Government & Hospitality - The Carlisle Experiment
Series: Regulatory HistorySteve Dunkley takes you through the alcohol temperance movement, and how that impacted government decisions during World War One around alcohol consumption in pubs.
Illustrations by Christine Jopling
Things you will learn
- The Salvation Army
- Defence of the Realm
- Alcohol Crackdown
- Carlisle Chaos
- Government Brewers
-
The Salvation Army
Temperance societies began forming in the 1830s, mostly by busy body upper classes who didn’t like that the lower classes were seen as being out of control. They wanted more order, more God Fearing citizens who were easier to control. But the general public didn’t really like their interference and most of those calling for abstinence didn’t really achieve anything. Even the well known Salvation Army wasn’t popular. This wasn’t the Sally Army that we know today who hang around outside supermarkets at Christmas playing carols on brass instruments, but a more direct campaigning protest movement. They would regularly march through towns shouting about the wickedness of alcohol and how everyone was going to hell. And much to their despair there were usually much larger counter protests from loose bands known as the Skeleton Army in direct mockery of the Salvation Army’s name. The Salvation Army was often known for asking the local judiciary and police forces for help to stop the counter protests, but they were almost always denied it. However, even though the courts found that the Salvation Army marches were liable to cause riots, they were still allowed to go ahead because they never threw the first punch. And a lot of punches did get thrown between the Salvation and Skeleton Army members. Whilst the Salvation Army and other temperance societies didn’t have the backing of the people, they did have the ear of Parliament with several members of temperance societies also being members of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
-
Defence of the Realm
In 1914 due to the First World War, the government introduced The Defence Of The Realm Act which included measures to restrict the licensing hours for pubs to 12 noon to 2pm and then 6:30pm to 9:30pm in an effort to stop all day drinking, a forced lower strength beer so that even when drinking it was more unlikely that someone would get drunk, they added an extra war tax on a pint and banned “treating.” Treating seemed like a very strange thing to ban, making it illegal to buy someone else a drink and a lot of soldiers complained that they suddenly had to pay for their own drinks, but the reasoning was that a drunken soldier was more likely to reveal secrets and information than a sober one and the law was brought in to thwart spies, and extended to the general public, just in case.
-
Alcohol Crackdown
By 1915 the government was deeply concerned that the measures in the Act weren’t enough, even though they kept getting stricter, and that excessive drinking was taking its toll on the workforce it needed to produce munitions. There were a lot of reported sick days with staff not turning up for work because they were hungover. The government wasn't happy about this, and those members who were part of the temperance movement, or friends of the temperance movement used this as an opportunity to further their cause. By 1916 the government had decided that further measures needed to be taken to combat what they saw as a reduction in workforce efficiency and introduced powers that allowed it to take control of alcohol production and distribution in areas of England and Scotland where it deemed alcohol abuse to be detrimental to the production and distribution of munitions. Even as this was being introduced there were speeches in the House of Commons on the abuse of those powers. It seemed that those in charge of the Central Control Board were keen on taking control of drinking in more areas than their remit covered. Colonel John Gretton (then of the Rutlandshire constituency) highlighted on 26th October 2016 how the Central Control Board wasn’t responsible to parliament, but instead only to itself, that spending was seemingly out of control and that rather than restricting itself to the specific areas where there were issues it seemed to want to take all of Great Britain (the powers didn’t extend to Ireland) and that they were planning for control of the breweries and pubs of Burton-on-Trent, even though there were no issues with behaviour or production in that area.
-
The main area that was within the remit, which was also the largest and seen as the most successful intervention, was between Carlisle and Gretna and became known as the Carlisle Experiment. To increase production of munitions to the levels needed due to the war the Government created a brand-new purpose-built chemical and munitions factory so large that it required new towns at Eastriggs and Gretna to support it. Where there were previously sleepy towns, there was now an increase of an estimated 20,000 people to both build and work in the factory. The area was remote with not much entertainment for the relatively well paid workers who were housed in cramped houses or temporary huts. So when they had some down time, they wanted to relax and enjoy a bit of luxury; which is where Carlisle came in, being the nearest city to the factory and just down the train line.
-
Carlisle Chaos
The local population prior to the First World War was approximately 45,000 and is estimated to be closer to 20,000 by 1916 – mostly made up of older generations, women and children as the majority of men of fighting age had gone to the war. The pubs of these previously sleepy towns were old style beer houses, small and cramped, and there weren’t enough of them for the huge new numbers of drinkers, so people were ordering multiple drinks so they didn’t spend all their time at the bar queueing, and therefore also drinking more before they had to catch the last trains back; which weren’t that late at night. The landlords of the pubs were old men, so too were the police force which was much smaller than pre-war, pre-influx. The towns just couldn’t cope and it wasn’t long before the streets of Carlisle saw a four-fold increase in alcohol related offences. This was ripe ground for the Temperance Movement to push for major changes to restrict the consumption of alcohol; and it got them.
-
Government Brewers
The Government took control of all breweries, distilleries, blenderies, bars and all but three hotels in the area. Only the Government could make alcohol, which it made weaker, and only the Government could sell it, except for the two expensive hotels and their private bars. The third hotel was a Temperance Hotel without a bar. When the Central Control Board acting as the Carlisle State Management Scheme took control they made a lot of changes. Compulsory purchases saw a lot of pubs closed down overnight, and new, bigger venues were built without any external alcohol advertising, landlords were replaced by salaried managers who didn’t stand to make extra profit on extra sales, and new food taverns were created. The larger internal spaces without side rooms or snugs allowed for easier supervision of drinkers, with those who looked to be getting drunk were quickly ejected. These measures, along with elements copied from the various temperance societies coffee houses led to a national change in how pubs were designed and built and their effects are still with us today.
-
It has occasionally been asked as to why the government didn’t build entertainment venues in the Gretna area to cater to the huge influx of workers on site and manage the drinking and behaviour there, eliminating the over-running of the smaller nearby towns with their ageing populations. The only reason that seems to bear scrutiny is that the government, with the temperance movement backing, wanted the drunken behaviour so that they could use it as a reason to take control. After the First World War two of the Government controlled areas were released back to the previous owners, but Carlisle was kept under Government control. This control was constantly questioned in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, including a report in 1927 which concluded that anti-social behaviour was under control, but also that it was very profitable for the Government; so they kept it going. It wasn’t until 1971 that it was deemed to no longer be financially viable and they relinquished control.
