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The Pig or the Stye: Drink and Poverty in Late Victorian England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

J. B. Brown
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In the last third of the nineteenth century, the relationship of poverty and drunkenness became a topic of bitter social controversy. The debate often had hopelessly polarized positions, being reduced in crudest form to a disagreement over whether poverty caused intemperance or the reverse. The very emotionalism and repetition of the argument, while disappointing to the logician, was a clear sign of the deep passions that the question invoked. While contributors to this debate stretched across the spectrum of religious and political alignment, the controversy was essentially the creature of the left. As will be argued, the question of self-inflicted poverty through drunkenness excited the Liberal and emergent socialist-labour parties far more than it did the Conservative-Unionist sector.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , December 1973 , pp. 380 - 395
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1973

References

page 381 note 1 Temperance Star, December 4, 1868, p. 352. The actual phrase “self-inflicted poverty” was coined by G. R. Porter, the founder (1833)Google Scholar of the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade.

page 381 note 2 Colquhoun, Patrick, A Treatise on the Wealth, Power and Resources of the British Empire (London, 1815), p. 113.Google Scholar

page 382 note 1 Clark, George Kitson, The Making of Victorian England (London, 1964), p. 126.Google Scholar Dr Brian Harrison's Drink and the Victorians provides a thorough account of the temperance question in the 1830–1870 era. The Rev. Carter's, HenryThe English Movement (London, 1933)Google Scholar, although now superseded by Harrison's work in many respects, remains the best account of the formation of the prohibitionist movement in the 1830's.

page 382 note 2 Wilson, George, Alcohol and the Nation (London, 1940), p. 332.Google Scholar

page 382 note 3 Rowntree, Joseph and Sherwell, Arthur, The Temperance Problem and Social Reform (London, 1899), p. 15.Google Scholar

page 383 note 1 Alliance News, March 4, 1871, p. 142. On the general subject of British productivity, Habakkuk's, H. J.American and British Technology (Cambridge, 1962)Google Scholar is invaluable. Donald McCloskey's “Did Victorian Britain Fail?”, in: Economic History Review, Second Series, Vol. XXIII (1970), argues persuasively that the relative slippage of the British economy after 1870 was due to natural economic forces and not to any decline in the savings ratio.

page 384 note 1 Randolph Churchill to W. H. Harcourt, July 26, 1890, Harcourt Papers, Stanton Harcourt, Box 3.

page 384 note 2 Cardinal Manning Notebook, n.d., Manning Papers, St Mary of the Angels, London, Box 4. For the basic positions on the spreading controversy on the labor aristocracy question, see Hobsbawm, E. J., “The Labour Aristocracy in Nineteenth Century Britain”, in Men, Labouring (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, and Pelling, Henry, Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian England (London, 1968).Google Scholar

page 384 note 3 Lacey, W. J., The Case for Total Abstinence (London, 1899), p. 108.Google Scholar

page 385 note 1 Hansard, , 04 24, 1888, Third Series, Vol. CCCXXV, c. 414.Google Scholar

page 385 note 2 Lawson at Exeter Hall, 02 22, 1887, cited in Alliance News, 02 26, 1887, p. 141.Google Scholar

page 386 note 1 T. P. Whittaker at Manchester, October 23, 1893, ibid., October 27, 1893, p. 735.

page 386 note 2 Ibid., January 5, 1894, p. 7.

page 387 note 1 Hoyle, William, Our National Resources and How They Are Wasted (London, 1871), p. 27.Google Scholar

page 388 note 1 Hoyle, William, Our National Drink Bill (London, 1884), p. 182.Google Scholar Hoyle's overall view of the state, however, was not markedly different from that of the “Manchester School”. He desired a limited state budget, feeling that the 1882 budget of 85 million pound could have been reduced by at least 20 million. Hoyle felt that soldiers and sailors should be partially employed as farm laborers in order to reduce their tax expense.

page 389 note 1 Hoyle, William, Wealth and Social Progress (Manchester, 1887), p. 188.Google Scholar

page 390 note 1 Burns, John, Labor and Drink (London, 1904), p. 1.Google Scholar

page 390 note 2 Tom Mann to John Burns, March 16, 1888, Burns Papers, British Museum, Add. Mss 46285, f. 6. In his Memoirs Mann revealed that he had been both a teetotaler and a vegetarian in his youth and did not reject the prohibitionist explanation of poverty as “nauseous” until the 1880's.

page 391 note 1 Blatchford, Robert, Merrie England (London, 1894), p. 157.Google Scholar

page 391 note 2 Blatchford, Robert, Dismal England (London, 1899), p. 22.Google Scholar

page 391 note 3 Ibid.

page 391 note 4 Hobson, John A., Problems of Poverty (London, 1891), p. 172.Google Scholar

page 392 note 1 Alliance News, 02 5, 1892, p. 88.Google Scholar

page 392 note 2 Skinner, J. M., Socialistic Theories and the Drink Traffic (London, 1896), p. 162.Google Scholar

page 392 note 3 Alliance News, 12 23, 1892, p. 837.Google Scholar

page 392 note 4 Oyston, Clifford, Socialism and the Drink Evil (London, 1909), p. 85.Google Scholar

page 393 note 1 Alliance News, 08 14, 1902, p. 522.Google Scholar

page 393 note 2 Wilson, , Alcohol and the Nation, p. 333.Google Scholar

page 393 note 3 MacDonald, J. R., Character and Democracy (London, 1909), p. 45.Google Scholar

page 393 note 4 Ramsay MacDonald to Herbert Gladstone, April 8, 1908, Viscount Gladstone Papers, British Museum, Add. Mss 45986, f. 102.

page 394 note 1 Snowden, Phillip, Socialism and the Drink Question (London, 1908), p. 82.Google Scholar

page 394 note 2 There were occasional tremors in the truce. In 1908 the local Labour Party of Huddersfield opposed the Liberal Licensing Bill on the argument that if passed, the temperance measure would increase unemployment.

page 394 note 3 Sherwell, Arthur, Counter Attractions to the Public House (London, 1911), p. 5.Google Scholar

page 394 note 4 Alliance News, 10 24, 1890, p. 697.Google Scholar

page 395 note 1 Memorandum as to Drink and Drinking Habits Among the Working Classes, 11 20, 1907, Public Record Office, Cab. 37/90.Google Scholar