Licensed Vituler

[al b]

HI  These 12 acts and Magna Carta can we get in to detail?

[behindthefrogs]

HI  These 12 acts and Magna Carta can we get in to detail?

In brief:

1215 Magna Carta standardized measures of Ale
1267 Civic Authorities to announce prices of Bread and Ale based on corn and malt prices
1377 First Aletaster (aleconner) appointed (in London).  Responsible to manor or vestry for strength and price of ale.
1495 Licensing Statute. Justices of the Peace given power to supervise and suppress local ale sellers
1529 Ecclesiastical Brewing.  Suppressed breweries attached to Ecclesiatical Organisations
1552 Justices of the peace given extra powers whiich they still have.
1553 Limitation of Taverns.  The towns allowed to have taverns and the numbers.  e.g. Bristol 6 Cambridge 4 etc.
1590 Extra Taverns allocated
1729 Brewster sessions instituted at which JPs license retailers
1736 Second Gin Act £50 licence and £1 duty on every gallon  sold.
1828 Alehouse Act consolidated previous legistlation and defined the role of JPs
1830 Beerhouse Act.  Any householder assessed to pay the poor rate could retail beer and cider from his own house on payment of 2 guineas (annual I think)
1839 Opening Hours  Public Houses to close between midnight Saturday and noon on Sunday London only.
1848 Extended to rest of country
1854 Sunday opening restricted to 1-2.30 and 6-10pm
1855 changed to 1-3pm and 5-11pm
Sunday opening was restricted 1853 in Scotland 1878 in Ireland 1881 in Wales
1888 Licensing became a County Council responsibilty

Those are just the ones Richardson lists.

David

[Christopher]

HI  These 12 acts and Magna Carta can we get in to detail?

That's a much shorter thread than I expected to see

[al b]

Very interesting  Thank You Al

[newburychap]

HI  These 12 acts and Magna Carta can we get in to detail?

In brief:
1215 Magna Carta standardized measures of Ale
etc

Thanks for this - there are, of course, more.

1869 Ended the beerhouse free for all - all licensed premises had to be approved annually by JPs. Left a legacy of pre-1869 beerhouses that seemed to offer an almost unchallengeable right to a license for those who had one before this Act.
1906 Opened up the opportunity for JPs to deny a license on the grounds of redundancy (ie too many pubs in the area)
1910 Add a method of compensating owners and licensees if their pub was closed under the 1906 act.

The descriptions are my impressions of these Acts - not any official view! The 1910 Act (or was it 1911?) is sometimes referred to as the Compensation Act and led to the closure of a lot of pubs.

The 1888 act may have passed the responsibility to County Councils but it was still run in my area by local magistrates/JPs (petty sessions, borough police court) - only when they attempted to close a pub using the Compensation Act would the decision be referred to county level (quarter sessions).

I am sure there were many other Acts that effected the number of pubs. My current interest is to work out why new pubs were opened and why so many have disappeared - the legal framework in which they operate has almost as big an impact as economics. My town has about 30 pubs at present, I could probably show a visitor as many buildings that used to be pubs/inns and the sites of another 30 that have gone to make way for roads or site redevelopment.

The 1950s saw a lot of local closures with the brewers opting to close pubs with full licenses in order to transfer the license to other, better premises with only a beer license. Obviously they are doing this for commercial reasons - but it has the appearance of being a response to legislation. In particular it involves monopoly values. These seem to be a valuation of the license - something that was certainly around in 1910 - it would be interesting to find out which Act set up the system and how it was calculated.

[al b]

Hi  I live in the U.S.A. and our laws on what we call Taverns are about the same. They change year by year seems like it is getting harder to obtain a license for that kind of business every year. Old owners sell there license's to new ones for a large sum . Have seen owners sell for $50, 000 dollars or more. Seems like when it is controlled the price go's up. Thanks again for the info very inlighting. Alan

[newburychap]

1869 Ended the beerhouse free for all - all licensed premises had to be approved annually by JPs. Left a legacy of pre-1869 beerhouses that seemed to offer an almost unchallengeable right to a license for those who had one before this Act.
1906 Opened up the opportunity for JPs to deny a license on the grounds of redundancy (ie too many pubs in the area)
1910 Add a method of compensating owners and licensees if their pub was closed under the 1906 act.

It seems that the sources I used for the above were somewhat dodgy!  Ignore the dates 1906 & 1910 0 the legislation was a little earlier.

The 'Compensation' Act was the Licensing Act of 1904 it set up a fund to compensate licensees and owners if a pub was closed by the JPs - the fund being raised by a levy on licensees and pub owners (mainly breweries).

The Licensing Act of 1902 was not quite as I described under 1906 but was, nevertheless a major change in that it ended the special position of the pre-1869 beerhouses, whose licenses had been effectively protected by the 1869 Wine & Beer House Act from the JP's power to close houses.

An attempt at seriously anti-pub legislation in 1908 was defeated.

I now have a ludicrously long list of legislation (and copies of almost all the acts up to 1904)  and am starting to get my head round some of the issues that confused me in the past. A couple of important Acts that had escaped be entirely were the Licensing Acts of 1872 and 1874 which did a lot to define what a pub license was.

Interestingly one of the better sources I have found so far on licensing is Norman Longmate's 'The Waterdrinkers' - a history of teetotalism.

[jorose]

FOR LICENSED VICTUALLERS
The Era (London, England), Sunday, October 2, 1859; Issue 1097.

Transfers of Licenses:
Tower Hamlets, September 26:
Wapping:
Crooked Billet, Hermitage-stairs, George Weeden to Job Way.

[al b]

HI  Right track Job Way was my dad's grandpa They talked about the Crooked Billet That is where G Grandpa Charles George Blenman met His wife Louisa Way. Great info Thanks  alb