“This is the story of drink maps, and it’s probably not what you think”
Join us at The Crow Inn – owners of Sheffield’s last remaining Victorian Drink Map – to hear Kris Butler, and a fascinating exploration of the history of alcohol in Victorian Britain via the ‘drink maps’ that were produced by the temperance movement to promote sobriety.
It’s not about pub crawls or plotted ale trails. Instead, these are maps with an agenda that was adamantly hostile to drinking alcohol, made by an organized faction known as the Temperance Movement. The logic at the time of the maps’ creation went as follows: 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.
Join us before the talk to enjoy a tap takeover from Attercliffe’s best brewery, St Mars of the Desert – friends of Kris’ from the States – who’ll be bringing four new brews.
Very limited capacity on this – book your free ticket now.
About the book:
What is a ‘drink map’? It may sound like a pub guide, yet it actually refers to a type of late nineteenth-century British map designed specifically to shock and shame people into drinking less.
This book explores how drink maps of particular cities were published in an attempt to fight increasingly rampant alcohol consumption, from Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield to Oxford, London and Norwich. Featuring red symbols to indicate where alcohol was sold, these special street maps were posted prominently in public places, submitted as evidence, sent to Members of Parliament and published in newspapers to show just 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 to buy a beer.
Illustrated with original maps, advertisements and temperance propaganda, the story of their brief history is told amidst a tangle of licensing laws, rogue magistrates, irate brewers, ardent temperance organizers and accounts of the complex role alcohol played across all levels of Victorian society.
About the author:
Kris Butler is a lawyer, past president of the Boston Map Society and currently serves on the board of the Washington Map Society. She is also an award-winning home brewer and a contributor to MAP: Exploring the World (Phaidon). She has given numerous talks about drink maps, including at the International Conference on the History of Cartography in Amsterdam and at Harvard University in the US.
‘A brilliant, intoxicating book about the alliance of maps and the temperance movement in Victorian England. Butler has produced a powerful and beautifully illustrated account of the power of maps and the scale of addiction in nineteenth-century England, and in the process has identified a whole new cartographic genre.’ – Professor Jerry Brotton
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