Landladies with a long political history

Of course, this picture only dates dates back to the 1960s or 1970s, by which time the battle against the Temperance Movement had long been won.

But Leamington landladies like the late Winnie James (pictured wearing a hat in the middle of the back row), who took over the licence of the former Queen’s Arms after her husband Frank died, would have learned all about the threats once posed to the trade from her in-laws, who ran a number of pubs including The Park Tavern, now the The Wild Boar, in Warwick.

The grip of Prohibition in America was not relaxed until 1933 and in this country both landlords and landladies opposed Bills like the one presented to Parliament in 1923 by the first woman MP Lady Astor.

The growing Temperance brigade was largely led by women. Lady Astor successfully raised the age young people could legally drink to 18.

Hardly surprising then that 1923 also saw the first meeting of the women’s section of the Leamington, Warwick and Stratford LVA, held in the Angel Hotel in Leamington.

The guest speaker was a Mrs Avis Pierson from London, who described Lady Astor’s Bill as a “slur on the trade.”

Local pub researcher Allan Jennings has found reports in the Courier that the ladies’ LVA was formally constituted a year later, in September, 1924, in the drawing room of the Bath Hotel.

Allan, who is particularly keen to find any records or Minute Books from the much older landlords’ association, said: “Somebody round here with long family roots in the pub trade will probably have those records stored away in their loft. I’d love to find them because they would be a mine of information about the local licensed trade.”

Inevitably, those early meetings of the landladies were more political than social with one eye always kept on the spread of the Temperance movement, whose supporters had already set up rival tea-total outlets offering drinks of sarsaparilla and ginger beer.

It was whispered those who’d signed the pledge never to let another alcoholic drink pass their lips wouldn’t mind if they smashed the entire licensed trade - regardless of the massive increase in unemployment this would cause in a country already in the grip of an economic downturn.

As well as Lady Astor even the Bishop of Oxford was accused of “sheer highway robbery” in his support of the cause.

Ironically, the Leamington, Warwick and Stratford landladies began their own first meetings over a nice hot cup of tea.

Anyone with old records of meetings of the LVA is asked to email [email protected] or call 01926 457726.