This is juxtaposed by another, corresponding print tilted Beer Street which shows healthy and happy Londoners enjoying their ale. A much quoted gin shop sign from Tobias Smollett's 'History of England' reads, "Drink for a penny, dead drunk for two pence, clean straw for nothing.". Duty raised from gin helped fund the building of the British Empire. The most famous of these means, and a direct response to the 1736 Gin Act, was the creation of something that has been referred to as one of the first “vending machines,” the Puss and Mew. The Irish and Scots developed poitín and then whisky.

Once word hit the street that gin was available, the local lushes merely had to insert a few coins into the cat’s mouth in order to be rewarded with a flow of gin by the person standing on the other side of the wall—thus keeping the identity of the gin merchant a secret. There were economic trade factors that suddenly made liquor far more available to the population at the time than it ever had been before, in a city (London) that had swollen to a dangerously large new size. This Gin Act stoked a backlash against not only the Gin Act but also the rule of law and government itself. At the same time, however, a bevy of social factors also began to cut down gin consumption, from an increasing stigmatization of drunkenness, to the increasing popularity of tea and coffee, to the demands of a London economy that was growing more industrial and mechanized every year. History is Now Magazine, Podcasts, Blog and Books | Modern International and American history, There were various acts brought in which aimed to restrict the sale and consumption of gin, with the Acts of 1729, 1736, 1749, 1751 and 1760. In 1736, the previous ineffectual 1733 Gin Act was replaced by a new Gin Act, officially named, 'The Act for Laying a Duty upon the Retailers of Spirituous Liquors'. In 1729 Parliament increased the tax on gin and this led to complaints culminating in the 1743 Gin Riots. Despite this, gin sales continued to rise. Social critics and upper class writers of the day bemoaned the ugliness of this apparent plague on the city streets, and several attempts were made by the English government to dissuade gin drinkers or increase taxes on gin merchants, with little success. Consumption then began to sharply decrease on a yearly basis, being cut in half by the end of the next decade. In the back rooms of gin shops, men and women spent the night unconscious on straw surrounded by the aroma of gin and vomit. That on the vitals preys; that liquid fire contains; which madness to the heart conveys; and rolls it through the veins.”. These were hard for the authorities to control as these shops were little more than a plain room within a house or behind a shop front. As gin production and public drunkenness soared, it naturally gave birth to a moral panic centered around that rampant liquor consumption. It is important to remember that the late 17th and early 18th centuries in London were a period of dramatic population upheaval and growth, in which the working poor of the nation first flooded into the country’s only true megalopolis looking for work. The period during which gin had its greatest impact in Britain has since become known as the 'Gin Craze'. One of the main examples of a crime being committed that was related to gin was that of.

The Gin Act of 1737 was not actually an act in its own right but a clause inserted into the so-called 'Sweets Act'. Parliament then tried again in 1736 with the much more restrictive Gin Act, which required the purchase of extremely expensive licenses (around £8,000 in modern currency) for any vendor of gin, as well as rewarding informants who reported unlicensed gin sales. In most cases, it was either wasted, as it was a great deal of gin and storing it was difficult, or people drank it all and became ill or even died. Captain Dudley Bradstreet researched the intricacies of the Gin Act and took advantage of a loophole that said an informer must know the name of the person renting a property from which gin was illegally being sold for the justices to have the Authority to break into the premises in order to arrest the transgressors of the act.



The vendor would respond with 'mew' and push out a drawer into which the customer would deposit payment. In response to mounting pressure for government intervention, Parliament first passed the Gin Control Act of 1729 to raise taxes on gin merchants, but the act was repealed only four years later after proving ineffective at curbing public drunkenness.

If so, tell the world!

You can follow him on Twitter for more drink writing. Conceived by a clever if rather unsympathetic entrepreneur named Captain Dudley Bradstreet, the Puss and Mew was a large metal statue of a cat built into the wall of an unassuming building, which contained a metal spout and slots in the mouth for coins to pass through. Thousands of Londoners were prosecuted for flouting the Gin Act - mostly women. This first Gin Act was the start of a battle between those calling for temperance, the land owners, farmers and distillers, and successive government exchequers. He did however, start the trend for what became known as Puss and Mew houses. This practically prohibited gin sales by imposing a two gallon minimum unit of sale and swingeing duties of £1 per gallon. It also required retailers to purchase a £50 annual license (then equivalent to 14 months' wages for a skilled craftsman) with heavy fines for the unlicensed sale of spirits. There were various acts brought in which aimed to restrict the sale and consumption of gin, with the Acts of 1729, 1736, 1749, 1751 and 1760. Nothing more festive than a pint of hot, heavily adultered gin, right? The company is now simply known as G&J Distillers. taxed retail sales at 20 shillings a gallon and made selling gin without a £50 annual licence illegal’ (1) and the 1751 act, ‘lowered the licence fee and forced distillers to sell only to licensed retailers trading from respectable premises’ (2). The Gin Act of 1743 was the first to target distillers rather than retailers and it reduced the retail licence fee from £10 to just £1.

Plymouth gin is the only vintage gin brand to still be made at the same distillery in which it was created, but the Black Friars distillery has been owned by a range of different companies. Legitimate distillers were heavily penalised by this act while illicit distillers thrived. Another loophole was related to the amount of gin sold. Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which placed Dutch King William III/William of Orange on the throne, harsh punitive trade measures were put in place to target the French economy. William Hogarth’s depiction of “Beer Street” was decidedly more sunny, healthful and temperate than the deadly revels of “Gin Lane.”. Cheap gin, first imported from the Netherlands in the 1690s, became an extremely popular drink in the early 18th century. Over a century later this brand would become famous for its Old Tom gin and distinctive Cat & Barrel trademark. When the 1729 Act was brought in, production and the amount of gin which was drank did dip, but production increased in the 1730s. Mothers, children and men alike are pictured standing in the bear trap that represents the deadly effects of cheap, toxic gin. The 1737 act led to a surge in informants and convictions. By 1740 they had added distilling to their already established brewing and wine interests and built a distillery at 55 Cowcross Street, Clerkenwell, London. There were none of the social constraints of a village where everybody knew everybody’s business. Parliament considered such brands both positive, as only a select few were making gin, and negative, as gin was still being made and in some ways became more established as bigger companies were making it.

Parliament felt forced to act in and in 1729 the first Gin Act increased tax on its sale, and raised the annual gin-selling licence. Britain's distillers also benefitted from the introduction of subsidies for all spirits exports. The establishment of Gordon & Company and the others which followed in the subsequent years heralds the start of a regulated and reputable English distilling industry which produced quality spirits.
Yes, some juniper would likely have been involved, but most of this stuff was pure rotgut, plagued by distilling imperfections and dangerous additives (including even small amounts of sulphuric acid). All Rights Reserved, harsh punitive trade measures were put in place. This would have been seen as a good deal, as they were given money without doing much work. By George Cruikshank, 1829. Instead, there was gin. These human vending machines where found all over London and for a short period the subterfuge succeeded in stifling attempts to enforce the 1738 Gin Act. We’ll try to dive into some of them here. There were only two other towns in England with populations of 20,000. And even as the century came to a close, gin was still more of a novelty than anything in London, the most commonly available (and popular) spirits of the day being French brandies. Few of those convicted could pay the £10 fine but informers were still due their £5 reward. The Intriguing Lost Conversation of the Civil Rights Movement: The Writer and the Monk - James Baldwin and Thomas Merton, Cold War History - Are we friends or enemies? In January 1734 she collected Mary for a day out. The workhouse had dressed the child in new petticoats and Judith promised the warden to return the child by the afternoon that same day.
Only the British didn’t really produce much in the way of brandy—what instead rolled out of the thousands of newly established (and unregulated) stills was a flood of dirt cheap, barely palatable gin, given that it could easily be made from sub-standard grain that was unfit for beer brewing. In this he described how he had overcome the Gin Act. The rising level of drunkenness among the poor and the shocking effects of poorly distilled gins in 1729 led the British Parliament to introduce the first of eight Gin Acts. Copyright © www.historyisnowmagazine.com 2012-2018. The French and Dutch developed brandewijn, meaning “burnt wine” although it’s literally distilled wine, which would eventually be called brandy.

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