting? Did the Morgan pub can stability at the end of the Victorian name attract the more aggressive era. This shift to greater stability began in drinkers and those landlords less able to some cases in the late 1880s and was deal effectively with the local police force generally evident in the 1890s. The evi- or their own customers? dence for this development comes from the Second Register of Victuallers My argument so far in this chapter has Licences that runs from 1894 to 1925. My been that publican instability was a phe- analysis of this document indicated that nomenon limited to only a small number some of those publicans in these forty- of Norwich pubs and that these few drink- three pubs categorised as short-term or ing places were not concentrated in par- medium-term in the analysis of the first ticular 'difficult' areas. Furthermore, less Register continued as the resident publi- than a half of these few 'unstable' pubs can and should be re-categorised as ever faced police charges against the long-term publicans. Most of the other licence between 1867 and 1893; high publicans in these forty-three pubs, who turnover figures for licence holders did are first recorded in the second Register, not necessarily mean such pubs became hold the licence for seven years or more, associated with the kind of drunkenness and so beyond 1901 and into the and disorder that led to police charges. Edwardian period.145 The great majority of publicans were act- ing as agents of social cohesion, and so Taking the fifteen pubs in Table 10, the too were the breweries. Considering the data from the second Register indicates four main breweries of Norwich, Bullard that eleven (73.3%) of these fifteen drink- stands out as an exemplar of how good ing places began to experience publican business management in the pursuit of stability through having a long-term

114 Journal of the Brewery History Society licence holder during this late-Victorian The case for the publican's social influ- and, in some cases, early-Edwardian ence becomes even more compelling period. In two of these eleven pubs there when the data is interrogated with a focus were two periods of long-term licence on those long-term publicans who held holding. Taking the twenty-eight pubs in the licence for seven years or more at Table 11, the data from the second any of the 530 houses that were licensed Register indicates that there were twenty- continuously during the twenty-seven two drinking places (78.6%) that had a years of the first Register (1867-1893). long-term licence holder during this same Each of these public houses had none, period. In one of these twenty-two pubs one, two, or a maximum of three such there were two periods of long-term pub- long-term licence holders during such a lican licence holding.146 A remarkable period. In fact, there were twelve public shift towards greater stability is evident in houses that had the maximum of three thirty-three - over three-quarters - of this such long-term licensees, 201 public group of forty-three most 'difficult' pubs in houses that had two long-term licensees Norwich during the late-Victorian and during this period, and 284 houses where early-Edwardian period. there was one long-term licensee. A small number of these 284 publicans remained Explaining such an improvement in sta- licence holders throughout this period of bility of licence holding on such a scale is over a quarter-century and it is these indi- not straightforward and needs to take into vidual cases of longevity in the licensed account both developments in Norwich trade that will now be examined. Before and national trends.147 It does seem, doing so, however, it is worth noting that however, to support the proposition that these figures leave only thirty-three pub- publicans may be expected to serve long lic houses (6.2%) of the total of 530 with- periods as licensees in those optimum out at least one period of stable, long- social and market conditions that all par- term stewardship by a publican between ties had an interest in achieving. 1867 and 1893. Furthermore, if the evi- Brewers, publicans, police and urban dence from the second Register is also elite, the drinkers too: all had something considered only eight public houses to gain from orderly drinking places run (1.5%) of these 530 houses are left with- by known characters. In Norwich, by the out the experience of long-term licence end of the Victorian period, even the holding between 1867 and 1901.148 putative 'difficult' pubs had 'settled down'; over time, it seems, nearly all pubs will I further reasoned that my argument tend to have publicans who serve long- would be strengthened still more if there term periods as licence holders, as one were publicans who presided behind the would expect if they indeed do have a same bar not only for seven years or social function as agencies of social more but also for a generation or beyond. cohesion and stability. Having adopted this new criterion of thir-

Brewery History Number 132 115 Area Parish No. of pubs in which publicans or publican families held a licence for 30 years or more

North of the St. Martin Oak 6 River Wensum St. Paul 3 St. Saviour 2 (9) St. James 2 Total = 23 St. Clement 5 St. Michael Coslany 1 St. George Colegate 2 Pockthorpe 1 Hellesdon 1

West of the City,St. Benedict 1 within and without St. Swithin 2 the walls St. Giles 1 Total = 19 St. Stephen 4 (6) Heigham 8 Lakenham 3

Centre of the City St. Peter Mancroft 6 St. Andrew 3 (7) St. George Tombland 3 St. John Timberhill 2 Total = 20 St. Gregory 1 St. John Maddermarket 2 St. Michael Thorn 3

South and East All Saints 1 of the City Thorpe 3 St. Peter Southgate 1 Total = 10 (5) St. John Mountergate 3 St. Julian 2

No. of Parishes = 27 / 43 Total No. of Pubs = 72

Table 18. Norwich parishes in which publicans or publican families held a licence for 30 years or more, 1867 - 1925.

Sources. First Register of Victuallers Licences, Second Register of Victuallers Licences. (See also Tables 16 and 17 from which the above table is drawn)

116 Journal of the Brewery History Society ty years or more for longevity in licence ty in family licence holding to add to the holding, I found that fifty-six public hous- fifty-six pubs linked to individual publi- es (10.6%) of the total of 530 that were cans resident for thirty years or more. For licensed continuously during the period of seventy-two drinking places - over one in the first Register (1867-1893) were asso- ten pubs in Norwich - to have had the ciated with a publican who had held the same licensee or same family as licence for a generation or more, beyond licensees for a generation or more does 1893 and in many cases extending into indeed seem powerful evidence for the the first decades of the twentieth centu- case. ry.149 Moreover, it was also clear from the Registers that there were some publican The effects of such stabilising influences families, the members sharing the same would have been felt across all Norwich. surname, whose combined licence hold- These seventy-two public houses were ing also spanned a generation or more at spread across the parishes of Norwich.151 the same pub.150 Discounting the fifteen Twenty-seven parishes (62.8%) of the pubs that had already appeared in Table total number of forty-three have at least 16, there were still another sixteen public one such public house within their bound- houses associated with extreme longevi- aries, acting as a cohesive force within

Ownership No. of pubs (at the end of the period of 30 years)

S & P 18 Bullard 16 = 52 (72.2%) Youngs 11 Morgan 7

Other Breweries 3 (4.2%)

Free-house / Licensee 11 (15.3%)

Free-house / other than Licensee 6 (8.3%)

Total No. of pubs = 72

Table 19. The ownership of public houses in which the licence was held for 30 years or more by publicans or publican families, 1867 - 1925.

Sources. First Register of Victuallers Licences, Second Register of Victuallers Licences. (See also Tables 16 and 17 from which the above table is drawn).

Brewery History Number 132 117 ears 9 40 17 66 years 34 14 37 9 48 years 30 14 46 years 44 years 23 9 12 44 years 32 8 Y 40 years 18 13 10 41 years al = al = al = al = al = al = al = ot ot ot ot ot ot ot 1859 - 1868 1868 - 1908 1908 - 1925 T License- holding 1853 - 1887 1887 - 1901 T 1863 - 1900 1900 - 1909 T 1846 - 1876 1876 - 1890 T 1855 - 1878 1878 - 1887 1888 - 1900 T 1847 - 1879 1880 - 1887 T Period of - Period 1864 - 1882 1882 - 1895 1895 - 1905 T illiam Ann Ann Maria illiam illiam illiam Henry , Robert , Mary , W Coleman, W Coleman, Maria Coleman, Amies, John Amies, Harry Hobrough, James Hobrough, James Samuel Crowe, Edward Crowe, Emily King, Samuel King, Susan King, Herbert Henry Fuller Drage, W Drage, W Family Fuller Fuller 1859 Agrree- ment 1853 1863 1846 1855 1864 1847 Date of Date t Thorn s tephen t. Michael t. S t. Swithin t. Peter Mancrof t. Martin Palace S S Thorpe S S All Saint S Location Theatre Arms Albert orlds End swich Prince The Hoop Bishop Bridge Inn The Balloon The Old Ip Public House Public 1 2 3 4 5 6 (a) Families 7 W

118 Journal of the Brewery History Society 11 12 6 5 5 28 years 28 years 23 17 24 3 1 20 13 20 23 years 25 years 14 33 years 7 16 4 21 years 4 20 years 27 years al = al = al = al = al = al = al = al = 1888 ot ot ot ot ot ot ot ot 1873 - 1884 T 1867 - 1879 1879 - 1885 1885 - 1890 1890 - 1895 T 1865 - 1888 1856 - 1873 1862 - 1886 1878 - 1881 T 1886 - 1887 T 1845 - 1865 1845 - 1878 1865 T 1858 - 1878 1846 - 1860? 1860? - 1867 T 1843 - 1859 1859 - 1863 T 1888 - 1892 T Ann illiam Ann illiam , John , illiam Thomas s, s, Sarah illis, W illis, George ynes, W ynes, Martha ynes, Charles oods, James Matthew oods, James oods, Robert att att Paul, W Paul, Claudine Paul, George Paul, Mary W W W W W Severn, Samuel Severn, Samuel Severn, W Mackley Mackley W W W Fish, Miles Fish, John 1867 1858 1845 1846 1851 1854 1855 1843 tephen t. Paul t. George t. S Heigham Heigham Colegate S Heigham Pockthorpe S S Eaton avern T avern Arms T ellington t. Pauls t. Pauls The Half Moon Allies Lord Nelson Marquis Granby Cricketers Cellar House W 10 11 8 S 14 13 9 15 12

Brewery History Number 132 119 3 19 years 11 7 6 6 10 18 years 6 12 years 1 9* 16 years 10 years 16 15 years 19 2 21 years 4 11 14 5 19 years al = al = al = al = al = al = al = al = ot ot ot ot ot ot ot ot 1879 - 1882 T 1847 - 1858 1858 - 1865 T 1861 - 1867 1867 - 1873 T 1867 - 1877 1877 - 1883 T 1857 - 1858 1858 - 1867 T 1863 - 1879 1853 - 1872 1853 - 1874 1872 T 1874 - 1878 1878 - 1889 T 1853 - 1867 1867 - 1872 T illiam . Ann illiam Ann Thomas Thomas W , Jeremiah , Mary , Charles , John incent, Susanna incent, Daniel Norton, Henry Norton, Henry Jnr Daniels, Daniels, Mary Cox, Edmund Cox, Mary Oster Oster V Cooper Cooper Clarke, Clarke, Susan Thurton, W Thurton, Elizabeth V 1847 1861 1867 1857 1853 1853 1853 1855 t tephen ictuallers Licences t. Edmund t. John t. Peter Mancrof t. Peter t. Julian t. Julian t. John t. S S S Maddermarket S S Mountergate S S S Maddermarket S avern T ales ree Shades Arms T fice avern ant Horse T alnut ine Ramp W Prince of W V Post Of Keel & Wherry Keel & Keel & Wherry Curriers 19 20 22 21 * No further evidence in First Register of V 17 16a 16b 18

120 Journal of the Brewery History Society ears 12 + 12 + 12 13 13 + 13 13 15 14 + 15 16 17 + 17 20 20 18 22 19 22 21 27 Y 25 27 29 29 41 42 40 32 33 1855 - 1867 1855 - 1867 1855 - 1867 1854 - 1867 1854 - 1867 1866 - 1879 1849 - 1862 1855 - 1870 1853 - 1867 1858 - 1873 1844 - 1860 1850 - 1867 1849 - 1866 1867 - 1887 1867 - 1887 1865 - 1883 1845 - 1867 1866 - 1885 1845 - 1867 1863 - 1884 1855 - 1882 Period of - Period 1844 - 1869 1863 - 1896 1856 - 1885 1864 - 1893 License- holding 1867 - 1908 1849 - 1891 1857 - 1897 1858 - 1890 1861 - 1894 illiam illiam illiam illiam illiam , Charles Thomas illiam , Thomas illiam , John s, W , Henry , James igg, Edward oods, John argroom, John tone, Edward rue, W upman, W aylor Chapman, John Hewitt, George Calver Mackney Cooper Potter T W Hogg, Henry T Ulph, James Cubitt, Rix, W T Edwards, W W Sweetman, Henry Knight Larkman, Robert George, John Minns, Susanna St Individual Daniels, Jon Fox, John Hewitt, John Rout, Michael Burrows, W Gibson, George S Skoyles, W 1855 1855 1854 1855 1854 1866 1853 1849 1855 1855 1844 1850 1849 1867 1857 1864 1845 1845 1766 1855 1855 1844 Date of Date 1843 1856 1854 Agrree- ment 1854 1849 1850 1857 1855 ombland Thorn Thorn Thorn T imberhill T tephen tephen tephen tephen Augustine Augustine t. S t. S t. Miles t. John t. Martin Oak t. Gregory t. Swithin t. Benedict t. Paul t. Paul t. Michael t. Saviour t. Michael t. Michael t. Gregory t. t. Peter Mountergate t. t. Gregory t. S t. S t. George t. Peter Southgate S S S S S S S S S Heigham Pockthrope S S S Heigham S S S S S S Location S Eaton Heigham S S Thorpe S S Heigham avern avern avern Arms ar T T avern T t T Arms Arms Arms uns avern ag T T Arms avern t wo Brewers T T est End Retreat ine Red Lion Anchor Brewery Shop Gardeners Exmouth Fanciers / Old Crown Morning S Dyers The S The Rose Jolly Gardeners Three The Thorn Exhibition White Horse Boarded House Alexandra Sussex V Duke of Sussex Public House Public Red Rose The Eagle Cellar House Little John Duncan White Horse The Ship Coopers The Golden Lion 30 29 27 28 26 25 23 24 22 21 20 19 16 15 18 12 17 13a 14a 10 (b) Individuals 11 9 * 8 7 1 3 2 4 W 6a 5

Brewery History Number 132 121 1 + 1 + 7 + 7 7 8 7 7 8 8 9 + 9 9 9 9 9 10 + 10 10 1 11 1 s, 1843-1867'; First Register of . 1860 - 1867 1867 - 1874 1867 - 1874 1857 - 1865 1855 - 1862 1850 - 1857 1854 - 1862 1855 - 1863 1858 - 1867 1858 - 1867 1858 - 1867 1855 - 1864 1855 - 1864 1859 - 1868 1857 - 1867 1862 - 1872 1854 - 1864 1856 - 1867 1856 1851 - 1862 1851 1856 - 1867 1856 illiam illiam Thomas , John , , John Thomas , James yatt, John oungs, Peter Matthews, John Y Parry Mackley Marshall, Joseph Doughty Freestone, W Seeley Nobbs, Henry Nobbs, Edward Curson, W High, George Kent, Anderson, Clement W Ransome, Dennis Ransome, Hubbard, Henry Bloomfield, George Bloomfield, Green, John Green, Daynes, Henry Daynes, s with public house tenant 1852 1867? 1867 1857 1849 1850 1854 1855 1858 1856 1858 1855 1855 1855 1857 1862 1854 1856 1851 1856 t ombland T tephen tephen tephen tephen ictuallers Licences Augustine Augustine ictuallers Licences. t. Benedict t. John Sepulchre t. t. S t. James t. Gregory t. t. George Colegate t. Michael Coslany t. George t. Michael Oak t. S t. Simon and Jude t. Peter Mancrof t. Peter t. S t. S S S S S S S S S S S S Heigham S Pockthorpe S Heigham Heigham S S S Anchor Brewery Norwich: Schedule of agreement aken as a period of seven years or more; assed, through a Section 14 grant on the death of the existing licence-holder assed, through a Section 14 grant on the death avern 1, 'The T s ar t Arms Arms Arms Thistle Arms avern Adelaide ault avern T avern T T ine V ellington ine (2) 'Families' is a category for those who share the same name and are clearly related and between whom the licence is either (2) 'Families' is a category for those who share transferred or p (1) 'Long-term' is t Rose & Richmond Hill Queen White Horse Jolly Gardeners (see 14a above) Sussex (see 13a above) V W Rose Brewers Coopers (see 6a above) Perserverance The Old S Light Horseman Eagle W Black Horse The Dove Norwich Norwich Back Shop Back This public house also appears in the (a) Families list. This public house also appears in the (a) Families ictuallers Licences; Second Register of V ables 20 a and b. Long-term licence-holders (1) at Bullards' public houses, 1843 - 1867, (a) Families(2) and (b) Individuals ables 20 a and b. Long-term licence-holders Sources. NRO, BR3/1 V T + No further evidence in First Register of V * 47 46 43 44 45 13b 14b *42 38 41 6b 37 40 39 36 35 34 33 31 32

122 Journal of the Brewery History Society the currents of urban social mobility. Norwich drink industry that played a sig- There is a fairly even distribution between nificant part, too, in the development of those parishes north of the river (with communities. twenty-three such pubs), those parishes in the centre (with twenty), and those in The question that remains to be dis- the west (with nineteen). In this western cussed concerns the point in the area, thirteen of these nineteen public Victorian period when these patterns of houses are located outside the city walls, longevity and stability become apparent. eight in Heigham, three in Lakenham, The Registers themselves can only shed and a couple in St. Stephen outside the light on the later decades of the reign. city walls. This one might expect given From their evidence it is clear that in each the high density of population and the of the first three decades covered by the correspondingly large number of pubs in Registers a significant number of public the areas comprising the 'new city'. houses begin their association with an Nevertheless, it is still significant that an individual publican or publican family. area that had had experienced such Thirty public houses (41.7%) of the total rapid expansion and social mobility of seventy-two were first linked with a should have as many publicans serving publican or publican family in the 1860s for a generation or more. or before. Sixteen public houses (22.2%) began their link in the 1870s, and twenty- The brewers of Norwich, too, shared in two public houses (30.6%) in the 1880s. the benefits of such remarkable longevity It is only with the decade of the 1890s in licence holding, the division of such that the figure drops dramatically to four pubs between the main four breweries public houses (5.5%) and this must be being approximately proportionate to due largely to the traumatic effects of their share of the total number of public World War One.154 houses.152 In this respect, Morgan does not emerge in the poor light it did with However, the pattern before the 1860s is respect to 'unstable' and 'difficult' pubs unclear and in this context the survival of within its stock.153 Steward and Patteson so many of the records of the Bullard leads with eighteen, closely followed by Anchor brewery has been particularly for- Bullard with sixteen such pubs, and tunate. An examination of one of these Youngs with eleven and Morgan with Bullard sources, covering the twenty-five seven complete the list. Together these years from 1843 to 1867, indicated that four breweries account for nearly three- an extraordinary number of this brewery's quarters of the ownership of such ultra- public houses were linked with long-term stable public houses. However, it is note- licence holding.155 By using the Bullard worthy that free houses still account for source with the two Registers of nearly a quarter of the total. There was a Victuallers Licences from 1867 to 1925, I strong independent retail sector in the could trace the continuous history of

Brewery History Number 132 123

Figure 8. The location by parish of Bullard public houses with long-term licence holders, individuals or families, who began their service between 1843 - 1867.

Source. NRO, BR3/11, 'The Anchor Brewery Norwich: Schedule of agreements with public house tenants, 1843-1867'

124 Journal of the Brewery History Society licence holding at Bullard public houses twenty-eight parishes represented other for around three-quarters of a century, than in Heigham and St. Stephen, with covering nearly all the Victorian period. It the former having a particularly high pop- was clear, as in the later period already ulation and therefore more pubs than analysed, that families as well as individ- other parishes.158 Instead, there seems uals had their identifiable patterns of to be general stability and longevity of longevity as licence holders and I there- service throughout the Bullard stock with- fore drew up separate sections for these in Norwich. In these circumstances, an two categories within the table.156 explanation for the profitability of the brewery and its capacity to expand is not There were twenty-three families who hard to find. In 1845, it had thirty-one had served for seven years of more and public houses; in 1867, the number had between them they produced a total of increased to seventy-five, and in 1893, it 664 years of licence holding, that is an had reached 118. Stable tenancies pro- average of around thirty years service for vided regular and dependable quarterly each of the twenty-two public houses with rental payments to the brewery as well as which they were connected. Fifty individ- popular and profitable pubs. Bullard were uals had been long-term licence holders reaping the rewards of their own effective and between them they produced a total management practices throughout the of 825 years of licence holding, that is an Victorian period.159 average of 17.6 years service at each of the forty-seven public houses with which If other breweries may not have matched they were linked. Since two public hous- this Bullard success, it would seem sur- es appear on both the lists of individuals prising if their public houses did not expe- and families, there is a total of sixty- rience some measure of longevity in seven Bullard drinking places where licence holding during the same period. It long-term licence holding began between would therefore seem reasonable to 1843 and 1867. With seventy-five Bullard conclude that a case for the existence of pubs recorded in 1867, this figure repre- significant long-term licence holding in sents a high proportion of the Bullard Norwich throughout much of the Victorian stock of public houses in Norwich. An period can be made. Furthermore, it was exact calculation is not possible since clearly in the interests of all the breweries some of the periods of long-term tenancy to encourage this trend and develop the had occurred before 1867 and some after management skills that Bullard, in partic- but nevertheless the extent of long-term ular, demonstrated. tenancy associated with the Bullard brewery is remarkable.157 The presumption underlying the argu- ment in this chapter has been that the There seems to be no particular concen- longer the length of licence holding, the tration of such long-term service in the more important becomes the role of the

Brewery History Number 132 125 publican as an agent of social cohesion. Norwich - Thompson, L.P. (1947) Norwich This proposition seems reasonable but is Inns. Harrison & Sons: Ipswich, and Young, likely to remain less than fully grounded J.R. (1975) The Inns and Taverns of Old for the lack of substantive qualitative Norwich. Wensum Books: Norwich - both data. Nevertheless, the quantitative data acknowledge their indebtedness to Wicks' presented in this chapter points not only work and provide little new material. to the significance of the publican in the 5. Girouard, M. (1984) Victorian Pubs. Yale: social landscape of the urban community New Haven and London. but also the importance of the brewer 6. ibid. p. 2. who supplied the publican and controlled 7. See Appendix 1 for the mapping of some so many of the parameters of his life as of these streets and the density of their drink- employer and perhaps, in addition, mag- ing places. istrate, Watch committee member, and 8. See Appendix 3, for some of these surviv- politician. ing photographs. Also see above, chapter 3 and Fig. 6 for the popularity of billiards. 9. Girouard, M. (1984) op. cit. p. 4. References 10. See Appendix 1. Also see above Table 8, for evidence for this differential in profitability 1. Clark, P. (1983) The English Alehouse: A from the range of Steward and Patteson public Social History 1200-1830. Longman: London, houses in 1894. p.4, and Jennings, P. (1995) The Public House 11. Girouard, M. (1984) op. cit. p. 7. in Bradford, 1770-1970. Keele University 12. Jennings, P. (1995) op. cit. pp. 161-162 Press: Keele, p. 16, both emphasise the value and Riley, R.C. and Eley, P. (1983) Public of a research methodology that utilises a vari- Houses and Beerhouses in Nineteenth ety of sources. Century Portsmouth. The Portsmouth Papers, 2. The annual dinner of the Norwich and No.38, p. 13. For Norwich, see above chapter Norfolk Licensed Victuallers Association, for 1. example, was held at the Norfolk Hotel - see 13. Jennings, P. (1995) op. cit. p.54. below, chapter. 5. 14. ibid. p. 213. 3. Wicks used these newspapers in the com- 15. ibid. p. 205. pilation of his volume. I made use of the EDP 16. ibid. pp. 206-207. and the NM in the EDP Library in Norwich as I 17. ibid. p. 210. researched particular issues in the period. 18. See below, chapter 9. Wicks, W. (1925) Inns and Taverns of Old 19. Jennings, P. (1995) op. cit. pp. 210-211. Norwich (with Notes on Pleasure Gardens). 20. Riley, R.C. and Eley, P. (1983) op. cit. p. Page Bros: Norwich. 11. 4. Hawkins was a sociologist based at 21. ibid. p. 11. The lack of alternative public Toynbee Hall in London; Wicks a Norwich resi- buildings is a critical factor in explaining the dent. Two other books that have been pub- social importance of the public house and lished more recently on the drinking places of beerhouse. Workingmen's clubs and societies,

126 Journal of the Brewery History Society and coroners' inquests, required this available 26. ibid. p. 11-12. space. Martin Daunton's analysis of the fund- 27. ibid. p. 101-102. ing crisis in Victorian local government (see 28. ibid. pp. 60-61. Entries from the First below, chapter 3) offers an important insight Register of Victuallers Licences have estab- into the reasons for the continuing depend- lished the length the licence was held and the ence on the public space provided by the pub- ownership of public houses, in this instance lic house. Girouard, Victorian Pubs, p. 9, noted and in other cases. with reference to London: 'Almost all pubs had 29. ibid. pp. 104-105; Thompson, L.P. (1947) one or more public rooms, often of very large op. cit. pp. 53-54; Young, J.R. (1975) op. cit. p. size, up on the first floor or tacked on to one 33. side'. In Norwich, at least one in ten of the 30. The brewery family of Morgan therefore licensed premises had space for billiards (see owned the public houses of Norwich's leading below, chapter 3), although the extent to which rival publicans-cum-political 'minders' for over brewers enlarged the premises they owned two decades. The Liberal "Cock" Blyth was at remains uncertain. For the development of the the 'Bulls Head' from 1867 to 1872 (see music hall from the 'back-room get-together' in above, chapter 3.), with the Conservative 'Dick' the local pub, see Bailey, P. (1986) Nickalls resident at the 'Arabian Horse' from 'Introduction: Making Sense of Music Hall' in 1872 to 1886. For the political affiliations of Idem (ed.), Music Hall: The Business of Norwich brewers, see below, chapter 7. Pleasure. Open University Press: Milton 31. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p. 108. Keynes, pp. ix-xii. Also see below, chapter 3, 32. See below, chapter 9. note 67. For friendly society meetings, see 33. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 79-80. below, chapter 3, notes 77-81. Hawkins, C.B. 34. Jennings, P. (1995) op. cit. p. 205. (1910) Norwich: A Social Study. Philip Lee 35. Girouard, M. (1984) op. cit, p. 8. Warner: London, p. 312, observed that the 36. First Register of Victuallers Licences, ‘smoke-room’ or ‘porter room’ next to the bar 1894. was used for small meetings, and there was 37. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p.129; First often a larger room or hall behind - see below, Register of Victuallers Licences, 1892; NRO, chapter 3, note 74. N/TC 7/12, WCM, 1892. 22. Riley, R.C. and Eley, P. (1983) op. cit. p. 38. ibid. p. 136. 12. 39. Fawcett, T. (1973) 'The Norwich Pleasure 23. ibid. p. 28, note 76. Gardens', in Norfolk Archaeology, XXXV, 24. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. had as his pro- pp.382-399. Fawcett's account concentrated fessed aim: 'to furnish as much information as on the pre-Victorian associations with the possible of characters and incidents connected upper and middle classes. He noted, however, with them (inns and taverns)'. Newspaper files the emergence of the 'Greyhound Gardens' and local periodicals and 'incidents still from 1829 that 'soon became a favourite with remembered' provided him with his source the Norwich working class' (p. 396). For its material - see Prefatory Note. location, see above Fig. 5. 25. ibid. p. 11. 40. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 131-132.

Brewery History Number 132 127 41. Meeres, F. (1998) A History of Norwich. 52. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p. 60. Phillimore & Co.: Chichester, pp.166-167. 53. NRO, PS/10/1, 'Register of Billiard Meeres noted that the Norwich and Yarmouth Licences, 1869-1966'. Railway opened in 1844; the rail track to 54. These details are taken from pages of the Cambridge and London in 1845; and to Register of Billiard Licences. Ipswich in 1849. 55. Cunningham, H. (1980) op. cit. pp. 295- 42. Cunningham, H. (1990) 'Leisure and cul- 296. ture' in The Cambridge Social History of Britain 56. Twenty of these billiard licences to pubs 1750-1950. (3 vols). Cambridge University with off-licences were granted in the 1870s; Press: Cambridge, II, pp. 289-290. ten in the 1880s; nineteen in the 1890s; three 43. See above chapter 4. Cunningham, H. in 1900/01. The growth of the off-licence busi- (1990) op. cit. p. 305, noted the competitive- ness was steady and substantial. ness that was one of the hallmarks of these 57. See above chapter 3, Fig. 6, for the pat- developments in urban popular culture: '… pub tern of distribution of billiard licences across competed against pub, club against club'. the parishes of Norwich in licensed drinking 44. ibid. pp. 315-316. places in 1901. A western Norwich bias is 45. ibid. p. 290. apparent, with a significantly high figure in 46. Tranter, N. (1998) Sport, economy and Heigham. Perhaps billiards was a game more society in Britain, 1750-1914. Cambridge for upwardly mobile suburban workers rather University Press: Cambridge, pp. 15-16. than those who lived in the poorer parishes 47. Cunningham, H. (1980) Leisure in the like St. Julian and St. James. Industrial Revolution c.1780-1880. Croom 58. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p. 118. Helm: London, pp. 36-51. 59. ibid. p. 139. 48. Daunton, M.J. (1984) Councillors and 60. ibid. p. 106. tenants: local authority housing in English 61. ibid. p. 86. Munting, R. (2004) 'Sport and cities, 1919-1939. Leicester University Press: Games in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Leicester, p. 4, and Idem, (1987) A Property- Centuries' in Rawcliffe, C. and Wilson, R. Owning Democracy? Housing in Britain Faber: (eds.), Norwich since 1550 notes that the last London, pp. 40-43. report of a cock-fight in the city was in 1823, 49. ibid. pp. 23-26, 40-43. 'though they might well have continued surrep- 50. Daunton, M.J. (1984)op. cit. pp. 6-9, and titiously'. Idem, (1987), pp. 26-27. 62. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 85-86. 51. The annual average in the period 1910- 63. See above, chapter 2. 13 for per capita consumption 64. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 139-140. of beer was 26.9 gallons. In the period 1919- Munting, R. (2004) op. cit. argues that the 25 the annual average was around 18 gallons. decline of pedestrianism in the last quarter of See Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R.G. (1994) the century was in part a reaction against The British Brewing Industry 1830-1980. 'overt commercialism' and linked with the Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, pp. growing influence of the 'gentleman amateur'. 30, 339-340. He notes that the Amateur Athletic Association

128 Journal of the Brewery History Society (1881) excluded any who had competed pro- Ranworth, or very occasionally to Wroxham. fessionally in any sport. 72. ibid. p. 314. 65. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 138-140. 73. ibid. pp. 314-316. 66. First Register of Victuallers Licences, 74. ibid. p. 312. Hawkins made two signifi- 1886. cant points about the public house in Norwich, 67. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p. 54. The in contrast to public houses in other cities. Theatres Act (1843) had allowed the emerging First, they were 'smaller and more home-like. music halls to sell drinks in the auditorium There is a bar with room to sit down comfort- whilst banning their sale in drama houses. For ably, and “smoke-room”, or “porter-room” the development of the music hall in Norwich, adjoining. This is used for small meetings, and see Deborah Louise Smith, 'A Comparative there is often a larger room or hall behind'. Analysis of the Theatre in Yarmouth - a Secondly, the landlord 'has Seaside Resort, with the Theatre in Norwich - usually some other occupation. The house is a Prosperous City, at the Turn of the Twentieth not his only means of livelihood'. See above, Century' (M.A. dissertation, UEA, 2002), pp. chapter 3, for an analysis of the issue of publi- 17-19. Smith, p. 42, noted that nationally the cans with other occupations. music halls, which had been patronised by the 75. ibid. pp. 312-313. poorer classes, started to decline after the 76. Cherry, S. (1989) Doing Different? Politics Licensing Act (1902) banished drink from the and the Labour Movement in Norwich 1880- auditorium. Yet Norwich's most successful 1914. Poppyland: Norwich. Cherry argued that music hall - the Hippodrome - was not founded the lack of a mass trade union base in until 1903. Norwich was at least in part due to the durabil- 68. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p. 114. Wicks ity of Liberalism and the traditional two-party commented that this marked 'the commence- politics that could contain significant class dif- ment of the flower show as we know them ferences (pp. 101-103) - see below, chapter 9, today'. for an analysis of the role of the public house 69. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 137-138. in the traditional political system. The 'Greyhound' pleasure garden and free 77. Hawkins, C.B. (1910) op. cit. pp. 302-3. house in Ber Street (that had flourished from 78. Stibbens, B. (2001) 'Friendly societies in 1829 - see note 39 above) did not survive Norfolk in the nineteenth century with particular beyond 1871 when the licence was dropped reference to north Norfolk' (M.A. dissertation, and the house pulled down - see First Register UEA), pp. 5, 24-25. Quoting from The Norfolk of Victuallers Licences, 1871. News, Stibbens (p. 12) observed that the first 70. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p. 118. lodge of the Independent Order of Odd 71. Hawkins, C.B. (1910) op. cit. p. 313. Fellows, Manchester Unity was established in Writing in 1910, Hawkins noted that the aver- Norwich in 1835 "by five intelligent but poor age annual subscription was 12s 6d, which operatives" (NN, 31 October 1846), who came was supplemented by a prize fund collected to the city from Bradford with the worsted from other sources. Accumulated funds were industry. spent on an annual outing to Horning and 79. ibid. p. 27, quoted from a letter written by

Brewery History Number 132 129 Charles Hardwick in The Odd-Fellows Second Report, p. 87. Magazine (January 1860), p. 301. 89. Lords Intemperance Report, 1877, 80. Gosden, P.H.J.H. (1961) The Friendly Second Report, pp. 82-83. Simms Reeves' Societies in England 1815-1875. Manchester testimony offered an explanation for the sup- University Press: Manchester, p. 117; posed sobriety of Norwich: 'I believe that a Stibbens, B. (2001) op. cit. p. 28, noted that great deal of the beer in Norwich is very mild, the Vernon Loyal society had £60 of funds so much so that a great deal of the beer that is invested with the brewers, Messrs Young and drunk is not more than 3d a quart [compared Crawshay, who gave them one guinea a year with a national average of 5d a quart - see towards their dinner. Quoting from the Norfolk above, p.96], and it is called "straight", from its Chronicle (11 June, 1870), she also showed being supposed to go right down the throat that Messrs Morgans were providing a 'liberal and leave no effect behind it'. Lord Aberdare, annual donation' towards the annual meeting the chairman, commented that there had to be of the Loyal British Friendly society at Cattton. a great deal of drinking of this small beer if the 81. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. p. 77, recorded: large number of drinking places in Norwich 'It was at the 'Red Lion' that the Foresters held were to maintain themselves. How much beer their first Court in Norwich (Norwich Union, in Norwich was sold more cheaply remains No.2504) introduced from the Lynn and West unclear. Simms Reeve may have exaggerated Norfolk District.' Wicks also observed that 'a both the weakness and cheapness of the beer. prominent figure in the Friendly Society move- 90. Mottram, R.H. (1968) 'A Thousand Years ment, Mr Samuel Daynes … was the first in the Life of Norwich Market' in Norwich Secretary of the Norwich Licensed Victuallers' Markets Official Handbook. Cheltenham and Association, formed in September 1854. Its London, p. 20. first meeting was at the Boars Head' (p.55). 91. The Earl of Kimberley noted in 1877 in Licensed victuallers like Samuel Daynes must his questioning of Mr Simms Reeve, the have been trusted, able and dedicated; they Norwich magistrate: 'I suppose, to some were evidently elite members within the work- extent, Norwich's large number of public hous- ing class. es is due to the very large number of markets 82. Cunningham, H. (1980) op. cit. p. 331. which are held?' 'Yes.' '… A large number of 83. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R.G. (1994) people, not of the ordinary op. cit. pp. 34-40. population, congregate there somewhat to an 84. ibid. pp. 35-36. unusual extent?' 'Yes.' (Lords Intemperance 85. Dingle, A.E. (1972) 'Drink and Working- Report, 1877, Second Report, p. 87). Class Living Standards in Britain, 1870-1914', 92. Mottram, R.H. (1968) op.cit. p. 21; Economic History Review, XXV, 4, pp. 611, Second Register of Victuallers Licences, 1912. 619-620. See above chapter 5. 93. See above chapter 3 Table 8. The 86. Cunningham, H. (1980) op. cit. p. 301. 'Waterloo Tavern' (132 gallons of spirits) and 87. Lords Intemperance Report, 1877, First the 'Tuns' (120 gallons) are two central drink- Report, p. 112. ing places that had spirit-drinking customers 88. Lords Intemperance Report, 1877, but their beer sales also remained high. The

130 Journal of the Brewery History Society 'Mancroft' (178 gallons) and the 'Denmark 1909. Arms' (118 gallons) in Heigham outside the city 99. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R.G. (1994) walls also had both high sales of spirits and op. cit. p. 54. beer, perhaps suggesting that these drinking 100. EDP, 13 February 1900. places all had customers who were Celtic in 101. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R.G. (1994) origin and preferred spirits. The link between op. cit. p. 327. Irish navvies, the 'Tuns', and the building of the 102. NRO, CASE 6a/30-42, 'Norwich adjacent Catholic cathedral in Norwich, is Coroners' Inquests, 1824-1836'. See above made clear in annotations in NRO, BR1/157, chapter 3, Table 9. 'Steward and Patterson Register of public 103. See above Fig. 7. houses giving licensees, annual sales and 104. See above p. 74. profits, 1894-1947'. 105. Hoad, T.F. (ed.) (1986) The Concise 94. Witnesses varied in their perceptions but Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. the general impression is clear: '… drunken Oxford University Press: Oxford. boys and girls came into the city on Boxing 106. Thomas Hardy in The Mayor of Day by rail, and after carousing about, left in a Casterbridge (1886) described the pub in worse state than they entered' (EDP, 2 Mixen Lane that served the least respectable January 1900); 'I grant that there were few section of Casterbridge as having a quasi-spir- who came into Norwich drunk on Boxing Day, itual function: 'The inn called Peter's finger was but for everyone who came in drunk I am sure the church of Mixen Lane … Waifs and strays a hundred went out in that condition … they of all sorts loitered about here. The landlady had mostly got away by nine o'clock …'. The was a virtuous woman who years ago had correspondent John Abby, who was the secre- been unjustly sent to gaol … and had worn a tary for the Norwich diocese of the Church of martyr's countenance ever since'. (Penguin England Temperance Society, continued by Classics: London, p. 330.) pointing out that by ten o'clock it was the resi- 107. See above Introduction. dents of Norwich who were responsible for the 108. Ede, J. and Virgoe, N. (eds.) (1998) drunkenness that was such a problem (EDP, 3 Religious Worship in Norfolk: The 1851 January 1900) - see below, p. 213. Census of Accommodation and Attendance at 95. NRO, N/TC 7/4, WCM, 10 June 1853. Worship. Norfolk Record Society, LXII, p. 15. Also see below chapter 6. 109. ibid. pp. 15, 23. The writers struck a 96. First Report for the House of Commons note of caution about the low attendance figure Select Committee on Uniform System of Police in Norwich pointing out that 'so many of the in England, Wales and Scotland, P.P. (1852- city's dissenting chapels were omitted from the 53), XXXVI.I, p. 121. final returns' (p. 15). However, they cite a total 97. Lords Intemperance Report, 1877, of only six such chapels, which were likely to Second Report, p. 85. have had relatively small congregations; since 98. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 62-64; First the Census in Norwich is based on eighty-one Register of Victuallers Licences, 1891; Second places of worship, the inclusion of these addi- Register of Victuallers Licences, 1904, 1908, tional six would have only a marginal effect.

Brewery History Number 132 131 110. Quoted in ibid. p. 15. The writers, never- the family, on the death of the present holder, theless, claimed: 'That it was the poorest was administered through what was termed a groups in society who failed to attend Sunday Section 14 grant. worship cannot be tested. Anecdotal evidence, 122. The Alehouses Act (1828) had set up such as it is, does not appear to bear this out'. the system of the annual issue of licences at Only two examples, both rural, are cited in jus- the August sessions; it also provided for the tification of this opinion. transfer sessions - no fewer than four, no more 111. Coleman, B.J. (1980) The Church of than eight - during the year. From 1903, the England in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. The annual licensing sessions were held in Historical Association: London, p. 26. This February, not August. pamphlet, in particular Table D, is cited in Ede, 123. Mark Girouard noted that: 'In the 1890-2 J. and Virgoe, N. (eds.) (1998) op. cit. p. 23. period the death rate from drink among 112. ibid. p. 23. London publicans was more than nine times 113. See above Table 14. the average for employed males' (Victorian 114. The Norfolk News 14 Jan.1854, cited in Pubs - Girouard, M. (1984) op. cit. pp. 16-17). Ede, J. and Virgoe, N. (eds.) (1998) op. cit. p. 124. The story of John William Watling at the 36. Volunteer Stores in St. Giles is illustrative of 115. See Gutzke, D.W. (1996) Alcohol in the both the consequences of breaking the law British Isles from Roman Times to 1996: An and the working of the licensing system. On Annotated Bibliography. Greenwood Press: October 3 1874, for whatever reason, the Westport, Connecticut and London, pp. 205- licence was endorsed to John William Watling 208, where 'Biographies, Autobiographies and from the holder of the annual certificate for the Memoirs of Publicans' are listed. None is two previous years, William Blogg. On October focussed on the Victorian period. 6, Watling was caught selling intoxicating 116. Wicks, W. (1925) op. cit. pp. 60-61, 104- liquor during prohibited hours on a Sunday 105, 108. and later fined £1 with £1 1s 6d or two months 117. First Register of Victuallers Licences; imprisonment in default of distraint of goods, a Second Register of Victuallers Licences. relatively heavy sentence. On October 10, 118. Jennings, P. (1995) op. cit. p. 16. Watling attended a transfer session. On 119. NRO, BR3/11, 'The Anchor Brewery November 4, he refused to admit a police con- Norwich Schedule of Agreement for hire of stable to the licensed premises. For that Public Houses, July 1866 (updated October offence, Watling was later fined £2 with £1 6d 1867)'. costs or two months in default. It is no surprise 120. My decision to define 'long-term' as to find the licence endorsed to another licens- seven years or longer was a little arbitrary but ee on July 8, formally transferred to him on justified I think by the view that a discernible August 11 and later that month confirmed with and lasting influence would have been made the issue of the annual certificate. This 'new' on the public house and its 'regulars' after licensee was, however, the former tenant: such a length of service. William Blogg (First Register of Victuallers 121. This particular change of licensee within Licences).

132 Journal of the Brewery History Society 125. See pencilled annotations to folios 3 and Stephen in the west; two are in the south-east 9 in NRO, BR1/157, 'Steward & Patteson in Thorpe outside the walls; the rest are in the Register of public houses giving licensees, central area with two in St. John Timberhill, annual sales and profits, 1894-1947'. one in St. Gregory, three in St. Michael at 126. See pencilled annotations to folio 21. Thorn, and one in St. Andrew. 127. See below, chapter 5 passim and, in 137. See above Tables 10, 11 and 12. particular, NHC, L362.1, Norwich Medical 138. See below, chapter 7 passim. Officer of Health Reports, 1874-1901. 139. See above Table 13. 128. 'Royal Commissioners Report on 140. See above Tables 10, 11 and 12. alleged electoral corruption', Norwich Mercury 141. See above Table 13. Supplement, March 25 1876. 142. See above chapter 4. 129. As in the case of note 120, above, my 143. See above chapter 3 and note 30 for decision to take the figure of six as an indicator connections between Morgan and pugilism. of 'instability' was 'a little arbitrary' but again jus- 144. See above Tables 11 and 12. tifiable. The experience of six or more short- 145. For the purpose of this analysis, the term publicans in a twenty-six year period length of licence holding for each publican who would certainly not have helped social cohe- appears in the second Register between 1894 sion. and 1901 has been calculated up to the point 130. See above Table 11. the name of the licence holder changes. 131. ibid. Therefore a publican who became the licence 132. The figure for this calculation is taken as holder in 1901 and continues to hold the 1200 since the focus is on those 530 pubs that licence up to and including the entry for 1907 were continuously licensed between 1867 and will be classified as a long-term publican. 1893. Twenty-six of the 1226 short-term publi- 146. See above Tables 10 and 11, column 8. cans were licence holders in pubs that first 147. For previous developments of this strand appear in the Registers between 1868 and in the argument, see above chapters 1 and 3. 1892. 148. See above Table 15. 133. One public house outside the city walls, 149. See above Table 16. in Crooks Place, Lakenham, was called the 150. See above Table 17. 'New City'. 151. See above Table 18. 134. See above chapter 2 Figs. 2 and 3. 152. See above Table 19. 135. Two are in St. George Colegate and one 153. See above chapter 4. in St. James - all north of the river; two are in 154. See above Tables 16 and 17. the west of the city in St. Lawrence and St. 155. NRO, BR3/11, 'The Anchor Brewery Giles; two are in the south in St. Julian and St. Norwich: Schedule of agreements with public John Sepulchre; and two in the centre, one in house tenants, 1843-1867'. St. Andrew and one in St. John Timberhill. 156. See above Table 20. 136. One is in St. George Colegate, one in 157. See above Table 20. St. Paul and two in St. Augustine - all north of 158. See above Fig. 8. the river; three are in St. Giles and three in St. 159. See below chapter 7.

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