DOCSLIB.ORG

Occupational Structure in England and Wales During the Industrial Revolution

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Occupational Structure in England and Wales During the Industrial Revolution OCCUPATIONAL STRUCTURE IN ENGLAND AND WALES DURING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION BY JAN ERIK MEIDELL PhD THESIS Department of Economics I would like to thank Liam Brunt for his unlimited patience, endless energy and passionate interest in the subject. Without his support, this thesis would never have been finalized. 2 Contents Introduction 4 1. Trade directories as a data source on occupational 14 structure: evidence from England in 1851 2. How fast, and how broad, was British industrialization? 38 Evidence from a synthetic occupational census for 1801 3. Regional specialization in England and Wales in 1801 and 1851 111 3 Introduction 0. Introduction. The “industrial revolution” designates a process starting in the mid- eighteenth century, during which England and Wales experienced significant transitions in manufacturing and manufacturing processes and strong economic growth. Helped by a number of new technical inventions – in addition to strong population growth, favourable conditions for commerce, government policies and financial innovations – efficiency in the textile and iron industries increased manifold. Manufacturing moved away from handmade goods and cottage industries into mass production, helping Britain to become a world power. Urbanization changed the face of the country and improvements in agriculture allowed to the growing population to be supplied with food. The industrial revolution has thus had a major historical impact and is seen as crossing a threshold into modern economic growth. It has changed our lives, life expectancy, employment and how we look upon the world. The three chapters of this thesis attempt to better measure the occupational changes in the English and Welsh population during this time period – one of the key characteristics of the industrial revolution. 1. Literature. The Industrial Revolution is well researched; the causes and processes have been greatly discussed, in addition to various analyses of basic national income. An important branch of research has focused on the strength of economic growth, which recent research paints as being slower than originally supposed. Moreover, revisionist social historians assert that “English society before 1832 did not experience an industrial revolution let alone an Industrial Revolution “ (Jonathan Clark, 1986, pp. 39). During the time from 1750 to 1850 the number of patents grew fast as did cotton output; but national income and aggregate consumption grew only gradually. So national accounts and various local analyses are apparently not enough to answer questions relating to changes in the economy and, in particular, in social structures. In the words of Joel Mokyr (1993, pp. 2), “arguments about what exactly changed, when it started, when it ended, and where to place the emphasis keep raging”. More recent work looks away from national aggregates to focus on regional and industrial aspects of the industrial revolution, emphasizing acceleration in efficiency and output. But again, the main focus is on the sorts of products, their quantity and the production processes. There is so much more to this time period. How did the industrial revolution impact professional and social structures? Do service occupations expand and, if so, in which areas? Which secondary industries employed the bulk of the workforce, and where? What would a national occupational map of this period reveal? Mokyr (1993) divides research about the industrial revolution into four schools: social change, industrial organization, macroeconomics and technology. Of particular interest is the research on macroeconomics. Important proponents of this school are Deane and Cole (1969), with their estimates of national income and industrial production, as well as the more recent revisionists to economic growth – such as Wrigley (1987) and Crafts and Harley (1985). Crafts and Harley claim that productivity growth was confined 4 to only a few sectors, such as wool, cotton, iron and machinery, with the remaining sectors experiencing much lower productivity increase. Temin (1997) refutes this view, claiming that foreign trade figures show that Britain remained competitive not only in these industries but also in a range of older industries such as linen, glass, buttons, soap and brewing, amongst others. Thus, claims Temin, efficiency must have improved on numerous fronts. Mokyr (1993) holds that the aggregate effect of the Industrial Revolution before 1820 is not significant but has no numbers to support the claim. He further divides the pace of the economy into two groups: traditional trades such as agriculture, construction, craftsmen and domestic industry; and the modern sectors such as cotton, iron, smelting, chemistry, mining and engineering. The missing piece of the puzzle, however, in the preceding discussion is any quantification of professional occupations and social structures. This is a pre-requisite to understanding how the economy and society were impacted by the fundamental structural changes that occurred. Filling this gap is the aim of this thesis, in the form of creating a national and regional synthetic census for 1801. From 1801, a decadal national census was taken in Britain. Early versions were rudimentary and the first census with a moderate level of detail was that of 1841. The 1851 census is of superior quality and is frequently used by economic historians as a source to quantify social and professional structures. Comprehensive national and regional tables, with the same structure as the 1851 census, do not exist prior to 1851. However several attempts were made at quantifying occupations. Patrick Colquhoun (1806) approached the task in the midst of the industrial revolution and created social tables using the 1801 census. These incorporate only a few professions for certain regions, and thus suffer from severe limitations and are of limited use for historians. Lindert (1980) introduced a new approach, using parish registers to quantify occupational structures in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Even though these are not representative of the population because they are biased (only male professions for certain age groups and for certain congregations are recorded) they nevertheless represent a very informative source compared to the few data available until then. This line of research has been continued recently by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, led by Wrigley and Shaw-Taylor, which has constructed regional and national tables based on extended sampling of parish registers and militia ballots from the years 1813 to 1820 (thus dating their benchmark to 1817). The three chapters of this thesis use sampling from trade directories – in combination with several other sources, such as parliamentary reports and farm surveys – as a data source. My research adds several novelties to the discussion of professional and social structures in the industrial revolution. First, the statistics generated here are for 1801, in the middle of the first industrial revolution and almost two decades earlier than the benchmark generated by other scholars. Second, my data includes both men and women of all ages and congregations and is less biased than the sources used in other studies. Finally, the 1851 regional census structure – comprising 369 professional and social titles divided into 17 groups – has been applied to the 1801 tables. This permits direct comparison to the 1851 census on both national and regional levels; this allows for a quantitative flow analysis during from 1801 to 1851, which is the key time frame for understanding the occupational and social process of industrialization. 5 Data on the business structure of the private, non-agricultural sector are drawn from the Universal British Directory (UBD), which was published in nine volumes between 1793 and 1798. The UBD was a combined Yellow Pages and White Pages of its time. It offered very extensive lists of tradesmen in each town, as well as separate sections for gentry, clergy, lawyers, doctors, bankers, the town corporation (i.e. town management), substantial outposts of Government (such as Royal dockyards or the Customs Service) and transport (masters of coaches, barges and locally-based ships). In the case of London, the section on tradesmen alone covers 260 pages and amounts to around 34 000 entries; in the case of Manchester, the section on tradesmen covers 72 pages and amounts to around 8 000 entries; and in the case of Birmingham, the section on tradesmen covers 32 pages and amounts to around 3 200 entries. Smaller towns obviously required fewer pages, with the smallest having as few as one page or a half-page. Each entry in the UBD typically recorded the name of the individual (or partnership) and their line of business; in some towns it recorded also the address. It is noteworthy that many individuals and partnerships operated in several lines of business, sometimes up to six, and these were dutifully reported in the UBD. The UBD covers around 1 600 towns and villages across England and Wales, although for many of the smaller towns it does not record details on the businesses that were in operation. Instead, it simply gives a general description of the place and perhaps details on coach connections and such like. We do not know why the details on businesses were reported for some small towns and not others; as far as we are aware, there is no systematic bias. 2. Method. The first chapter of the thesis proposes a method for constructing synthetic 1801 census tables. Using the 1851 census and contemporary trade directories, it can be shown that it is possible to infer local occupational structure using trade directories with acceptable accuracy. The structure of the historical problem is displayed in table 1 below. The goal is to track occupational change over time using the census but there is no satisfactorily reliable census before 1851. If there is a valid statistical relationship between trade directories from 1851 and the 1851 census, could one use this to create a synthetic census for 1801 by using contemporary trade directories? Table 1. Data sources available to track occupational change.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • London Metropolitan Archives Middlesex Sessions
    LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES Page 1 MIDDLESEX SESSIONS: COUNTY ADMINISTRATION MA Reference Description Dates COUNTY ADMINISTRATION: LUNATIC ASYLUMS Maintenance of lunatics MA/A/C/001 Alphabetical register of lunatics, giving name, 1860 - 1888 date of admission, which asylum, 'how disposed of' MA/A/C/002 Register of lunatics Gives name, date of 1871 - 1877 maintenance order, to what asylum sent, 'how disposed of' MA/A/C/003/1853 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1853 8 MA/A/C/003/1865 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1865 53 MA/A/C/003/1866 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1866 73 MA/A/C/003/1867 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1867 46 MA/A/C/003/1868 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1868 47 MA/A/C/003/1869 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1869 64 MA/A/C/003/1870 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1870 8 MA/A/C/003/1872 Applications for maintenance of lunatics: 1872 Criminal lunatics 8 MA/A/C/003/1873 Applications for maintenance of lunatics: 1873 Matilda or Louisa Lewis 1 MA/A/C/003/1874 Applications for maintenance of lunatics 1874 6 LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES Page 2 MIDDLESEX SESSIONS: COUNTY ADMINISTRATION MA Reference Description Dates MA/A/C/003/1875/001 Applications for maintenance of lunatics (B-E) 1875 (items numbered 1875/001-024) MA/A/C/003/1875/025 Applications for maintenance of lunatics (E-M) 1875 (items numbered 1875/025-047) MA/A/C/003/1875/048 Applications for maintenance of lunatics (M-R) 1875 (items numbered 1875/048-060) MA/A/C/003/1875/061 Applications for maintenance
    [Show full text]
  • Vita Unwin 2016
    University of Bristol Department of Historical Studies Best undergraduate dissertations of 2016 Vita Unwin ‘Ladies Delight’: Examining the role and status of women inthe gin retailing trade 1751-1760 The Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol is com- mitted to the advancement of historical knowledge and understanding, and to research of the highest order. Our undergraduates are part of that en- deavour. Since 2009, the Department has published the best of the annual disserta- tions produced by our final year undergraduates in recognition of the ex- cellent research work being undertaken by our students. This was one of the best of this year’s final year undergraduate disserta- tions. Please note: this dissertation is published in the state it was submitted for examination. Thus the author has not been able to correct errors and/or departures from departmental guidelines for the presentation of dissertations (e.g. in the formatting of its footnotes and bibliography). © The author, 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the prior permission in writing of the author, or as expressly permitted by law. All citations of this work must be properly acknowledged. ‘Ladies Delight’: Examining the role and status of women in the gin retailing trade 1751–60 Image 1: Female gin hawker depicted in William Hogarth’s The March of Guards to Finchley (The Foundling Museum, London, 1751). Abbreviations: ECCO Eighteenth Century Collections Online LMA London Metropolitan Archives RLV Register for Licensed Victuallers 1 Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………p.
    [Show full text]
  • Detective Policing and the State in Nineteenth-Century England: the Detective Department of the London Metropolitan Police, 1842-1878
    Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 10-23-2015 12:00 AM Detective Policing and the State in Nineteenth-century England: The Detective Department of the London Metropolitan Police, 1842-1878 Rachael Griffin The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Allyson N. May The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in History A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Rachael Griffin 2015 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Griffin, Rachael, "Detective Policing and the State in Nineteenth-century England: The Detective Department of the London Metropolitan Police, 1842-1878" (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3427. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3427 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DETECTIVE POLICING AND THE STATE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND: THE DETECTIVE DEPARTMENT OF THE LONDON METROPOLITAN POLICE, 1842-1878 Thesis format: Monograph by Rachael Griffin Graduate Program in History A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of History The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Rachael Griffin 2016 Abstract and Keywords This thesis evaluates the development of surveillance-based undercover policing in Victorian England through an examination of the first centralized police detective force in the country, the Detective Department of the London Metropolitan Police (1842-1878).
    [Show full text]
  • Middlesex Spatial Classification
    LONDON ELECTORAL HISTORY – STEPS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY 7.7 MIDDLESEX AND SPATIAL CLASSIFICATION All Middlesex is ugly, notwithstanding the millions upon millions which it is continually sucking up from the rest of the kingdom. … [T]he buildings consist generally of tax-eater’s showy tea- garden-like boxes, and of shabby dwellings of labouring people, who, in this part of the country, look to be about half Saint Giles’s: dirty, and have every appearance of drinking gin.1 It is hard to imagine Middlesex as an agrarian county. Yet Middlesex (see Fig. 1) was for long an agricultural county by predominant land-use, if not by population. Its production was driven by the insatiable demand for fresh produce from the nearby metropolis, even while buildings of the growing conurbation were continually extending into the area.2 Indeed, the urban and rural economies were intermingled. The 1841 census, for example, noted the presence of 359 hay-makers, sleeping in sheds in Harrow parish.3 But urban residents, both rich and poor, were ever encroaching. Would-be smart new housing was juxtaposed with ‘shabby dwellings’. The labourers appeared as down-at-heel inner-urban gin-drinkers according to the beer-drinking William Cobbett, in the hostile commentary cited immediately above. His highly pertinent cultural reference was to Hogarth’s picture of urban degeneration in Gin Lane (1751), satirising the all-too-urban parish of St-Giles-in-the-Fields in the Holborn district of the ancient Hundred of Ossulston, Middlesex. And, with or without the social criticism, the urbanisation of the county was indeed inexorable.
    [Show full text]
  • Marylebone and Spatial Classification
    LONDON ELECTORAL HISTORY – STEPS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY 7.10 MARYLEBONE AND SPATIAL CLASSIFICATION If … I wished to make … a foreigner clearly understand what I consider as the great defect of our [representative] system, I would conduct him through that immense city which lies to the north of Great Russell Street and Oxford Street, a city superior in size and in population to the capitals of many mighty kingdoms; and probably superior in opulence, intelligence, and general respect- ability, to any city in the world. I would conduct him through that interminable succession of streets and squares, all consisting of well built and well furnished houses. I would make him observe the brilliancy of the shops, and the crowd of well-appointed equipages. I would show him that magnificent circle of palaces which sur- rounds the Regent’s Park. I would tell him that the rental of this district was far greater than that of the whole kingdom of Scotland, at the time of the Union. And then I would tell him that this was an unrepresented district.1 This rotund specimen of the Whig reformer Thomas Babington Macaulay’s finest oratory was inspired by the incongruous state of swathes of highly urbanised London which did not have their own distinctive electoral representation in the pre-1832 unwritten constitu- tion. Such a state of affairs had developed by accident, as a result of the unplanned growth of metropolitan London. But it was one of the anomalies that prompted reformers to action. In reality, Macaulay was exaggerating somewhat to make a valid case.
    [Show full text]
  • Hearth Tax and Empty Properties in London by Andrew Wareham
    Themes in local history The hearth tax and empty properties in London on the eve of the Great Fire ANDREW WAREHAM Introduction This article considers the value of the hearth tax to local historians from the perspective of the British Academy Hearth Tax Project (BAHTP), and investigates as a new case study the significance of empty properties recorded in the London and Middlesex Lady Day 1666 hearth tax return. Parts 1 and 2 of the article assess hearth tax research methods on source analysis, historiographical trends and computing applications. In parts 3 and 4 discussion is directed towards the problems of analysing urban hearth tax data and the significance of the large number of empty properties recorded in the Lady Day 1666 return. Covering the period in the aftermath of the plague of 1665, at a time of new building in London, we follow in the footsteps of collectors as they moved from fashionable thoroughfares and squares to back streets and alleys in recording empty dwellings, which ranged from one- and two-hearth households to a property with ninety hearths. The difficulties associated with empty properties are investigated from administrative, environmental and social angles, providing insights into the dealings of a range of Londoners, some of whom were hesitant to collect or pay the hearth tax, and were able to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the metropolis to side-step their obligations. This general survey and case study suggest that there is scope for using the hearth tax to contribute to a better understanding of economic and social history during the later- Stuart period.
    [Show full text]
  • LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES Page 1 SMALL FAMILY COLLECTIONS
    LONDON METROPOLITAN ARCHIVES Page 1 SMALL FAMILY COLLECTIONS CLC/521 Reference Description Dates NEWTON, JOHN CLC/521/001 List of items missing from a house in St 16-- Lawrence Pountney Lane (undated) 1 item CLC/521/MS02084 Miscellaneous items relating to Rev. John 1888-1907 Newton, Rector of St Mary Woolnoth. Contents: 1. Copy of inscription on his monument in the church of St Mary Woolnoth, and on his coffin plate.2. Attested copy of inscriptions at St Mary Woolnoth, and on the monument erected to his memory at Olney, Buckinghamshire.3. Elevation drawing of the monument in Olney churchyard.4. Re- internment of John Newton: printed text of a sermon preached in Olney church on Sunday evening, 29 January 1893.5. John Newton of Olney: printed tract by James Macaulay [Short biographies for the people, no. 54, 1888].6. The Newton centenary, 1907: order of services at St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard Street, 22 December 1907.7. Portrait of the Rev. John Newton (Published 1835, printed 1893). 1 envelope containing 7 items Former Reference: MS 02084 CLC/521/MS03638 Three letters sent to members of the Mitchell 1780-1798 family in (?) Kent. 1-2. Two letters from John Newton, rector of St Mary Woolnoth, to Thomas Mitchell, esq., of Chatham, containing references to the writer's incumbency. 11 April 1792 and 17 May 1798. 3. Imperfect letter by an unidentified writer to "Bel" (of the Mitchell family) describing the Gordon riots, dated Grove Street 15 June 1780. 1 envelope containing 3 double sheets Former Reference: MS 03638 TURNER, WILLIAM CLC/521/MS14469 Turner, William (fl.1825-1840): Jobbing or work 1834-1841 day book.
    [Show full text]
  • The Political Space of Chancery Lane, C.1760-1815
    The political space of Chancery Lane, c.1760-1815 Francis Calvert Boorman Institute of Historical Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London 1 The following work is solely that of the candidate, signed: My thanks go to my supervisor, Miles Taylor, to the librarians and archivists from all the institutions mentioned in this work, to the many historians who have made comments, suggestions or provided references and to my dad, who read more drafts than he deserved to. Abstract This is a study of Chancery Lane from the accession of George III in 1760 until the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, a time of explosive growth in London and rapid change to the society, economy and politics of Britain. The aim of this thesis is to explain the relationship between space and political activity in part of London, connecting local and national issues and adding to our understanding of the political geography of the capital. The locality around Chancery Lane is an important focus for study because it is an area of transition between the oft-studied centres of Westminster and the City, spanning the border between the two and falling into an exceptional number of different parochial jurisdictions. It is an area that has received little attention from historians, although it reveals much about the political dynamics of the metropolis. Chancery Lane was an interstice within the city, a position which profoundly influenced community politics and daily life. Using a broad range of source material, including newspapers, parochial records, histories, maps and guides of London, satires, poetry, prints and the records of Lincoln's Inn, this thesis examines political culture, built environment, policing, crime, prostitution, social policy and political associations in the area around Chancery Lane.
    [Show full text]
  • STREET DISORDER in the METROPOLIS, 1905-39 Stefan
    Law, Crime and History (2012) 1 STREET DISORDER IN THE METROPOLIS, 1905-39 Stefan Slater1 Abstract This article uses insights from sociology, criminology and anthropology to establish patterns of disorder in early-to-mid twentieth century London. As criminal statistics are shown to be the products of both behavioural and institutional practices, this discussion opens with an examination of police culture to comprehend the range of variables influencing decision making on the beat. The second section develops this occupational model further to interpret the trends shown by the statistics. With this appreciation of policing in practice, the third part argues that integrating Taylor‟s supply-side approach with a street-level understanding of the relationship between police and policed, while considering the broader socio-economic context, allows for measured inferences about social changes to be drawn from prosecution records. Keywords: Metropolitan Police, interwar London, public disorder, street betting, prostitution, drunkenness, vagrancy Introduction That the recorded incidence of violence is on the increase may show not that society is falling apart but rather that we live in an increasingly orderly society that tolerates criminal injury far less than in the uncivilized past.2 When all is said and done, our perceptions of violence do indeed depend on where we look. That, if nothing else, should alert us to the possibility that, in our eagerness to dispel the myth of a conflict-free golden age, we may be exaggerating the tensions of [earlier societies] while overlooking the reality of violence in our own times.3 Elucidating the experience of crime befuddles both historian and sociologist.
    [Show full text]
  • STREET DISORDER in the METROPOLIS, 1905-39 Stefan
    University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk SOLON Law, Crime and History - Volume 02 - 2012 SOLON Law, Crime and History - Volume 2, No 1 2012 Street Disorder in the Metropolis, 1905-39 Slater, Stefan Slater, S. (2012) 'Street Disorder in the Metropolis, 1905-39',Law, Crime and History, 2(1), pp.59-91. Available at: https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/handle/10026.1/8871 http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/8871 SOLON Law, Crime and History University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. Law, Crime and History (2012) 1 STREET DISORDER IN THE METROPOLIS, 1905-39 Stefan Slater1 Abstract This article uses insights from sociology, criminology and anthropology to establish patterns of disorder in early-to-mid twentieth century London. As criminal statistics are shown to be the products of both behavioural and institutional practices, this discussion opens with an examination of police culture to comprehend the range of variables influencing decision making on the beat. The second section develops this occupational model further to interpret the trends shown by the statistics. With this appreciation of policing in practice, the third part argues that integrating Taylor‟s supply-side approach with a street-level understanding of the relationship between police and policed, while considering the broader socio-economic context, allows for measured inferences about social changes to be drawn from prosecution records.
    [Show full text]
  • Westminster Spatial Classification
    LONDON ELECTORAL HISTORY – STEPS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY 7.9 WESTMINSTER AND SPATIAL CLASSIFICATION Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight to touching in its majesty: The City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! The very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!1 Wordsworth’s encomium to Westminster viewed from Westminster Bridge was the more flattering in that he was no city lover. He chose a majestic moment of early morning calm. Yet he also – unusually – evoked the metropolitan bustle and commercial hustle: … the quick dance Of colours, lights, and forms, the deafening din; The comers and the goers face to face, Face after face; the string of dazzling wares, Shop after shop, with symbols, blazoned names, And all the tradesmen’s honours overhead.2 2 LONDON ELECTORAL HISTORY Nowhere in the greater metropolis seemed close to its ‘mighty heart’ than Westminster, the home of court, government, law, smart shops, theatre, polite society and Soho’s red lights, as well as rookeries and slums. Not surprisingly, its electoral contests seemed equally to cut to the heart of the political debates.
    [Show full text]
  • 45 - Licensed Victuallers Records
    RESEARCH GUIDE 45 - Licensed Victuallers records CONTENTS A brief history of licensing Surviving records at London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) C. Middlesex records 1552-1829 D. County Licensing Committees and Compensation Authorities 1872-1961 E. Records of licensing sessions: licensing registers Additional sources Reading list A brief history of licensing Although the Public House, or alehouse as it was commonly known, has been a part of English life since Roman times, its development cannot fully be traced until the mid-sixteenth century when a national system of licensing was first introduced. In 1552 the crown sought to regulate all alehouses as a measure against perceived increases in levels of drunkenness and social disorder. In many areas instances of regulation certainly predated the 1550's. Evidence from manorial records, for example, suggests that local controls were being implemented throughout the medieval period. However, the Alehouse Act 1552 (5 and 6 Edw.VI c.25) was the first attempt to co-ordinate these existing controls and embody them in statute. Under this act no-one was allowed to sell beer or ale without the consent of the local Justices of the Peace which could be granted either before the full sessions of the peace or before two justices. Each person licensed by the justices had to enter into a recognizance, or bond, to ensure that good behaviour was maintained in each alehouse and the licensee pledged to abide by the court's terms or risk payment of a fine or even the loss of the licence. Such recognizances had to be certified at Quarter Sessions and were kept on record.
    [Show full text]