1st Edition
The Mystique of Running the Public House in England Quest for El Dorado, 1840-1939
This book is the first scholarly study to explore economic relations between brewers and publicans in the brewing industry over a century.
Based on overlooked historical evidence, this volume examines over 400 interviews with candidates for public houses, unpublished evidence of royal commissions heard in secrecy, representations of publicans in fiction and film and systematic reading of 15 licensed victuallers’ newspapers. The Mystique of Running the Public House in England situates licensed victualling among upper-working- and lower-middle-class occupations in England and abroad. This book explores why aspiring but untrained individuals sought public house tenancies, notwithstanding high levels of turnovers and numerous bankruptcies among licensed victuallers. Encapsulated in any newcomer’s appraisal was the captivating vision of El Dorado, a nirvana which promised unimaginable wealth, high social status, respectability and social mobility as rewards for those limited in income but not in ambition. Despite the allure of El Dorado, the likelihood of publicans realizing their aspirations was quite as remote as that of fish and chip proprietors, Blackpool landladies and French café proprietors.
This volume will be of great value to students and scholars alike interested in British History, Economic History and Social and Cultural History.
1.Quest for El Dorado 2. The Mirage of El Dorado: Managers, Beerhouse Keepers and Social Mobility 3. Glimpsing El Dorado: The Personal Interview 4. Entering El Dorado: Qualifying as a Publican 5. Critics of El Dorado 6. Upholders of El Dorado 7. Saving El Dorado: Paternalism as a Last Resort 8. Challengers to El Dorado: Progressive Brewers 9. New Perceptions: Retailers, Class and El Dorado 10. Pub Turnover: El Dorado’s Achilles Heel
Biography
David W. Gutzke is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Modern British History at Missouri State University, and author of eight academic books. He has researched social history of drinking with focus on public houses, women, and transnational progressivism. Publications include Pubs and Progressives (2006) and Women Drinking Out Since the Early Twentieth Century (2014). He is a past president of the Alcohol and Temperance History Group.
“David Gutzke’s books and articles, published over the past thirty-five years, establishes him as the leading historian of the English beer trade. He is renowned for his mastery of archival and rare print sources. In this new book Gutzke proposes an original thesis, the myth of El Dorado. He shows that the untrained men who aspired to the life of a publican had a naïve optimism about its financial rewards, a myth that the brewers encouraged. Gutzke cites primary source material previously unexplored such as secret testimony at a Royal Commission, buried in the Public Record Office, and job interviews for those applying to become public house tenants. In his new book Gutzke adds to our knowledge of the publicans, men (and a few women) who straddled the borders of the upper working class and the lower middle class.”
David M. Fahey, Miami University, Ohio
