My first encounter with the Birmingham Habitual Drunkards’ List (the Birmingham Watch Committee Register of Portraits and descriptions of Habitual Drunkards) – was well over 20 years ago when a colleague in what was the Local Studies & History section of Birmingham Central Library introduced me to this fascinating document.
The register has often courted guffaws of derision when first encountered – ‘Look at this bunch of old lushes’, ‘Couldn’t they keep off the sauce?’ And it was frequently mentioned the majority of the people on the register are female – suggesting it is somehow more unacceptable for a woman to exhibit signs of inebriation. I’ve counted the individuals on the list and only 24 of the 82 included are identified as Female.
My attitudes to the register have often been mixed – as a document, it’s a fascinating record of the social conditions in Birmingham at the beginning of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, I’m left feeling demoralised to think there were a group of people so consistently inebriated they were forced by law to have their photographs taken, provide details about their abodes, jobs and physical appearance – and for three of the 82 people on the list to be legally declared as habitual drunkards under the 1902 Licensing Act.
The 1902 Licensing Act
The Act gave local authorities powers to implement regulations to ‘apprehend anyone found drunk and incapable in a public space or licensed premises and also in charge of a person aged 7 and below’. It prohibited the selling of alcohol to any person identified as a habitual drunkard and implemented a penalty on anyone buying alcohol for a drunken individual.
In Birmingham, the Corporation’s Watch Committee (as the authorising body for the City of Birmingham Police Authority) compelled every court in the Birmingham Police District making a conviction for habitual drunkenness, to forward the particulars of the notice and to include a portrait of the individual for inclusion on the list. Each licensed premises and club in the district was then supplied with a copy of the list for reference. Any police officer seeing an individual convicted as a habitual drunkard entering a licensed premises or club was compelled to inform the license holder that alcohol should not be sold to the individual.
The following data taken from the Birmingham Police Establishment Report of 1900 shows the number of cases of drunkenness dealt with by the Justices in the city.
The Culture of Drinking
The 1902 Act wasn’t the first of its kind – there had been several during the course of the nineteenth century and before. Drunkenness was historically considered to be a criminal act and the preserve of undesirables whose lack of self control and moral virtue led them into a life of debauchery and crime. There was very little understanding of the psychological reasons for the excessive imbibing of alcohol, nor the concept of alcoholism as a complex genetic disease.
The psychological theory of dipsomania came to the fore in the nineteenth century and was centred around several alcohol related disorders – particularly short periods of time when a considerable percentage of the population would engage in excessive consumption of alcohol, a theory that chronic drunkenness is a form of behavioural virus.
This idea did little to recognise how the social factors a person encounters, such as abject poverty and the lack of opportunity, can mentally wear people down, especially in a society where the concept of social welfare as we understand it really did not exist. Alcohol offered oblivion and momentary comfort – physically and mentally. It was plentiful and cheap – it’s relatively easy to brew beer and produce spirits such as gin. Beer also has a nutritional value and was a cheap and readily available source of food – a source of protein and carbohydrates.
Historically, before tea became widely affordable to most of the population, the majority of people would throughout the day drink what was called a small beer instead of water. The small beer had less alcoholic content than a standard brewed pint and also had a higher calorific content – many children were given small beer to drink whilst water was too dangerous to imbibe before treatments for filtering contaminated water were available. Socially and culturally, alcohol, like the sale of food in the twenty – first century, was ubiquitous and plentiful.
The following map of licensed houses in Birmingham highlights the proliferation of pubs in the city in 1891.
Who is on the List?
The list as well as being a historic document, has on occasion proved to be a source of research for people exploring their family history!
As mentioned previously, the list contains details such as age, occupation, physical features, peculiarities or marks (chiefly a record of scars and physical injuries) and the date and nature of the conviction.
It’s not possible to provide a full account of all those on the list but let’s take a look at a few of the people included, so we can get a good impression of the content and possibly gain clues as to why people found themselves included –
Register No. 4 – Sarah Grosvenor
Sarah is 60, of no fixed abode, has a series of cuts and scars including one on her right wrist. Her profession is Laundress. What has happened to a 60 year old who finds themselves homeless and who appears to have been subject to physical violence?
Register No. 34 – David Addicott
David is 35, his abode is in the Small Heath area of the city. Interestingly, his profession is given as a Canvasser – who is he canvassing for when he has work as he’s unemployed at the time his details are added to the register. Again, David has numerous scars including a large one from a scald on the left side of his neck. How did that happen to him?
Register No. 79 – John Alexander
John is 37 and residing in a lodging house, suggesting perhaps that his profession is an itinerant one. Interestingly, his job is to play the whistle outside public houses. John has scarring and what is described as a hump on his right shoulder.
Some interesting clues there as to why all three people unfortunately found themselves on the register.
Where Can I Find the List?
A copy of the list can be found in the Birmingham Collection (BCOL 41.9) sequence in the Heritage Research Area on Level 4 of the Library of Birmingham. An appointment is not necessary to see the register during the library’s core opening hours of 11 am – 7 pm Monday & Tuesday and 11 am – 5 pm Wednesday to Saturday. Alternatively, the list is also available on the Ancestry website – search for Birmingham, Warwickshire, Pub Black List, 1903 – 1906.
Paul Taylor, Archives & Collections Coordinator
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