Melvourne: Temperance did also manage to persuade people of the medical dangers of alcohol. But at first they were derided as a very dangerous thing to a stay off alcohol. By the end of the century, certainly, certainly after 18 seventies and 18 eighties, lod medical authorities are slowly coming round. So i think temperance doggedly stuck to its guns on that and was proved right in the end. And while there are still arguments about how dangerous alcohol is, we certainly wouldn't give it out at schools any more, i don't think so.
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