Drinking in Victorian and Edwardian Britain : Beyond the Spectre of the Drunkard / by Thora Hands.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hands, Thora, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Great Britain--History.

Great Britain.

Social history.

Medicine--History.

Medicine.

Ethnology--Great Britain.

Ethnology.

Culture.

History of Britain and Ireland.

Social History.

History of Medicine.

British Culture.

Local Subjects:

History of Britain and Ireland.

Social History.

History of Medicine.

British Culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XIV, 195 p. 20 illus.)

Edition:

1st ed. 2018.

Place of Publication:

2018.

Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This open access book surveys drinking in Britain between the Licensing Act of 1869 and the wartime regulations imposed on alcohol production and consumption after 1914. This was a period marked by the expansion of the drink industry and by increasingly restrictive licensing laws. Politics and commerce co-existed with moral and medical concerns about drunkenness and combined, these factors pushed alcohol consumers into the public spotlight. Through an analysis of public and private records, medical texts and sociological studies, the book investigates the reasons why Victorians and Edwardians consumed alcohol in the ways that they did and explores the ideas about alcohol that circulated in the period. This book shows that they had many reasons for purchasing and consuming alcoholic substances and these were driven by broader social, cultural, medical and commercial factors. Although drunkenness may have been the most visible consequence of alcohol consumption, it was not the only type of drinking behaviour. Alcohol played an important social role in the everyday lives of Victorians and Edwardians where its consumption held many different meanings.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction Reframing Drink and the Victorians

Section 1: Drinkers

Chapter 2 The Spectre of the Drunkard

Chapter 3 The Great Army of Drinkers

Chapter 4 The Secret Army of Drinkers

Chapter 5 Testing 'the character of drink'

Section 2: Drinks

Chapter 5 Promoting the Ideals of Empire: Bass & Co. Ltd

Chapter 6 Making Scotch Respectable: Buchanan & Walker

Chapter 7 Selling the illusion of the Brand: W & A Gilbey

Section 3: Drinking in Victorian and Edwardian Britain

Chapter 8 Doctor's Orders: A Prescription to Drink

Chapter 9 Drinking for Health: Proprietary Tonic Wines

Chapter 10 Neither Carnival nor Lent: Working Class Drinking Culture

Chapter 11 The Drinking Culture of the Higher Classes

Chapter 12 Conclusions.-Appendix 1.

ISBN:

9783319929644

331992964X

OCLC:

1043846129

Access Restriction:

Open access Unrestricted online access star