Note 343 — Chapter IV

During these years the Executive Committees of the larger societies were waging war on the “liquor allowance.” In the reports and financial statements of the Unions for the first half of the century, drink was one of the largest items of expenditure, express provision being made by the rules for the refreshment of the officers and members at all meetings. The rules of the London Society of Woolstaplers (1813) state that “the President shall be accommodated with his own choice of liquors, wine only excepted.” The Friendly Society of Ironmoulders (1809) ordains that the Marshal shall distribute the beer round the meeting impartially, members being forbidden to drink out of turn “except the officers at the table or a member on his first coming to the town.” Even as late as 1837 the rules of the Steam-Engine Makers’ Society direct one-third of the weekly contribution to be spent in the refreshment of the members, a provision which drops out in the revision of 1846. In that year the Delegate Meeting of the Ironmoulders prohibited drinking and smoking at its own sittings, and followed up this self-denying ordinance by altering the rules of the society so as to change the allowance of beer at branch meetings to its equivalent in money. “We believe,” they remark in their address to the members, “the business of the society would be much better done were there no liquor allowance. Interruption, confusion, and scenes of violence and disorder are often the characteristic of meetings where order, calmness, and impartiality should prevail.” By 1860 most of the larger societies had abolished all allowance for liquor, and some had even prohibited its consumption during business meetings. It is to be remembered that the Unions had, at first, no other meeting place than the club-room freely placed at their disposal by the publican, and that their payment for drink was of the nature of rent. Meanwhile the Compositors and Bookbinders were removing their headquarters from public-houses to offices of their own, and the Steam-Engine Makers were allowing branches to hire rooms for meetings so as to avoid temptation. In 1850 the Ironmoulders report that some publicans were refusing to lend rooms for meetings, owing to the growth of Temperance.