This is the story of drink maps. It’s not about pub crawls or plotted ale trails. Instead, these are maps with an agenda that was hostile to drinking alcohol, made by the Temperance Movement.
The logic at the time of the maps' creation went: if people are shown how many places there are to buy alcohol, they will be so appalled that they will join the effort to end drinking. In hindsight, this logic is obviously flawed.
Drink maps of cities were published to fight increasingly rampant consumption, from Edinburgh and Liverpool to Oxford and London. Featuring red symbols to indicate where alcohol was served, these special street maps were posted prominently in public places, submitted as evidence, sent to MPs and published in newspapers to show how inebriated a neighbourhood could be.
They promoted the message that having fewer places to buy alcohol was the answer to reducing widespread crime, poverty and sickness.
And they worked – at first. After consulting a drink map in one town, judges decided to close half the licensed shops because, even then, no one had to walk more than two minutes for a beer.
Drink Maps in Victorian Britain by Kris Butler is out on 9th May (Bodleian, £25)
