Magistrates and Public House Managers, 1840–1914: Another Case of Liverpool Exceptionalism?

Abstract

WE ARE FREQUENTLY REMINDED about the exceptional nature of Liverpool's history, whether this be in employment structure, political allegiance, or the depth of religious divides.l This article considers what might be taken as another case, at least in part: the dominance of managers as opposed to tenants in its public houses in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This might seem to be something of a trivial issue when set against the concerns alluded to above, but this was not how it was seen at the time. The 'Liverpool system' was seen as something to be opposed and, as will be seen below, formed the occasion for comment in places as august as The Times leaders and the House of Commons.2 Indeed, in 1870 a leader in The Times declared, 'Perhaps no town in Great Britain is so deeply concerned as Liverpool, with its frightful mortality and destitution, in a better regulation of the liquor traffic, and none has bestirred itself as actively in promoting a legislative reform of it'. 3 This influence of Liverpool on licensing reform will be examined below. However, one aspect of Liverpool licensing practice which did not meet with the approval of The Times was the employment of salaried managers in place of tenants. An 1877 leader pointed out that the keeping of spirit vaults has become a gigantic business in which large capitalists are embarked. These persons and firms - who are brewers, spirit merchants, and wholesale traders - have many houses in their hands; they intrust them to the management of servants, who are paid small salaries, and sometimes commission on the profits, and whose fitness for their situation is, of course, estimated by the largeness or smallness of the 'barrels per week' they sell. These servants are liable to instant dismissal at the caprice of the master, and are turned out of the houses as soon as they misconduct the business or fall under police censure.4 * The author wishes to thank staff at the Liverpool Record Office and the Bass Museum, Burton on Trent, for their assistance in finding and retrieving the material on which this article is based. The research was funded by ESRC award R000223973.