By about 18 50, there was a temperance hall on the streets of every town. You got them as temperance palaces - one in leicester hosted charles dickens and phineas t barnum when they came lecturing. But you've also got temperance hotels: that was the first thing livesey startedhe he wanted a hotel for travellers. And guides became quite a practicable publishing opportunity. By the 18 nineties, liverpool alone had more than 50 branded public houses that didn't sell any beer. They were aimed at working people who could come in and have a lunch without being tempted by drink.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the momentum behind teetotalism in 19th Century Britain, when calls for moderation gave way to complete abstinence in pursuit of a better life. Although arguments for temperance had been made throughout the British Isles beforehand, the story of the organised movement in Britain is often said to have started in 1832 in Preston, when Joseph Livesey and seven others gave a pledge to abstain. The movement grew quickly, with Temperance Halls appearing as new social centres in towns in place of pubs, and political parties being drawn into taking sides either to support abstinence or impose it or reject it.
The image above, which appeared in The Teetotal Progressionist in 1852, is an example of the way in which images contained many points of temperance teaching, and is © Copyright Livesey Collection at the University of Central Lancashire.
With
Annemarie McAllister
Senior Research Fellow in History at the University of Central Lancashire
James Kneale
Associate Professor in Geography at University College London
And
David Beckingham
Associate Professor in Cultural and Historical Geography at the University of Nottingham
Producer: Simon Tillotson