Research into the history of alcohol use and control in England and Wales: the available sources in the Public Record Office.

Abstract

SummaryThe relationship between the state and the use and abuse of alcohol has been a long and complicated one. Alcohol has been seen, at one and the same time, as a product to be taxed, a threat to social order, a danger to public health and an economic activity to be fostered. Differing government departments, with their differing responsibilities, have implemented contradictory policies, and this has been complicated by the interaction of parliament, pressure groups and local government.Records relating to alcohol production and consumption are widely scattered amongst the archives of parliament, local authorities, private companies and individuals. The records of the central departments of state and courts of law on this subject, however, are held together at the Public Record Office, and are an invaluable source for research.The state has taxed the importation, production and retailing of alcohol for many centuries. A record of this activity can be found in the documents produced by the accounting sections of the Exchequer and by the revenue boards. On the other hand, the threat to public order presented by drunkenness and the congregation of the lower orders in inns is amply documented in Elizabethan wine licenses and in the State Papers. This threat was met by licensing retail outlets, an activity supervised by the Home Office from the mid‐19th century, and by the suppression of disorder, as revealed in the records of the Metropolitan Police. More subtle forms of ‘control’ can be seen in the activities of the Central Control Board, established in 1915 in an attempt virtually to nationalize the alcohol industry in areas where munition workers were active. The CCB came under the authority of the Home Secretary and as such its records have been preserved with those of the Home Office. These records also contain information on the Home Secretary's responsibilities for the supervision of retreats for habitual drunkards under the various Inebriates Acts of the late 19th century. At the same time, however, the records of the Board of Trade, and of the Colonial and Dominions Offices, show the state actively fostering the export of alcohol as a valuable component of British trade. Information relating to the commercial production of alcohol can be found in the records of the Companies Registration Office and of the companies liquidation and winding up proceedings in Chancery and the Supreme Court.An overview of policy in these matters can be found in the records of the Cabinet Office and of the Treasury, the latter being responsible for the financial sanction of civil service expenditure. The Treasury appears to have been more interested in the quiet manipulation of price and alcohol content than in outright intervention.The records of many of these bodies are complex and voluminous and the PRO provides readers with explanatory guides and advice.