What does this mean?

[PaulStaffs]

This snippet is from Whites Directory (Staffordshire) 1834. I'm interested in William the blacksmith but can anyone suggest what William IV means (William Upton the fourth, at the same address)?

TIA

Paul

[avm228]

It means the name of the beer house is the "William IV".

(As in King William the Fourth...)

Anna

[PaulStaffs]

Thank you

So you think William is blacksmith and keeper of the beerhouse?

[alpinecottage]

Sounds a good idea - blacksmithing is thirsty work 

[genjen]

That's how I would interpret it too.

Jen

[PaulStaffs]

Thanks all. Sounds reasonable as William's son (and numerous others by marriage) are also in the beer trade in later years.

Edit: Just checked - there is still a William IV pub in Fradley

[stanmapstone]

The Beer House Act 1830 allowed a householder, assessed to the poor rate, to retail beer and cider from his own house on payment of an annual fee to the Excise of 2 guineas. The purpose of this legislation was to popularise beer at the expense of spirits, which with wines, as well as beer, were sold by Publicans. This Act opened the floodgates to a spectacular proliferation of decidedly downmarket drinking-dens, most of them in the front rooms of terraced houses. Within a mere eight years, 46,000 beer houses were opened almost doubling the number of licensed premises. The Act was repealed in 1869.

Stan

[PaulStaffs]

Thank you Stan, that's very interesting background information!

William's son John ends up in Birmingham as an out-of-work publican thirty years later. He dies shortly after that but his wife goes on to marry two other publicans!

[Maggie.]

Is it correct that Beerhouse Keepers often had two jobs?

My 2nd gt. grandmother became a Beerhouse Keeper after the death of her husband sometime between 1861 and '71.  Whether it was a downmarket drinking den I am not sure  but I believe it was a place that was frequented by the bargees working the Leeds/Liverpool Canal.  It also became a place of political intrigue as apparently Michael Davit, a political activist who fought for the rights of the working people, stayed with the family for a time.  The place had a super name, it was called 'The Old House At Home'.

Maggie