The place of drink: Temperance and the public, 1856–1914

Abstract

Discussions of the place of drink in Britain between 1856 and 1914 were centrally concerned with alcohol as a public problem. Temperance organizations like the United Kingdom Alliance largely abandoned their attempts to reform individuals and instead demanded the prohibition of drink sales. This new concern for the public sphere of politics and public opinion was matched by a new sensitivity to the social contexts of drinking, the role of the drink trade and rituals of conviviality. Temperance documents thus allow us to glimpse two new senses of the public: a wider public sphere, in which the Alliance sought to organize public opinion through lectures, the press and the preparation of moral statistics ; and a space of social interaction governed by rational behaviour and ideals of citizenship. It is also possible to construct a contrasting, 'customary', sense of public space based upon drink as a form of gift exchange which symbolized strong bonds of reciprocity. In striving to replace these ties with more abstract and political senses of citizenship and democratic rights, temperance workers played a part in the remaking of understandings of public space as a mirror image of the public sphere.

The Geographies of Intoxicants: From Production and Consumption to Regulation, Treatment and Prevention

“…A few studies have also attempted to understand changing reactions to intoxicant consumption in connection with broader social processes. Kneale (1999, 2001; Kneale and French 2008) and Dorn (1999) sought to connect historical social constructions of alcohol consumption in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the UK and the USA, respectively, especially the moral panics over drinking as a spatial problem and the increased presence of ‘anomalous human bodies’ of the chronically inebriate, with emerging modes of regulation such as temperance and more stringent supervision of drinking establishments. Kneale and French (2008), in particular, traced the historical fears of ‘clusters’ (read over‐concentration) of alcohol outlets as the primary cause of over‐consumption, a supply‐side concept promoted by adherents of environmental, social causes of addiction.…”

Good, homely, troublesome or improving? Historical geographies of drinking places, c. 1850–1950

“…If drinking was an individual moral failing, it made little sense to blame pubs, but in this period "environmental" arguments encouraged reformers to consider the social context of drinking (Kneale & French, 2008). These maps revealed concentrations of drinking places where these influences were supposedly strongest (Kneale, 2001;Vaughan, 2015). Reformers mapped and counted the numbers of doors pubs had because they were worried about their porosity, their connections to streets and homes, allowing patrons and influences to flow in and out (Kneale, 1999(Kneale, , 2012.…”

Family life and alcohol consumption: The transmission of ‘public’ and ‘private’ drinking cultures

“…This article contributes to a growing body of writing by geographers focused on alcohol, drinking and drunkenness (DeVerteuil & Wilton, 2008;Hubbard, 2005;Herrick, 2011;, 2011a, 2011bKneale, 2001;Leyshon, 2005Leyshon, , 2008aLeyshon, , 2008bWaitt, Jessop, & Gormon-Murray, 2011; and also see a special edition of this journal published in 2008). In particular, we seek to advance understanding of the differential and discursive construction of 'public' and 'private' drinking cultures (Holloway, Jayne, & Valentine, 2009;Jayne, Holloway, & Valentine, 2006).…”