Kmflett's Blog

During one of the brief-ish non-lockdown periods in 2020 I looked through some issues of the weekly socialist paper The Clarion published in the early 1900s. The paper has been fully digitised and is available on-line, although paywalled except in academic locations such as the British Library where access is free.

The Clarion promoted socialist fellowship and culture perhaps notably with cycling. It straddled an audience that used pubs and those who didn’t and carried some reports of temperance hotels and pubs. These were attempts to emulate the social atmosphere of the pub but with (at least nominally)non-alcoholic drinks such as ginger beer, dandelion and burdock and Vimto. The view was, even from those who were well disposed to temperance, that these were that these were austere and unfriendly places.

Brian Harrison in Drink and the Victorians notes that temperance hotels were often commercial ventures not connected to local temperance societies. They had to compete commercially with pubs and some had a reputation for gambling and indeed use as brothels.

Meanwhile temperance drinks were mostly fermented which meant that they were to an extent alcoholic, perhaps around 2.5%. Well below an average strength of much Victorian beer but close to a modern day Table Beer.