Open All Hours
In Victorian Glossop, excessive drinking was a major public order issue, and the police and magistrates spent much time on what the Glossop Record called “the doings and misdoings of John Barleycorn and his admirers”. Penalties could be stiff, even for just being drunk and disorderly; in June 1861 Thomas Calligan was fined 10 shillings, the equivalent of £60 today, plus costs, with a month in prison if he didn’t pay, despite pleading guilty and “apparently in the deepest penitence and humility, hoping Their Worships would deal with him as easily as they could, for he was a poor man and it was his first offence.”
An alternative was to limit drinking time, but the police had an uphill task, as there were 65 licenced outlets and the permitted hours were widely ignored. At one o’clock in the morning of Sunday 19th June 1859 Sergeant Wild and PC Carline were walking past The Globe Inn on High Street West when “they observed a person coming from the back with a jug in his hand.” They kept watch, and before long another man “came with a jug, and rattled on the wall with it, when a female came out and took the jug, and presently returned with it”. They “heard the money chink” and after a scuffle, seized the jug and what was left of the beer in it. The landlord John Cottrill duly appeared in court, and was found guilty despite the best efforts of his lawyer, Thomas Michael Ellison, and the fact that the magistrate, Francis Sumner, was Ellison’s cousin. However, the fine of 10 shillings would have meant much less to Cottrill than it did to Thomas Calligan.
James Thornley of Gamesley was more fortunate. PC Marsden told the court that at 11.25 pm on Saturday June 30th 1860 “he saw the defendant’s house open and heard persons inside. They were making much noise. There were a jug and glasses on the table, and there was beer in the jug. Two of the persons were drunk.” Mr Thornley, however, maintained that he was simply providing a late bread and cheese supper to four hungry young volunteers who had been drilling that afternoon at Broadbottom Station, and he had not served any beer after 11 pm. His military customers backed him up, and the magistrates, Edmund Potter and John Wood, let him off with a caution.
It wasn’t just common beerhouses. The Station Inn, now The George (see pic), was one of the town’s main social centres, hosting Grand Balls. However, it also hosted lock-ins; at 1.15 am on the 30th August 1868 Sergeant Clayton and PC Charlton “heard a company inside talking very loudly.” Despite the Sergeant climbing over the gate into the yard, it took them 45 minutes to gain entry, and so mine hosts Tom and Maria Higginbottom were charged with refusing to admit the police. They got off with a 20-shilling fine, a “mitigated penalty” as it was a first offence. Either that, or Their Worships were looking forward to the next Grand Ball……
Coming soon, a case involving alcohol which made the national press. Oh, and in March 1863 Thomas Calligan was back in court. 20 shillings this time, or one month hard labour.
NEXT – Part 7: A Clerical Error
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