Tag: Licensing laws

‘Such a state of things is not permitted in any town in Europe. The sooner a stop was put to such places the better’: Soho in 1888

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Berwick Street market in the 1950s or 60s.

Much of the housing would’ve been there in the late 1800s

Madame Akker Huber ran a lively club in Soho, ostensibly for members only. Le Cercle des Etrangers (or Circle of Strangers) was situated in Berwick Street and seems to have attracted a mixed clientele, especially from London’s multinational immigrant community.

One such person was Nestor Lacrois who enjoyed the hospitality of the club but didn’t always have the funds to pay for it. On the evening of 19 May 1888 Nestor was at the bar of the club pleading with Madame Huber to lend him some money so he could carry on enjoying himself.

Madame Huber was disinclined to help however. Lacrois already owed her money and wasn’t at all forthcoming about when that debt would be settled. Her refusal only enraged him; he picked up a glass and threw it at her. As she evaded the missile he tried again, then swept several glasses from the bar, smashing on the floor before storming out.

It took a while (and possibly some failed attempts at reconciliation or recompense) but in June Madame Huber obtained a summons against Lacrois and she and him appeared together at Marlborough Street Police court. Lacrois was accused of the criminal damage, assault and challenging her to a fight when drunk. Lacrois counter-sued, claiming that the landlady had smashed a glass in his face, drawing blood.

Apparently ‘five or six fights occurred in the club’ that night and Mr Newton listened with mounting alarm to the description of the club as a chaotic, drunken and disorderly venue. Several women were produced who claimed they could come and go as they pleased without being members and it was alleged that drinking continued late into the small hours.  In the end he declared that he didn’t believe any of the witnesses before him in the case between Huber and Lacrois and dismissed the summonses.

As for the club itself: ‘such a state of things is not permitted in any town in Europe. The sooner a stop was put to such places the better’.

One imagines the local police and licensing officers took note.

[from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, June 10, 1888]

On June 15 Drew’s new book (co-authored by Andy Wise) is published by Amberley Books. It is a new study of the Whitechapel murders of 1888 which offers up a new suspect, links the ‘Jack the Ripper’ killings to the unsolved ‘Thames Torso’ crimes, and provides the reader with important contextual history of Victorian London. The book is available to order on Amazon here

‘A child having been stolen the detectives were looking for its clothes, not its body!’ The police and press criticism in Victorian Islington

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The police are never far from criticism by the media in this country. In the late twentieth century there has been widespread condemnation of their handling of the Miners Strike, the Peace Convoy near Stonehenge, the tragedy at Hillsborough 30 years again this week, and the murder of Stephen Lawrence. We can add to that the botched investigation into the serial murders committed by Peter Sutcliffe in West Yorkshire, the ‘kettling’ of student protesters, various deaths in police custody, and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005.

The nineteenth-century police was far from immune to newspaper criticism; indeed from the very creation of the Metropolitan Police in 1829 sections of the press leapt at every opportunity to pour scorn on them or expose their inefficiencies. The police represented – for some at least – an imposition on the freedom and the wallet of decent and respectable Britons. In London and in many midlands and northern towns the police became a symbol of an ever more oppressive state as they were deployed to prevent protests against the hated Poor Law.

But it is often the ‘little things’ that annoy the public just as much and it seems from this anti-police report in The Era from 1870 that it was their actions against publicans that got under the skin of middle-class newspaper editors. The licensing laws were an easy target because they seemingly unnecessary imposed rules on people who were doing ‘northing wrong’.  As The Era put it the police’s purpose seemed to be little more than:

‘annoying respectable Licensed Victuallers and their customers under the colourable pretence of seeing that men who have a large stake in their property are not jeopardizing it by evading the law and encouraging bad characters’.

In other words the police were interfering unnecessarily in the lives of business men and women and it might have been better if the police concentrated on catching ‘real criminals’, rather than the odd landlord who stayed open after hours or served alcohol on a Sunday. Today we hear very similar complaints about the police, especially from grumpy motorists pulled over for speeding.

In 1870 The Era opted to illustrate its point by reference to a child abduction that the local police (in this case Islington’s Y Division) quite spectacularly (in the opinion of the paper) failed to investigate properly.

When Mrs Chinnery (the wife of a respectable Horney Road tradesman) required a new domestic servant she approached the Poor Law authorities. They found her a widow named Mary O’Connor who happily swapped the workhouse for her new live-in role and, at first at least, she pleased her new mistress and seemed very happy to have this new chance in life. Things soured however when she was unable to visit her daughter (who lived in an orphanage in Kensington) because she’d not finished her duties at home in time.

That was Sunday 3 April and on the following Monday when her mistress sent her out on an errand Mary took Mrs Chinnor’s 18 month old son with her.

She never came back.

Mrs Chinnor ‘naturally alarmed’ went to the police who issued a description of the servant and the infant child. However, despite the best efforts of the ‘active and intelligent Police of Y Division’ (as the press reported it) neither the woman nor the baby could be found. Then, a week later on the 11 April one of Mrs Chinnor’s suplliers ran into Mary in the street. Knowing that she was a fugitive she made a citizen’s arrest, but not without a struggle. She fought with the servant for twenty minutes before any policemen arrived and then they struggled again to ward off a large crowd that wanted to string the child abductor up on the nearest lamppost.

Meanwhile the poor little boy was still missing and despite the efforts of the division’s detectives no one could find him. No one that is until he turned up in the care of the Islington workhouse. In fact the infant had been there for a day and half, having been found – by the police – on the doorstep of the local police station. The baby was almost naked, swaddled in a cloth, and not dressed as the mother had described it in ‘its pelisse and hat’. The police didn’t recognize it nor, seemingly, did they cross check one inquiry with another. Mary had simply taken the child out of spite but thought better of it and left it where she knew it would be safe.

The Era was scathing:

‘There’s intelligence – there’s activity of intellect; a child having been stolen the detectives were looking for its clothes, not its body!’

‘’Where was the child found? On the steps of Islington Police-station; and though the intelligent and active officers of that Division had circulated a description of the child to all other Metropolitan Police-stations  they had had never thought of examining it to see whether it had the markes [sic] described’ by its mother.

All’s well that ends well of course and mother and child were reunited safely but Mrs Chinnor brought a complaint against the servant to Clerkenwell Police court. Mr Cooke – the magistrate presiding – expressed his ‘astonishment at the intelligence displayed’ by the police. For the press it was an opportunity to comment on the inefficiency of policing in London and to reinforce the opinion of its members that resources were being deployed in the wrong areas.

The paper didn’t bother to say what happened to Mary O’Connor but I imagine a cold prison cell awaited her, which would have meant her daughter would have waited even longer for that visit.

[from The Era, Sunday, April 17, 1870]

A landlady receives an unwanted seasonal gift: slap in the face with a wet fish

DORE: BILLINGSGATE, 1872. Billingsgate fish market in the early morning. Wood engraving after Gustave Dore from 'London: A Pilgrimage,' 1872.

Billingsgate Marketing the morning by Gustave Doré, 1872

Drunkenness is usually associated with this time of year. People have plenty of time off work and numerous social occasions in which drink plays an important role. Whether it is sherry before Christmas dinner, beer on Boxing Day in the pub, or champagne and whiskey on New Year’s Eve, the season tends to lead some to imbibe excessively.

Not surprisingly then the Victorian police courts were kept busier than usual with a procession of drunkards, brawlers, and wife beaters, all brought low by their love of alcohol. Most of the attention of the magistracy was focused on the working classes, where alcohol was seen as a curse.

By the 1890s the Temperance Movement had become a regular feature at these courts of summary justice, usually embodied in the person of the Police Court Missionaries. These missionaries offered support for those brought before the ‘beak’ in return for their pledge to abstain from the ‘demon drink’ in the future. These were the forerunners of the probation service which came into existence in 1907.

In 1898 Lucas Atterby had been enjoying several too many beers in the Birkbeck Tavern on the Archway Road, Highgate. As closing time approached he and his friends were dancing and singing and generally making merry but the landlord had a duty to close up in accordance with the licensing laws of the day. Closing time was 11 o’clock at night (10 on Sundays) but Atterby, a respectable solicitor’s clerk, was in mood to end the party. So when Mr Cornick, the pub’s landlord, called time he refused to leave.

Mrs Cornick tried to gentle remonstrate with him and his mates but got only abuse and worse for her trouble. The clerk leered at her and declared: ‘You look hungry’, before slapping her around the face with ‘a kippered herring’ that he’d presumably bought to serve as his supper or breakfast.

It was an ungallant attack if only a minor one but if was enough to land Atterby in court before Mr Glover at Highgate Police court. The magistrate saw it for what it was, a drunken episode like so many at that time of year. He dismissed the accusation of assault with ‘a Billingsgate pheasant’ (as kippers – red herrings – were apparently called) but imposed a fine of 10splus costs for refusing to quit licensed premises.

The clerk would probably have been embarrassed by his appearance in court (and the pages of the Illustrated Police News) and if he wasn’t he could be sure his employer would have been less than impressed. It was a lesson to others to show some restraint and to know when to stop. A lesson we all might do well to remember as we raise a glass or three this evening.

A very happy (and safe) New Year’s Eve to you all. Cheers!

[from The Illustrated Police News, Saturday, 31 December, 1898]

‘I don’t give a damn who drinks here, so long as they spend plenty of money’.

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Hungerford Stairs, c.1822

1830 was the first full year that the Metropolitan Police patrolled the streets of the capital. They received a mixed reception and often concentrated on the sorts of offences that were easy to clear up, as this made it easier to justify the ratepayers’ expense in paying for them. This involved policing street crime (pickpockets, shoplifters, robberies) as well as moving on traders, vagrants and beggars, drunks and gamblers, and keeping an eye on licensed  premises (pubs and beer shops for example) to ensure they were were training out of hours or illegally.

Sometimes they took proactive action, watching public houses and even donning plain clothes to catch out unsuspecting landlords; on other occasions they relied on tips off from the public or informers, or simply reacted to complaints.

In May 1830 a Thames waterman had lost his apprentice. The lad had gone out and not come back but the master had a pretty good idea where to look. He made his way over, at three in the morning, to the Cannon public house, by Hungerford Stairs. There he found his apprentices and another boy ‘playing at cards, and in a state of intoxication’.

He collared them, dragged them home and, on the next day, brought them before Mr Minshull the Police magistrate at Bow Street.

The waterman said that the Cannon was notorious for being open all night but when he’d companied to the landlord there about allowing the two apprentices to drink and gamble he’d got short shrift.

The landlord said he ‘did not care a d____ who came to his house so long as they spent plenty of money‘.

The magistrate told the boys the off and warned them to behave in the future, and then discharged them into the care of the two watermen they were apprenticed too. If they hadn’t been disciplined already  they could expect a thrashing when they got home. As for the landlord well Mr Minshull was determined he wouldn’t escape the law and so he instructed the New Police to investigate. It was against the terms of the Police Act for the landlord to suffer ‘card playing and other prohibited games’ in his house and he could expect the ‘heaviest penalty’ if prosecuted.

Following this the superintendent of police appeared to request and receive permission to prosecute seven similar establishments for breaches of their licenses. They could all expect large fines and regular visits from the police.

Not surprisingly then the relationship between the police and the landlords of the city got off to a bad start from the New Police’s inception  and didn’t improve much thereafter. Some police could be bribed to turn a blind eye, others probably thought there were bigger fish to fry and found pubs a useful source of information. Others were incorruptible. Either way, pubs were ‘easy pickings’ for a new police force determined to prove its value to the community it served.

[From The Morning Post, Wednesday, May 05, 1830]

Sunday drinking lands a German landlord in court

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John Henry Fielding, (somewhat surprisingly) described as a German and who spoke with a German accent, had only been running his local pub for three weeks but soon found himself hauled before the Thames magistrate for breaking the licensing laws.

On Sunday 27 September at around  lunchtime detective Dunaway of H division, Metropolitan Police, was passing by the White Hart pub in Chamber Street, Whitechapel. He may have been watching the establishment because it had a long established reputation for out of hours drinking, and detective Dunaway (129H) soon noticed that something wasn’t quite right.

Fielding kept opening the door of the pub to admit customers or let them out, always urging them to be quick about it. Seeing Dunaway watching him Fielding assumed he was another customer. He called over to him that he couldn’t let him in because it was already too crowded inside.

The detective called to a uniformed officer nearby, Patrick Geraghty (20H), who crossed over and banged on the pub door.

‘Who ish dat knocking at mine door?’ [sic], demanded the German.

‘The police’ replied PC Geraghty, throwing the landlord and his drinking den into a panic.

According to Geraghty (and one wonders how he was able to know this since he was outside at the time):

‘There was a rush of people into the cellars, and upstairs rooms immediately. Pots of beer, gin, and rum were hastily poured into he sink under the beer machine, and after a delay of two minutes, Geraghty was admitted, and found the defendant “hussing” the people down the cellar stairs’.

Several people tried to escape being caught in an illegal drinking session by rushing past the policeman and some even leapt from the first floor windows. Two or three of these fell awkwardly and ended up in hospital.

The magistrate, Mr Partridge admonished the landlord: ‘This really is too bad – an open defence of the law’, he told him. Fielding was suitably chastened. He apologised and promised it would never happen again. This is when it emerged that he was new to running this pub. His saviour was Inspector Holloway, who had sought the summons to bring him to court in the first place. The pub was notorious he told the justice, but the German was new and this was his first offence. Mr Partridge took this into consideration and instead of the £5 he had intended to impose he fined Fielding 40s. The penalty was paid immediately and the German publican hurriedly left the court.

[from The Morning Post, Thursday, October 08, 1863]

An infringement of the licensing laws reveals the last knockings of the Pelican Club

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In 1867 the adoption of the Queensbury Rules had transformed the popular sport of pugilism into modern professional boxing. Previously prize fights had been bare-knuckle affairs, vicious and brutalising, so much so that they were made illegal. But as with many illegal pastimes that involved gambling they were hard to police, operating as they did in secret behind closed doors.

In 1891 the National Sporting Club was founded out ‘of the ashes of its roistering predecessor, the Pelican Club’ in Covent Garden. The NSC took over the Pelican’s venue which had space for 1,300 punters. The Pelican’s guests had been ‘a mixture of peers, gentlemen, journalists and actors’, but this had not prevented it going bankrupt during 1891.*

In July 1891 the Pelican Club may have already folded (as Andrew Horrall’s study suggests)  but its proprietor, a Mr Wells, was still summoned to Marlborough Street Police Court charged with selling intoxicating liquors and tobacco without a license.

The case had been brought by a detective supervisor of Excise, Mr Llewellyn, who had posed as an ordinary member of the public and had gained access to the venue on 7 March 1891. He had ‘donned evening dress, and without being challenged by anyone’ entered through a side door.

There was a ‘glove contest’ that night and so Llewellyn watched ‘some boxing and asked for some drinks, and remained there until about two the next morning’. The case had been up before the magistrate on at least one previous occasion and the defendant’s counsel had raised a point of law which the magistrate, Mr Cooke, now saw fit to adjudicate on.

He told Mr Wells that under the law selling ‘excisable articles’ (i.e alcohol and tobacco) to members of a bona fide club was not as such a sale and so was permitted without a license. However, ‘where a club was carried on by a proprietor without a reference to members it was a sham club’, and a license was most certainly required.

In this case Llewellyn was not a member of the Pelican Club, nor was he challenged or asked to prove that he was, so in selling him alcohol and cigars Mr Wells and his staff were at fault under the law. In Mr Cooke’s opinion he felt that the Pelican Club required a license to sell alcohol even to its members so either way, Wells was in breach of the law regardless of the clever arguments of his lawyer, Mr Poland QC.

He fined Wells a total of £35 plus costs (about £2,000 today) and the obviously frustrated and disappointed club manager asked him if ‘every proprietary club in London was illegal’. Mr Cooke declined to comment but granted him leave to appeal. If the club had indeed folded by this time poor Mr Well must have felt this was a yet another blow to his business prospects.

[from The Standard, Thursday, July 09, 1891]

*Andrew Horrall, Popular Culture in London C.1890-1918: The Transformation of Entertainment c.1890-1918: the transformation of entertainment, (Manchester, Manchester UP, 2001), pp. 124-5

Plain clothes police in ‘beer’ trap

The introduction of a professional and uniformed ‘new’ police force in London in 1829 (and across the country thereafter) was not without controversy. Historians have debated the reasons behind police reform and consensus has been hard to find. One of the worries of contemporaries was that the police would become an arm of an autocratic state, as they were in some European countries. Even Sir Robert Peel – the Met’s founding father – was at pains to say that he had no desire to instigate a ‘system of espionage’ in the capital.

As a result of this the police were careful to look distinctive from the military (hence the blue swallow tailed coast and tall hats) and always to be easily  identifiable as police officers. At times, of course, this ran counter to what we would now accept as good intelligence gathering operations. Put bluntly, the police were not supposed to go about their inquiries dressed in plain clothes.

With that in mind let us consider this case from May  1857. Mrs Patteson was summoned to court in her husband’s absence (as he was in gaol for debt). The charge was selling alcohol in there beer shop on a Sunday (and so outside the legal trading hours). There was no doubt that this was an offence and that the couple were liable for a hefty fine, but the circumstances gave the court reason to be alarmed.

The police had been told that the Patteson’s were breaking the law but needed proof. In order to get this two officers donned plain clothes and went into the beer house at 11 on a Sunday morning and ordered a couple of pints. They were served and drank their beer and noticed four other men at the bar.

However, despite an offence having taken place the Patteson’s attorney suggested that on this occasion they were the victims of police entrapment. He told the court that, if he had read the commissioner of police’s guidance correctly, ‘under no circumstances, were the police to entrap persons into an offence by means of a disguise’.

The magistrate agreed and merely charged the couple costs, but warned Mrs Patteson that there should be no repeat of the offence or ‘the highest penalty should be imposed the next time’.

[From Reynolds’s Newspaper , Sunday, May 17, 1857]