Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

The only brewer described as such in the whole study area for Period B was
William Gould of Alcester, but the presence of brewhouses and brewing implements in
inventories indicate that many people, especially publicans, did brew their own beer. The
town also boasted a couple of distillers during the Georgian period. 264
In 1792 a liquor merchant cum mercer advertised, and Alcester’s many pubs
catered for the growth in passing traffic. 265
In Period D specialist brewers and wine and
spirit merchants remained a rarity, but the innkeepers and victuallers are joined by beerretailers
or beer-sellers after the 1830 Beerhouse Act. 266
The majority of beer and cider
consumed was likely to be brewed on the premises or sourced locally. Records now
reveal the odd barmaid and ostler and also lodging-house keepers in the poorer parts of
the town. 267
In addition to the craftsmen-retailers such as shoemakers, tailors and chandlers,
discussed above, the town boasted many other retailers of various sorts, and, although
figures vary in different sources, the impression is that the number of shops increased
during the study period. The retail businesses included grocers, mercers and general
stores. The term ‘shopkeeper’ seems to imply lower status than ‘grocer’ or ‘mercer’,
264 Records do not reveal the type of spirit produced, nor the raw materials used. Perhaps Alcester, in a
small way, was following London fashion ‘at the height of the gin-drinking mania’, as described by H. J.
Habakkuk, ‘English population in the eighteenth century’, Econ. Hist. Rev., 6, (1953), p. 126. B. Trinder.
‘Food in probate inventories 1660-1750’, Local Historian, 38, (2008), p.45, suggests that distillers were
making a type of English whisky.
265 UBD 1792. No doubt much of his mercery and liquor came from distant places.
266 The term ‘publican’ was apparently not in use until the nineteenth century. Earlier the normal
description was ‘innholder’, ‘innkeeper’ or ‘victualler’. In QS in Period A victuallers are also called
‘alehouse-keepers’ or ‘tipplers’, and their premises are usually referred to as ‘inns’ or ‘alehouses’, not
‘pubs’ or ‘public houses’.
267 For example, in WaRO, Alcester 1841 and 1851 censuses.
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