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In a recent article, Alistair Mutch suggests that twin concepts -'control' and 'interpretation' -explain the evolution of the public house over a century of dramatic changes between 1850 and 1950. This article argues that these concepts are confusing, ambiguous and misleading. It was not regulatory pressures, the temperance movement, local politicians, pressure groups or magistrates that most shaped the history of drinking premises, but developments outside the brewing industry, most notably Progressivism. Emerging in the late nineteenth century, Progressives set out to reform drinkers and drink premises, first in the trust house movement, and then in the Liquor Traffic Central Control Board during the First World War. Appropriating their ideas and philosophy immediately following the war, England's foremost brewers launched the public house improvement movement, the most far-reaching attempt to transform the nature of public drinking in the twentieth century.

In tke years 1899-1907 a new critique of alcohol evolved which pointed to increasing female insobriety as a factor in infant mortality. Exploiting the opportunity of a governmental committee appointed to investigate physical deterioration, 14 leading medical doctors, well known for their antipathy to drink, submitted evidence which subsequently formed the basis for the Report's conclusion associating alcoholic abuse with racial deterioration. Between 1905 and 1907 six of these doctors, together with Sir Thomas Brunton and Professor Sims Woodhead, orchestrated concern over drink's deleterious impact on pregnant women and babies. By condemning alcohol as one important source of infant deaths and national inefficiency, these anti-drink doctors, all except one members of the Society for the Study of Inebriety, encouraged the medical profession to adopt a more critical public posture towards drink and compelled the Govemment to permit hygiene and temperance instruction in elementary schools. They further provided the rationale early in 1907 for George Sims' newspaper articles, which emphasized the imperial consequences of Britain's high infant mortality. He alone publicized the prevalence of babies and small children taken into public houses, where they were given alcohol or contracted fatal respiratory diseases. Breast milk contaminated with alcohol also endangered their lives. Following these revelations, sympathizers formed the Tribune Gommittee, and, with the support of the eight anti-drink doctors and others, helped translate Sims' proposal to prohibit children under 14 from licensed premises into legislation.

Summary In the years 1899‐1907 a new critique of alcohol evolved which pointed to increasing female insobriety as a factor in infant mortality. Exploiting the opportunity of a governmental committee appointed to investigate physical deterioration, 14 leading medical doctors, well known for their antipathy to drink, submitted evidence which subsequently formed the basis for the Report's conclusion associating alcoholic abuse with racial deterioration. Between 1905 and 1907 six of these doctors, together with Sir Thomas Brunton and Professor Sims Wood head, orchestrated concern over drink's deleterious impact on pregnant women and babies. By condemning alcohol as one important source of infant deaths and national inefficiency, these anti‐drink doctors, all except one numbers of the Society for the Study of Inebriety, encouraged the medical profession to adopt a more critical public posture towards drink and compelled the Government to permit hygiene and temperance instruction in elementary schools. They further provided the rationale early in 1907 for George Sims’ newspaper articles, which emphasized the imperial consequences of Britain's high infant mortality. He alone publicized the prevalence of babies and small children taken into public houses, where they were given alcohol or contracted fatal respiratory diseases. Breast milk contaminated with alcohol also endangered their lives. Following these revelations, sympathizers formed the Tribune Committee, and, with the support of the eight anti‐drink doctors and others, helped translate Sims’ proposal to prohibit children under 14 from licensed premises into legislation.

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