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Gin consumed the psyche of the British populous during the eighteenth century – physically, culturally and politically. Going from foreign import to native spirit, gin found a hotbed of consumers in a rapidly changing nation. The resulting epidemic during the first half of the century – known as the Gin Craze (c.1720-1751) – was immortalised through popular culture, abhorred by moralists and engendered a series of political responses.
Like coffee, gin was consumed widely. But if coffee was marked as the nation’s ‘soft drug’ (Cowan 7), then gin was very much its darker counterpart; the spirit became synonymous with personal and national decay. As Jessica Warner succinctly summarises in her modern investigation of the Gin Craze,
Gin was the original urban drug. Cheap, potent, and readily available, it met the needs of an urban population, numbing countless thousands to the fatigue, hunger, and cold that were the lot of London’s working poor. (ix-x)
The story of English gin is more than that of just a distilled spirit. Instead, it is a horrifying window into a not-too-distant world of violent truths – a world of crime, politics, culture and death.
Image (1): These British gin glasses (above) were produced c.1720-1740. Currently stored in the V&A collections, the glasses are more ornate than most eighteenth-century gin glasses. However, their engravings and intricate designs suggest that consumption of gin may have helped improve the quality and quantity of native skilled artisans.
The origins of Gin
In its simplest terms, gin is ‘an ardent spirit distilled from grain or malt’ (OED, sense 2. a.). It derives its etymological and chemical origins from the Dutch spirit ‘genever’: ‘a clear alcoholic spirit from Belgium and the Netherlands, distilled from grain and flavoured with juniper’ (OED). Although Franciscus de la Boe, a Dutchman, is frequently named as the inventor of the spirit in the mid-seventeenth century, usage of juniper-based spirits and tonics can be traced back much earlier (Warner 11). Indeed, juniper berries and bark often played a key role in the work of Ancient Greek physicians. However, the first written account of juniper’s medicinal properties appears in the thirteenth century text Der Naturen Bloeme (‘The Flower of Nature’) by Jacob Van Maerlant. In the following century, A Treatise of the Plague by Eugenius Philalethes (a pseudonym for Thomas Vaughan), published during the Great Plague epidemic, also accredits juniper berries with numerous healing qualities. In the text, Philalethes/Vaughan advises his readers to use ‘half an Ounce of Juniper Berries’ as part of ‘an antidote to be taken inwardly’ (23). The birth of Dutch genever – and the subsequent production of gin – owes a lot to the alleged medicinal properties of juniper.
Dutch genever was first produced by distilling wine – a process which was vital for Dutch merchants so that they could increase their profits by transporting the same volume of alcohol but at a higher potency which could then either be sold as such or diluted down on import. However, the distillation process burnt the wine. To improve its taste, the spirit needed to be infused with spices and fruits; juniper berries were selected for its historic medicinal properties and the name ‘genever’ was born (Dillon 14).
British soldiers fighting in the Netherlands during the sixteenth century tasted the spirit for the first time. The term ‘Dutch courage’ was born out of the usage of genever to ease the nerves of soldiers and sailors nerves. Bernard Mandeville in The Fable of the Bees, or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1714) satirically mocks genever’s service for the military. Mandeville notes that a ‘good-humour’d Man’ might argue that social instabilities produced by the consumption of gin in Britain during the 1720s might be a small price to pay ‘in the Advantage we received from [gin] abroad, by upholding the Courage of Soldiers, and animating the Sailors to the Combat; and that in the two last Wars no considerable Victory had been obtain’d without’ (69).
The accession of the Dutch William of Orange to the British throne in 1688 led to increased consumption of gin. Foreign imports of the rival spirit brandy were barred due to their origin in France – Britain’s contemporary enemy. By the early 1690s, the British were importing over ten gallons of gin per year (Warner 16). But the foreign origin of gin did not go unnoticed; it was itself a foreign invader. Bernard Mandeville writes the following,
the infamous Liquor, the name of which, deriv’d from Juniper in Dutch, is now by frequent use and the Laconick Spirit of the Nation, from a Word of middling Length shrunk into a Monosyllable, Intoxicating Gin. (66)
Mandeville's reference to 'Gin' here is credited in the OED as the first recorded usage. Jonathan Swift in his Journal Dublin Lady (1729) and Alexander Pope in his Epistle to Satires (1738) also make reference to the spirit as 'gin', and not as the original, foreign and multisyllabic 'genever' or 'geneva'.
However the period known as the ‘Gin Craze’ was the result not of increased imports but rather of increased production within Britain (Warner 20). By the 1720s, the production of grain – the principal ingredient in the production of British gin – was greater than its traditional demand as a food source. It seemed like a logical decision at the time to use this excess grain to produce gin through distillation. And with rising wages and decreasing grain prices, a growing population found themselves free to consume and sell gin on a flooded market, where there was little if any regulation.
[To learn about the exact process of distillation, please go to: http://homedistiller.org/flavor/gin It covers the process in more detail than can be provided here and would be the perfect place to start if you are considering making your own 'home-brew'.]
This short documentary by Chris Wade summarises the Gin Craze (its origins and its effects). There must be some caution in stating gin was the 'nation's favourite drink', as Wade does, since the word 'favourite' bears positive connotations and risks undermining the contemporary arguments against the spirit. Nonetheless, the animation remains factually accurate and uses many contemporary sources that are investigated in closer detail throughout this page.
Video (1): 'The Great English Gin Bender' by Chris Wade, Slate.com. Web. 10 Feb 2015.
Gin as ‘Liquid Poison’ : The effects of gin on individuals and society
Offering itself as an honest label for a gin-bottle, a short four-line poem published in the London Magazine, or, Gentleman’s Monthly Intelligencer (February 1751) summarised the palpable concerns about gin:
When fam’d Pandora to the cloud withdrew,
From her dire box unnumber’d evils flew,
No less a curse this vehicle contains:-
Fire to the mind, and poison to the vein.
For the poet, the gin-bottle is comparable to Pandora’s box; once opened, it will curse the body and consume the world with its infectious, omnipotent evils. What at first seems like a hyperbolic comparison, in fact, exposes a worrying truth, as the dangers of the spirit are displayed in all their wretched malignity.
In this way, despite its medicinal usage, the excessive consumption of gin was soon associated with serious health conditions. Bernard Mandeville’s The Fable of the Bees, or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1714) describes some of maladies created by gin, going as far as to label it condemningly as ‘Liquid Poison’. [Go to Poison(s) for further information about the use and understanding of poison in the eighteenth century]. For Mandeville, the consumption of gin is viciously self-destructive. It produces in the individual ‘a fiery Lake that sets the Brain in Flame, burns up the Entrails, and scorches every Part within’ (66). Mandeville continues, explaining how gin ‘has broke[n] and destroy’d the strongest Constitutions, thrown ’em into Consumptions, and been the fatal and immediate occasion of Apoplexies, Phrensies and sudden Death’ (69).
In A Friendly Admonition to the Drinkers of Gin, Brandy, etc. (1754)Stephen Hales develops this medical anxiety, satirically attacking gin as ‘a Vice so destructive of the Industry, Morals, Health, and Lives of the People’ (2). Interestingly, Hales begins his argument by proposing that man has corrupted a liquor ‘which his bountiful Creator intended for his Comfort’ (3). While Hales believes that man has exploited for pleasure a gift from God, the spirit itself is also shown to be inherently deceptive. Hales states that gin ‘makes its Way into the World as a Friend to Mankind, and insinuates itself under the Disguise of grateful Flavours’ (18). It does not seem at all surprising that Hales was a member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, an organisation intent on reforming the morals of the working poor and the group for which Hales' text was written (Warner 111). Biographer D. C. G. Allan notes that Hales was 'a lifelong opponent of the excessive consumption of alcohol, an insistent and fearless publicist of the evils of gin-drinking' (ODNB). Allan also explains that Hales' work merged his scientific studies and religious concerns.
This sense is felt in Hales' focus on the negative effects that gin has on the body, developing Mandeville's observations. Relying in part on experiments conducted on animals in which spirits are fed directly into their veins, Hales informs his readers that spirits including gin frequently cause ‘Obstructions and Stoppages in the Liver’ through which one might contract ‘jaundice, Dropsy, and many other fatal Diseases’ (4). Hales explains further than spirits also ‘destroy and burn up the Lungs’ and ‘weaken and wear out the Substance and Coats of the Stomach’ (4). Hales identifies the troubles of addiction and withdrawal from spirits. In order to recover, Hales explains that one must be ‘forced into his Liberty, and rescued [...] from his own inordinate Desires; he must be dealt like a Madman, and be bound down to keep him from destroying himself’ (14). Yet Hales makes it clear that recovery is possible, proposing that ‘No Habit, however long in contracting, in impossible to be removed; it may be done, though with some Difficulty’ (30). To help those addicted, Hales’ account ends with a supplement provided by ‘a very eminent Physician, of great Knowledge and Experience’ (37). Adopting a persuasive tone and language, Hales directs the medical advice to those ‘who have Wisdom and Virtue enough left to abandon the odious and pernicious Practice of drinking Spirituous Liquors’ (37). The advice provided is explicitly practical. It includes a process of weaning off liquors by increasing the dilution of spirits over the course of a week. With its appendix, Hales’ A Friendly Admonition to the Drinkers of Gin, Brandy, etc. sets out to help rather than solely critique.
Crucially, however, these personal illnesses mutate into a social malaise. Mandeville notes how gin ‘makes Men Quarrelsome, renders ’em Brutes and Savages, sets ’em on to fight for nothing, and has often been the Cause of Murder’ (67). Here, the rational Enlightenment man is made beast-like. As Mandeville explains, the issue of consumption engenders far reaching social problems:
Among the doting Admirers of this Liquid Poison, many of the meanest Rank, from a sincere Affection to the Commodity itself, become Dealers in it, and take delight to help others to what they love themselves, as Whores commence Bawds to make the Profits of one Trade subservient to the Pleasures of the other. (67)
The consumption of gin was consciously identified as the principal agent in a vicious spiral of social decline. Nowhere was this more noticeable than in the apparent proliferation of gin-related crime. This fear became engrained in the psyche of the British justice system. Throughout the 1700s, over 1120 court cases at the Old Bailey alone feature crimes committed where gin played a central role (Old Bailey Proceedings Online).
One particularly disturbing case appeared before the courtroom in March 1734. Judith Defour – a single mother – had been charged with the murder of her own daughter. The court heard how Defour ‘took the Child into the Fields, and stripp'd it, and ty'd a Linen Handkerchief hard about its Neck to keep it from crying, and then laid it in a Ditch’ (Old Bailey Proceedings Online). Such was the wretchedness of Judith (an addicted gin-drinker) that her own reasoning was even more unsettling. She confessed that she had intended to sell her daughter’s ‘Coat and Stay for a Shilling, and the Petticoat and Stockings for a Groat’ in order to purchase ‘a Quartern of Gin’ (Old Bailey Proceedings Online). The jury found her guilty; her punishment was death. Her subsequent plea of pregnancy was ignored and the execution was completed as scheduled. With the end (the consumption of gin) seemingly necessitating the means (the murder of one’s own daughter), such criminality served as convincing evidence for a serious political response to gin.
Interestingly, J. M. Beattie has wisely cautioned against too quickly accepting the century’s argument that increased crime rate was the direct result of the increased consumption of gin. Instead, Beatie proposes in Crime and the Courts in England 1660–1800 that an increase in the crime rate was an inevitable outcome of increased population and overcrowding within Britain’s main cities.Although Beatie’s arguments rightly encourage a reasoned approach to interpretations of crime, they ultimately should not detract from the eighteenth-century’s belief in the causal relationship between gin and crime.
In his 1754-1765 diary, Thomas Turner, defining gin as 'that baneful liquor, a liquor more surer to kill than even a canon ball' (49), raises the question of alcohol's relation to the individual. Himself an alcoholic, Turner affirms that drinking spirits 'sets the best friends at variance, and even incapacitates a man from acting in any respect like an human being because it totally deprives him of reason, and he is not capable of acting with reason' (76). Here Turner positions alcoholism against the idea of the rational individual. In a century so obsessed with the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity, it is no surprise that the process of reducing oneself into a non-rational object by, in its purest sense, putting an object inside oneself (i.e. alcohol) causes so much anxiety. Applying this reading to the consumption of gin, it becomes clear that the spirit is not merely destructive to the health of the individual but also to the eighteenth century conception of the individual. In this way, through the study of gin one can come to understand more clearly contradictions at the very heart of society.
Gin shops and sellers
In the eighteenth century, gin-sellers gained an infamous reputation yet had to work within often dangerous and criminal environments; a fact confirmed when a spokesperson from the London Grand Jury declared in 1736 that ‘most of the Murders and Robberies lately committed have been laid and concentrated at Gin Shops’ (qtd. in Abel 403). Mandeville in The Fable of the Bees writes that he does not know ‘a more miserable Shift for a Livelihood' than selling gin at gin-shops (67). Mandeville goes on to note comically the supposed qualities of a good gin-seller, writing that whoever would thrive as a gin-seller ‘must in the first place be of a watchful and suspicious, as well as a bold and resolute Temper, that he may not be imposed upon by Cheats and Sharpers, nor out-bully’d by the Oaths and Imprecations of Hackney-Coachmen and Foot-Soldiers’ (67). Mandeville continues,
'... in the second, he ought to be a dabster at gross Jokes and loud Laughter, and have all the winning Ways to allure Customers and draw out their Money, and be well vers’d in the low Jests and Ralleries the Mob makes use of to banter Prudence and Frugality. He must be affable and obsequious to the most despicable; always ready and officious to help a Porter down with his Load, shake Hands with a Basket-Woman, pull off his Hat to an Oyster-Wench, and be familiar with a Beggar; with Patience and good Humour he must be able to endure the filthy Actions and viler Language of nasty Drabs, and the lewdest Rake-hells, and without a Frown or the least Aversion bear with all the Stench and Squalor, Noise and Impertinence that the utmost Indigence, Laziness and Ebriety, can produce in the most shameless and abandon’d Vulgar.’ (67-8)
Mandeville makes it clear that while the gin-seller is confronted by an array of difficulties, often associated to the low social classes, a good gin-seller ultimately works these to his advantage. But Mandeville’s explications also reveal a host of social evils associated to gin, the gin-seller and his shop. Gin clearly endures as a honey-pot of trouble in the eighteenth century.
In ‘Lowlife, or, One Half of the World Knows Not How the Other Half Lives’ (1764), midnight is reimagined as ‘Mid-Day’ for ‘People who keep...Geneva-Shops’ (6). The text constructs a clear relationship between the dark hours and the darkness of gin. At the heart of both the text and the urban suffering that is described, there lies the gin-shop. The gin-shop is aligned with ‘Gaming-Tables, Night-Houses, Bawdy-Houses’ (6). Crucially, the text labours the point that gin is still being sold ‘contrary to Acts of Parliament’ (6). This notion is repeated throughout the text, as its author further informs the reader that ‘most private Shops in and about London, (as there are too many) where Geneva is publickly sold in Defiance of the Act of Parliament, are filled with Whores, Thieves and Beggars’ (86). [See Streetwalking for an investigation about streetwalking and prostitution in the eighteenth century]. With its persistent references to the consumption and selling of gin, the text makes it clear that the spirit has permeated the very fabric of society, enduring as a quotidian feature that becomes engrained in the literary psyche. And, perhaps more importantly, the gin-shop becomes a site of encounter between the object, gin, and the subject, its drinkers, as the two commingle in such as way as to prevent any separation between the two - a nod to the depersonalising effects of eighteenth century commodity culture.
Image (2): Hannah More's 'The Gin-Shop; or, A Peep into a Prison' (1795).
Even at the end of the eighteenth century, almost five decades after the Gin Craze, religious moralists still lamented gin's hold over the urban poor; and the gin-shop, simultaneously both a temple to the spirit and a house of vice, endured at the heart of these lamentations. In 1795, Hannah More wrote her poem 'The Gin-Shop; or, A Peep into a Prison' in which she announces that,
The State compels no man to drink, Compels no man to game ; 'Tis GIN and gambling sink him down To rags, and want, and shame. (29-32)
Here, More seems to exculpate the 'State'. More, an Evangelist, writes with a distinct religious perspective, revealing a sense of righteousness over a people who consume gin and ruin their own lives. For More, gin-drinkers become murderers, killing themselves. It is interesting to note that while More might write to incite change, she also fundamentally re-inscribes stereotypes of the poor and the drunk. Rather than seeking to understand, More conforms to a myopic perspective that sees the gin-shop not as a refuge from the daily struggles of the urban poor, but rather as the cause of their suffering.
More's characterisation of the gin-shop as a prison is, however, less severe than previous imaginings. In The Ladies Magazine; or, The Universal Entertainer (1751), a small verse appears, titled ‘Chalk’d on the Shutters of an Infernal Gin-Shop’. The four-line poem, with great simplicity, exhorts fellow Britons to avoid the gin shop, where only death awaits them:
Briton! If thou would’st sure Destruction shun,
From these curs’d walls, as from Serpent run:
For there a Thousand Deaths in Ambush lie,
Fatal to all, who dare approach too nigh.
The allusion to curses, serpents and total destruction has a biblical potency that confirms the malignancy of gin which, by implication, erodes the supposed Edenic splendour of Britain, now threatened by Fall of intoxication.
Image (3): 'A Gin Shop', Thomas Rowlandson. Produced c.1808-1809. Museum of London Prints. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
At the turn of the eighteenth century, Thomas Rowlandson produced a watercolour painting of a gin-shop. It depicts an ogre-like gin-seller who is serving a well-dressed lady. One assumes that the central lady is new to drinking gin, having not yet descended into the dishevelled appearances of her fellow drinkers. And yet, looming behind and above, Rowlandson balances barrels over the bar, bottles stacked on shelves and glasses ready to be (re-)filled. The interior of the shop, filled with the paraphernalia of gin, threatens to engulf the lady. Moreover, physically, the frame of the painting is crowded; there is little room for anything but gin and its drinkers, except for a child pulling at his mother's arm and a dutiful dog that may be waiting for either its owner or some dropped food. As a result, Rowlandson's painting provides a fitting depiction of the presumed chaos of a gin-shop, ready to consume its next victim, dressed in white not simply to draw our attention to her but more importantly to signify her presumed purity and, by implication, mark her inevitable as even more tragic.
In this way, it is no coincidence that the gin-shop endures at the centre of so much of the rhetoric versed against gin. And in this sense, gin was no longer regarded as just the spirit. It became tied up in the very fabric of society, commerce and commodities. It endured not only as a physical reminder of the futility of the Gin Acts but also revealed the social element of gin-drinking.
Pro-gin movement: political lobbying
Despite the well-documented problems associated with gin, considerable support for the distillation of the spirit remained. The majority of this support derived from the Company of Distillers and gin-sellers whose financial stability was dependent upon a free trade of gin. To counteract the negative image associated with gin, Daniel Defoe, most famous for Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722), was enlisted to produce a polemical tract in support of the gin industry. It was published in 1726. Its title effectively outlines gin’s benefits for four key groups:
A brief case of the distillers: and of the distilling trade in England, shewing how far it is in the interest of England to encourage the said trade, as it is so considerable an advantage to the landed interest, to the trade and navigation, to the publick revenue, and to the employment of the poor.
In short, Defoe reaches out to all spectrums of society: to aristocrats, merchants, civil servants and the poor. And in this sense, it even seemingly reaches out across the Tory/Whig divide. Defoe subsequently proposes that while the distillers may have once ‘work'd wholly for themselves and for their own Profit: now they, without a Pun, may be truly said to be publick spirited People’ (2). Granting the moral reformation of the distillers, Defoe declares that the gin industry now works towards the public welfare of the nation. He argues that the corn needed to produce the spirit provides agricultural employment and supports rural communities, also reasoning that the distillers pay ‘extraordinary Sums of Money’ to the Crown (3).
But Defoe goes beyond just practical, often numerical, advantages created by the distilling industry and instead evokes the patriotic sentiments of his reader. Defoe argues that those who wish to reform ‘the People’ and the gin industry propose a method which ‘shut[s] the Door against the drinking of our own Manufacture... and open[s] the Door to a Flux or Tide of the same, or worse Spirits imported from Holland’ (32). Defoe strongly believes that any reformation would result in foreign, Dutch gin flooding the native market, robbing Britons of any profits to be made and ‘leaving us nothing but the Poverty and the Crime’ (32). Defoe directs the final words of his tract against the physicians who report falsely about the ill-effects of gin. He culminates with a scathing attack on medical practices in general: ‘Let him prove that more People die of drinking Geneva, than die of the Doctor; not failing to tell to the World, where that formidable Geneva Shop stands, that has slain more Christians than himself’ (51-52). For Defoe, gin is no more deadly than anything else in the 1700s.
Later, in 1738, Reay Sabourn extended this suggestion, with his text titled A Perfect View of the Gin Act, with its Unhappy Consequences. Sabourn’s focus lies on ‘the villainies of perfidious informers’ (2) - those people who traded knowledge of illegal gin-sellers for a small monetary reward. For Sabourn, with the passing of the Gin Act, government unfortunately enabled ‘unfair, loose and uncreditable Persons’ to sell Gin illegally while ruining ‘the fair and creditable Dealer’ (3). Closely investigating the legal restrictions of the Act, Sabourn argues that the clandestine production and consumption of gin is driven further away from regulation. A potentially honest trade that could benefit national fiscal growth is made dishonest, where profits can made by informing against ‘the fair Dealer’ (40). While Sabourn provides a different approach to Defoe by re-imagining gin through the Act’s corruption of its selling, the message is similar: gin is not so much a problem but rather almost a solution; and that it is select groups of people who are to blame for gin's negative image.
Image (4): The title page of Reay Sabourn's A Perfect View of the Gin Act entices its reader with a sensationalist approach, offering 'well-attested cases of some unhappy Sufferers from the Villanies of Perfidious Informers'.
Indeed, it is worth noting that many reformers wrongly believed, or at least argued, that gin was the cause of social unrest and poverty, rather than accepting that gin was an escape from these brutal realities (Abel 405). Such a myopic view underlined the reformers' class-based assumptions. Jonathan White has recently developed this idea proposing that the labouring class of London were either derided as idle in their drunken unemployment or accused of inappropriate luxury made possible by an increase in wages. White even goes as far as to suggest that the Gin Acts were designed to enact a quasi-social cleansing of the presumed immoral labouring classes of London. In this way, the pro-gin movement managed to align itself with and gain support from the labouring classes.
Gin and Gender
It is no coincidence that during the eighteenth century gin was referred to as ‘the Ladies Delight’ and was symbolised variously as ‘Mother Gin’ and ‘Madam Geneva’ (Warner 4).Our understanding of this gendered approach to the consumption of gin has been greatly increased by the detailed investigations of Jessica Warner and Frank Ivis. For Warner and Ivis, the feminisation of gin is closely associated to increased economic freedom granted to women during the eighteenth century. Women could afford to drink gin because of increased wages and could sell the spirit due to the limited start-up costs (Warner and Ivis 86). However, such liberation, as Warner and Ivis rightly explain, was limited to the city environment, especially in London’s suburbs where official authority found little stability.
Playwright John Gay recognises both the topicality of this association as well as its vulnerability as a satirical target. In The Beggar’s Opera, when Macheath, the captain of his gang of robbers, demands that he ‘must have women’, he summons a variety of disreputable women on whose lips he taste gin (29). Macheath may ask for wine but he hopes that the women ‘will be so free’ as to choose gin for themselves (30). After all, Macheath states that he loves ‘a free-hearted wench’ (29). In this way, it seems appropriate that in Air 22 Macheath sings ‘Let’s be gay / While we may, / Beauty’s a flower despised in decay’ (30). Here, Gay reimagines the seventeenth-century carpe diem theme as performed by the Cavalier poets, as in Robert Herrick’s poem, ‘Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may’. But for Macheath, the supposed transience of life provides a facade to validate his calls for drunken licentiousness. However, interestingly, Macheath jokes to Betty that she should avoid gin and return ‘to good wholesom Beer; for in troth, Betty, Strong-Waters will in time ruin your Constitution’ (29). Beneath the comedic sarcasm lies a truthful recognition of the harmful effects of gin that must have engages with the audience’s anxieties. It is entirely fitting that when Lucy attempts to poison Polly she exclaims that ‘I run no Risque; for I can lay her Death upon the Gin, and so many die of that naturally that I shall never be called in question’ (44).
In ‘Lowlife, or, One Half of the World Knows Not How the Other Half Lives’ (1764), the association between gin and women is reaffirmed. In the early hours, we learn that ‘common whores’ treat their ‘lamentable Cases’ with ‘Geneva’ (5). And around noon, as the text informs us, ‘Poor Devils of Women, with empty Bellies, naked Backs, and Heads are intoxicated with Geneva, standing and gossiping with each other in the Street’ (35). Here, idleness and sadness are considered both the cause and effect of drinking gin. This engages with the contemporary anxiety about idleness which was increasingly interpreted as a negative counter to Britain’s newly-forming identity of industriousness[1]. By aligning gin, idleness and the female figure, 'Lowlife' deepens a misogynistic perspective, presenting female gin-drinkers as anti-national - an idea that is furthered by their corruption as mothers, providers of Britain's future generations.
[1]See Sarah Jordan’s The Anxieties of Idleness (2003) for a critical investigation into the concept of idleness in the eighteenth century.
But in this way, what began as a historical accuracy was soon developed by a polemical imagination. London’s newspapers quickly reinforced this stereotype with sensational stories of the unfortunate, yet no less interesting, accounts of women driven to ruin by gin. In 1735, Read’s Weekly Journal published a story about a wife who ‘came home so much intoxicated with Geneva, that she fell on the Fire, and was burnt in so miserable a Manner, that she immediately died, and her Bowels came out’ (qtd. in Warner 68).
Image (5): Gin Lane (1751) by William Hogarth. The British Museum. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
Those arguing against the unregulated gin industry found in the image of the drunken mother a perfect poster campaign (Warner 69). Nowhere is this suggestion more evident than in William Hogarth’s satirical print, Gin Lane. The gendered dystopic wretchedness at the heart of Hogarth’s print would come to emblemise all that gin meant for the inhabitants of eighteenth century London. At the centre of the print sits a topless syphilis-ridden mother whose gin-induced drunkenness lets her nonchalantly drop her child from the top of the steps, down towards the entrance of the gin-shop. The symbolic suggestion is that the mother has prepared yet another generation to be made wretched by gin. To her right, another mother weans her baby onto the spirit. It is through such polemical tracts that gin also became known as ‘Mother’s ruin'.
This gendered approach had its purpose.Thoughtfully produced in the context of the 1751 Gin Act, Hogarth contrasts the dystopic scene of self-inflicted ruin present in Gin Lane with the healthy cheerfulness of Beer Street. His intention is clear: to demonise gin and promote the traditional alcoholic beverage, beer. By reinforcing the destructive association between gin and women, Hogarth adds to contemporary polemic in support of the Gin Acts. [See Outrage for further discussion of Gin Lane and Beer Street].
Likewise, the anonymous poem, ‘Strip me naked: Or, Royal Gin for Ever’appeared in The Ladies magazine : or, The universal entertainer in March 1751.
Image (6): The poem in its entirety, from The Ladies Magazine: or, The Universal Entertainer, published 23 March 1751.
The verse develops the gendered vices of gin-drinking. The central female figure occupies various roles: a worker who refuses to work, a mother whose maternal instincts are corrupted, and a wife who will freely descend into an unchaste naked chaos. Here, the female gin drinker is imbued with all the problems associated with the spirit. The dashes and exclamation marks that build throughout the poem establish the female speaker’s hiccup-stilted and noisy narrative. Consequently, the narrative itself is fractured as gin starts breaking down language. Moreover, while there may be connotations of sexual profligacy in the depiction of the gown which ‘slips’ from the lady, ultimately the speaker compares her state of nakedness to her moment of birth. The poem thus ends with the speaker’s regression not only to infantile nudity but also to an appropriate linguistic simplicity. Like Hogarth’s satirical print, the purpose of the poem transcends poetical fancy and is instead defined by a clear political intent, similarly serving to justify the Act. Moralists find in the image of the naked or bare-chested female gin drinker the reasons for the control and ban of gin.
Such polemic roots itself in the patriotic belief that infant welfare was fundamental to secure the survival of Britain as a prosperous and healthy nation. Subsequently, the passing of various Gin Acts underlined this unbalanced criticism of female consumption and selling of gin. Although women selling gin may have only represented less than 20% of the total number of gin vendors in London, they were disproportionally punished with the passing of the Gin Acts. Almost 70% of all those charged under the 1736 Gin Act were women (Warner and Ivis 91).
The cultural and political imagination that associated women with gin may be associated to the increased presence of women in public houses, through which a gendered anxiety emerges about identity in the eighteenth-century. In ‘Gin and Gender in Early Eighteen-century London’, Warner and Ivis propose that women increasingly left the domestic sphere and entered into the public sphere under the drunken stupor of gin. While women were excluded from many alehouses (White 104), gin-shops did not have the same gender restrictions. As Warner and Ivis explain, attitudes regarding the public consumption and sale of gin by females became progressively less permissive as women advanced from marriage to motherhood, and from motherhood to widowhood (13). As young men and women lived and worked in close proximity, as well as sharing the same social places, the public woman started to transcend traditional notions of female identity (Warner and Ivis 13). It is significant therefore that the image of the drunken woman forms the centrepiece of all campaigns against the trade and consumption of gin. Images of women acting against the interests of the family, depicted continuously as ignorant mothers and licentious wives, also point towards an anxiety about the condition of the nation.
Cultural Responses to the 1736 Gin Act - ‘The death of Madam Geneva’
The epidemic of anti-social behaviour and moral depravity did not go unnoticed by the British Government who introduced a series of acts to help control the gin industry – albeit with varying degrees of success. In ‘The "Mother Gin" Controversy in the Early Eighteenth Century’, Peter Clark calls the 1736 Gin Act ‘the most dramatic and draconian’ of the Gin Acts (63). The 1736 Act taxed retail sales at 20 shillings per gallon, and demanded that sellers buy licenses for £50. Parliament attempted to force out those sellers unable to afford licences. The Act was the brainchild of Joseph Jekyll, who believed that the poor were the ‘bulwark of the social order’ necessary for the children and wealth of the nation (Warner 112). The passing of the Act was helped by a series of exceedingly timely and sensational articles published in leading newspapers (Warner 115). However, only two of the 10,000 gin-sellers in London were selling gin legally in the winter of 1736 (Dillon 150).
Satirical responses to the 1736 Gin Act reveal a hyperbolic elegiac tone that mocks both the gin industry as well as the Act itself. They also show an intense engagement with topical concerns, publishing the prints at the precise passing of the Act. The prints in this sense not only tell the story of the Act but also reveals the nature of news and publishing in the eighteenth century as the relationship between reader and author and the political context becomes inseparable. [See Newspaper for a more detailed investigation of the print industry].
The Funeral Procession of Madam Geneva, a satirical print produced for publication on 29 September 1736, depicts a mock funeral for Madam Geneva – a death that was seemingly enacted by the 1736 Gin Act. However, despite Madam Geneva’s death, gin is shown to be sold and consumed in the foreground. The implication is clear: the Act will have no effect. Beneath the illustration, Sir Joseph Jekyll who spearheaded the campaign for the 1736 Gin Act is noted for his ‘Merit’ in stripping ‘the poor of the chief Pleasure’ and leaving ‘Thousands to starve at Leisure’. Jekyll’s reforming intent so irked the London populous that a guard of sixty men had to be stationed outside his house; but even this did not stop him from being attacked later in Lincoln Inn’s Fields with near fatal consequences (Foss 375).
Similarly, the satirical 1736 print To the Mortal Memory of Madam Geneva explicitly reacts to the 1736 Act which taxed the selling of gin. The barrels, wooden vats and distillation equipment for the production of gin are set up mockingly as a funereal monument to Madam Geneva. As the verses below the etching explain, those who gave birth to Madam Geneva now help to build her tomb. As Warner notes, the print ‘makes fun of the people who had most to lose from the new taxes on gin’ (72). Such figures include an old witch-like woman, a pregnant female hawker and three street urchins (Warner 72). At the centre of the print hangs a makeshift dedication:
To the Mortal Memory of
Madam Geneva.
Who died Sept. 29. 1736.
Her Weeping Servants &
Loving Friends consecrate
This Tomb.
Again, those weeping at the supposed loss of Madam Geneva are marked for their poor physical appearance (the central old woman is toothless and wears rags) and also re-inscribe a gendered approach by featuring a mother ignorant of the demands of her child. Provocatively, the verses end with an invocation to drink in the memory of Madam Geneva. The cycle of consumption shows no end despite the Act.
Image (9):The Lamentable Fall of Madam Geneva (29 September 1736). The British Museum. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
The Lamentable Fall of Madam Geneva is another satirical print on the 1736 Gin Act which taxed retail sales. In this print, in the middle of a busy street there lies 'Madam Geneva' on a raised platform. Holding a glass of gin in one hand and a bottle in the other, Madam Geneva also perpetuates the image of the immoral drunken woman, as her clothes risk baring her chest. Standing above her, a woman weeps, holding a ballad which laments that 'This Act will starve us all'. The man standing to her right holds the second part of the ballad which celebrates gin drinking. In the foreground, a group of gin drinkers gather. On the left hand side, note the vomiting woman. One of her helpers holds a bottle - 'A Cure for the Cholick' - as her health looks set to spiral in decline. In the background, the print sets out the alternatives to gin - beer and wine. However, to the left, the brewers and beer drinkers celebrate, believing that the 1736 Gin Act will help to rejuvenate their trade. To the right, vintners and wine drinkers also celebrate.
The satirical tone is found similarly in poetical response to the 1736 Gin Act. Nowhere is this more evident than in the anonymous satire ‘An Elegy on the Much Lamented Death of the Most Excellent, the Most Truly-Beloved and Universally Admired Lady, Madam Gineva’. This mock elegy provides, as Jonathan White explains, a darker satire, revealing a world of politics and economics in which there is no virtue (126). The poem argues that those who led the campaign for the 1736 Gin Act are intensely hypocritical; those that had once promoted gin for national growth were now denouncing it. Crucially however, the poem skilfully merges the arguments for and against the consumption of gin. Curiously, the poet explains that gin once provided women with the option of abortion,
‘In pregnant Dames gin cou’d Abortion cause,
And supersede prolific Nature’s Laws:
Mothers cou’d make the genial Womb a Grave,
And anxious Charge of Education save.’
While abortion through gin conflicts with ‘Nature’s Laws’, one might argue that it is a better choice than bearing a child that cannot be cared for correctly.
Responses to the 1736 Gin Act ultimately reveal not only an awareness about its ineffectiveness and the popularity of gin, but also point towards the increasingly immediate nature of literature, art and printed publications which sought to be profitable by being topical.
Where's the gin now?
Today, gin is no longer seen as a 'cheap urban drug'. It is also no longer defined by gender. In recent years, gin has increasingly been marketed as a chic spirit, with a price tag that would equally shock the eighteenth century consumer.
The fashionable resurgence of boutique gin, especially the varieties produced by independent distillers, is summarised well by this contemporary news report by Emma Simpson for the BBC:
Video: 'BBC News 31 December 2014 Premium gin sales booming in UK', YouTube.com. Web. 10 Feb 2015.
But if all this talk of a refreshing G&T is quenching your thirst, you might do well to remember for one moment those warnings by Mandeville and Hales...
Further Reading/Resources
Gin Festival: If you want to find out more about the spirit and taste some too, then there's plenty of Gin Festivals taking place this year. For more information go to: http://www.ginfestival.co.uk/events/
An interesting academic project that investigates early modern intoxicants betweenthe introduction of tobacco in the 1570s and the ‘Gin Craze’ in the early eighteenth century. It seeks to explain the ways in which that period established an international system of production, trade and consumption that not only pre-empts but moulds and endures in the twenty-first century.
Defoe, Daniel. A brief case of the distillers: and of the distilling trade in England, shewing how far it is the interest of England to encourage the said trade, as it is so considerable an advantage to the landed interest, to the trade and navigation, to the publick revenue, and to the employment of the poor. Humbly recommended to the Lords and Commons of Great Britain, in the present Parliament assembled. 1726. London; printed for T. Warner. (Historical Texts).
While it may at first appear as an unlikely example of political lobbying, Defoe's text provides a compelling argument on behalf of the gin industry. It was a useful source to understand the approach the gin industry took to help combat negative images.
Gay, John. The Beggar’s Opera. Ed. by John C. Pepusch. New York: Dover Publications, 1973. Print.
With frequent tavern scenes, spirits, namely gin, feature significantly in this three-act satirical ballad opera. It was interesting to see how references to gin abound in theatre as Gay associates gin with disrepute, sexual profligacy and low social standing.
Hales, Stephen. A Friendly Admonition to the Drinkers of Gin, Brandy, And Other Distilled Spirituous Liquors etc. 1754. Printed for F. And C. Rivington, Booksellers to The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. (Historical Texts).
Living up to its title, Hales’ admonition is indeed ‘friendly’ when compared against Mandeville. Hales’ text is important however because it brings scientific reasoning to the campaign against gin. By using medical experiments, Hales sets out to bring some factual truth to the argument against gin.
Mandeville, Bernard. The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits. 1714. London. (Historical Texts).
Developing his 1705 poem, Mandeville provides an interesting prose commentary on early eighteenth-century. The fact that gin features so heavily, even before the supposed start of the Gin Craze, suggests an early awareness of the growing presence of gin within eighteenth century society.
More, Hannah. ‘The Gin-Shop; or, A Peep into a Prison’. 1795. Printed by S. Hazard, printer to the Cheap Repository for moral and religious tracts. (Historical Texts).
One of herCheap Repository Tracts, her ballad considers gin as a social problem. The format of its publishing, specifically directed to the poor, reveals the way in which More attempts to reach out and speak to particular class and how gin affects them.
Old Bailey Proceedings Online. <www.oldbaileyonline.org>. 14 February 2015.
The online records are a great resource for finding provocative examples of where the consumption of gin has lead to crime. While it is occasionally to differentiate crimes where gin has played a key role and crimes where gin is mentioned more in passing as background details, its presence in records shows, if anything, that gin was being consumed widely and often in clandestine environments.
Philalethes,Eugenius (Thomas Vaughan). A Treatise of the Plague.Being an instruction how one ought to act, in relation, I. To apparel... II. To diet. III. To antidotes... IV. To such medicines, as are necessary... . London: printed for James Holland, Luke Stoke, Richard Montague, and John Sackfield, 1721. (ECCO).
One of many contemporary treatises of the plague, Vaughan’s text (writing under the pseudonym of Eugenius Philalethes) refers to juniper berries when describing cures and preventive medicines for the plague. Like Maerlant’s text, Vaughan’s account is useful in tracing the belief that gin was at first medicinal.
Sabourn, Reay. A Perfect View of the Gin Act, with its unhappy consequences; Containing Not Only an Inquiry into, but also a Full Account of the Power of the Justicses of the Peace, as limited by that Law. The Whole Illustrated with Well-Attested Cases of Some Unhappy Sufferers from the Villainies of Perfidious Informers. London: Printed for W. Thorne. 1738.(ECCO/ Historical Texts).
This source proved to be a useful addition to help trace the negative effects of the Gin Acts. Hales' attention to scientific detail and experiments means that this source would also be useful for investigations of science and medicine in the eighteenth century.
Turner, Thomas. The Diary of Thomas Turner, 1754-1765. Ed. by David Vaisey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984. Print.
An unusual source since, unlike many, it was written by an alcoholic. It is significant (and perhaps hypocritical) that he notes gin to be the most dangerous contemporary drink. It also provides an insight into the daily consumption of alcohol (and its effects) in the eighteenth century.
Van Maerlant,Jacob. Der Naturen Bloeme (The Flower of Nature).
Maerlant’s natural history encyclopaedia – a rough translation of Thomas de Cantimpré’s Liber de Natura Rerum – features descriptions of beasts, birds, sea monsters, insects, trees, medicinal herbs and geology. Some manuscripts are accompanied by illustrations which transcend any sense of realism, especially when describing Maerlant’s beasts. It endures as a good reference point when tracing gin’s supposed medicinal origins through juniper.
'An Elegy on the Much Lamented Death of the Most Excellent, the Most Truly-Beloved and Universally Admired Lady, Madam Gineva’. London: Printer for T. Cooper, 1736. Historical Texts / Ecco. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
A useful addition to understand the cultural and political reaction to the 1736 Gin Act.
‘Chalk'd on the Shutters of an Infernal Gin-Shop’. The Ladies magazine : or, The universal entertainer, 1749-1753 2.7 (1751): 108. ProQuest. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.
An provocative poem that combines nationalistic fervour with a genuine fear for those who dare to enter the gin-shop and drink gin.
‘LABEL for a GIN-BOTTLE’. London magazine, or, Gentleman's monthly intelligencer, 1747-1783 20 (Feb. 1751): 88. ProQuest. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.
A useful source in further understanding the growing understanding about gin's negative effects.
'Lowlife, or, One Half of the World Knows Not How the Other Half Lives’. London: Printed for John Lever. 1764.
A really useful source to trace the daily consumption and selling of gin. Although most often detailed during the early and late hours, it was interesting to see how gin was also being consumed right throughout the day, becoming a part of daily routines.
‘Strip me naked: Or, Royal Gin for Ever’. The Ladies magazine : or, The universal entertainer, 1749-1753 2.10 (1751): 156. ProQuest. Web. 16 February 2015.
A humorous yet also deeply insightful poem that exposes the presumed power of gin on the female being.
Secondary Sources
Abel, Ernest. ‘The Gin Epidemic: Much Ado About What?’. Alcohol and Alcholism. September 2001, 36 (5). pp 401-405. Web. 20 February 2015. <alcalc.oxfordjournals.org>.
Abel's investigations were key to learn more about gin's associations with urban poverty and social unrest but at times seemed to favour breadth over depth of understanding.
Allan, D. G. C.. “Hales, Stephen (1677–1761).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online Edition. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oct. 2006. Web. 22 Feb. 2015
A useful biographical source to understand more about Hales and his scientific and experimental approach to the investigation of gin's effects on the body.
Beattie, J. M. Crime and the Courts in England, 1660-1800. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1986. Print.
Beattie provides an interesting caveat to both eighteenth-century and twenty-first beliefs that associate gin consequentially with an increase in crime. It would be a definitive text for those investigating crime or policing in the eighteenth-century.
Dillon, Patrick. Gin: The Much-Lamented Death of Madam Geneva. Boston, MA: Justin, Charles & Co, 2003. Print.
A vital overview of gin's presence in eighteenth century, tracing its historical and cultural roots. Dillon covers the story of gin in much detail and was really useful in directing further research and stimulating new ideas.
Foss, Edward. Biographia Juridica: A Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England from the Conquest to the Present Time. 1870. Web. 17 February 2015. <books.google.co.uk>.
Used primarily to learn more about Joseph Jekyll, the central figure behind the 1736 Gin Act, Foss's text would be a useful starting point for biographical investigations of similar figures who played roles in advocating and implementing the Gin Acts.
Warner, Jessica. Craze: Gin and Debauchery in an Age of Reason. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002. Print.
Despite its often informal approach, Warner's account of the rise and fall of gin was impressively researched, and was a catalyst for further investigations. Warner argues convincingly that gin was a symptom and not a cause of social problems. But in this there must be a caveat - it is crucial to remember how the eighteenth century perceived gin and not to apply a modern reading which might risk overshadowing a range of debates in the eighteenth century. However, overall, it was a central text to my investigations.
Warner, Jessica, and Ivis, Frank. ‘Gin and Gender in Early Eighteenth-century London’. Eighteenth-Century Life 24.2 (2000): 85-105. Project MUSE. Web. 16 Feb. 2015. <muse.jhu.edu/>.
This modern investigation into the association between gin and gender provided many useful facts and figures. It argues that eighteenth century's preoccupation and anxiety about gender was displaced on to female gin-drinkers. The fact that this association developed so quickly is testament to the period's anxiety of corrupted femininity and corrupting effeminacy. It would be a useful source for anyone investigating gender concerns in the eighteenth century.
White, Jonathan. ‘Luxury and Labour: Ideas of Labouring-Class Consumption in Eighteenth-Century England’. University of Warwick: Dissertation, 2001. Web. 20 Feb 2015. http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/36401]
White's investigations into the labouring class's consumption of gin and reactions to the 1736 Gin Acts yielded provoking insights into the class associations of the spirit. White's essay would prove useful for anyone investigation ideas of labour, luxury and conceptions of class in the eighteenth century.
Images:
[1]. Gin Glasses. Photograph: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Victoria and Albert Museum. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
[2] Hannah More. 'The Gin-Shop; or, A Peep into a Prison' (1795). Historical Texts / ECCO. Web 22 Feb 2015.
[3] 'A Gin Shop', Thomas Rowlandson. Produced c.1808-1809. Museum of London Prints. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
[4] Reay Sabourn. A Perfect View of the Gin Act... etc. (1748). Historical Texts / Ecco. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
[5] William Hogarth. Gin Lane (1751). The British Museum. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
[6] The Ladies Magazine: or, The Universal Entertainer. 23 March 1751. ProQuest. Web. 17 Feb. 2015.
[7] The Funeral Procession of Madam Geneva(1736). The British Museum. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
[8] To the Mortal Memory of Madam Geneva (1736). The British Museum. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
[9] The Lamentable Fall of Madam Geneva (29 September 1736). The British Museum. Web. 22 Feb 2015.
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