A Critical Bibliography*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
Social historians studying nineteenth-century England tend to concentrate on the work-situation, and therefore on the conflicting interests of employer and employee. Dr John Vincent, however, has recently directed attention to the popular basis of nineteenth-century Liberalism; this brings into the forefront quite different social alignments – especially when conflicts over religion and recreation are investigated. Popular radicalism “was the product of the leisure of Saturday night and Sunday morning, the pothouse and the chapel, not of the working week”. This shift in interest brings the drink question to the fore, as several scholars have already realised: “it would be hard to say why historians have not rated the effect of strong drink as the significant factor in nineteenth-century history that it undoubtedly was”, wrote Dr Kitson Clark recently; “its importance stands out from every page of the contemporary record”. W. L. Burn thought it “arguable” that the Beer Act of 1830 was “more revolutionary in its immediate social consequences than any other of the reforming age”.