Shelford in the first half of the 19th century was a rumbustious sort of place. Men and women of the labouring classes worked long and hard, and lived in overcrowded conditions, on very little money. Tempers were easily frayed, and anger forcefully expressed. Disputes were often settled with fists, and not just by the men. There would have been plenty of bad language. And drink was the foundation of working men’s culture. You can tell this simply by the number of ale-houses in the village. Newspapers are one of the few sources of information about the daily goings-on in the village. They only describe the extraordinary, of course – fights that come before the magistrates, cases where people disgrace themselves. But in the level of detail they give about cases the people involved suddenly come alive. So let’s hear one or two cases where the demon drink worked its power.
ASSAULT – David Duce and Pearce Melbourne were charged with assaulting James Dean, on the 1st of April. Dean stated that about ten o’clock on the night of the 1st of April he was in his own house, that the prisoners, in company with several others, threw stones at his chamber window and door, that he opened the door and told them he thought he had had enough of that: Duce said, “You ----- get you in”. Stones were then thrown at him which struck him on the head. He did not see which of them threw the stones. Sarah Dean stated she heard a noise in the street as she was going to bed, and shortly after stones were thrown at the window, that she saw Melbourne there, and that he afterwards called upon her and asked her to forgive him, that it was club night, and the members always got drunk. The club had just broke up and they were breaking some mugs they had stolen from Mrs Cambridge’s. Melbourne was picking stones up when she saw him. The prisoners both denied being there at all, and called two witnesses who flatly contradicted Dean and his wife. Their manner, however, fully convinced the Bench of the value of their evidence. The defendants were ordered to pay, including costs, 15s each. Allowed 14 days to pay in.
Cambridge Chronicle (CC) 12 April 1845
All this sounds very familiar. A night at the pub and the men are full of mayhem. Throwing stones, smashing mugs – when you’re drunk it all seems hilariously funny. If there’d been supermarket trolleys, they’d have been pushing each other round the village. It was an expensive night’s entertainment though – 15s was more than a week’s wages.
Who were the protagonists? James Dean was a 34-year-old farm labourer, living with his wife Sarah and children in High Street. Pierce Melbourne and David Duce were labourers, too, but 10 years or so younger. One wonders why they were so keen to wind up James Dean. The Black Swan in Church Street was run by the Cambridges, Arthur and Elizabeth.
“The club” was probably a mutual benefit club whereby all the members contributed 6d or so a week, and then received help if they fell ill or had an accident. It could be the benefit society mentioned in the Chronicle of 24 October 1847. The traditional meeting place for a club, when you met to pay your subs, was, of course, the pub, and once there, the men made the most of their night out, as we’ve seen.
ATTEMPT TO SET FIRE TO A COTTAGE AT GT SHELFORD – At the Petty Sessions held at the County Courts on Saturday last, William King was charged with an attempt to set fire to his cottage on the night of Wednesday week. It appeared from the evidence that was offered that the prisoner and several others had been drinking at the Peacock, that they returned to the prisoner’s cottage, whose wife went for some beer: in consequence of the length of time that she was gone, prisoner accused her of having been with another man, and swore he would burn her up. In his drunken frenzy, he took up a candle and set fire to some straw lying in the other room, by which the boards were scorched: but it did not appear from the evidence that there was any danger of the cottage being burnt…
CC 2 September 1849
William King was a sailor, apparently out of employment, in his late 40s, and living in the High Street. Presumably he was away a lot, and it seems he had doubts about his wife’s fidelity…
DRUNKENNESS – William Arnold of Great Shelford was charged with having on December 14th, in the main street of the parish of Great Shelford, been drunk, riotous, and indecent. The defendant did not deny the charge, and the Magistrates fined him 9s and 11s costs.
CC 11 January 1862
William Arnold was a farm labourer in his early twenties living with his widowed mother in the High St.
While the labouring man couldn’t see anything wrong with a bit of a drink, their social betters looked down with grim disapproval on these drunken roisterings and their consequences for the family.
DRUNKENNESS – Simon Pouter, labourer, Little Shelford was charged with being drunk and incapable in the “streets” of Great Shelford on the previous night. – The defendant only had 9s a week and “small beer”; and although he had 3 children with the whooping cough and a wife to maintain on this sum, yet he thought a man should have a little “nourishment” sometimes. – The man had, it seemed, borne a good character, on the strength of which, and a promise not to repeat the offence, he was sent about his business on agreeing to pay the sum of 2s 6d, mitigated costs, within a week.
CC 15 December 1860
Farm labourers were paid, at this time, in money and small beer. You can hear the sheepish tone in his voice as he tries to defend himself. It’s no defence for neglecting his wife and children, but these men had a hard life and sometimes they kicked off the traces. I’m sure the wives would have liked to do the same. One wife was not prepared to put up with her husband's drinking, and sadly ended up in court because of it.
Ann Freeman of Shelford, with a child in her arms, which she was suckling during the hearing of the case, was charged by Harriet Webb, with assaulting her... Complainant, evidently enceinte, said she keeps a public-house. On Saturday last defendant's husband came into her tap-room with a young man who treated him to some beer: Freeman did not pay for any. When they had been drinking a short time, Mrs Freeman came in, and said if her husband did not come out of that (strong and obscene possessive noun, qualified by more obscene adjective) house, she would break every window in it. Mrs Webb protested against she and her house being called bad names, but defendant repeated the expression, and taking up a dish containing dinner, broke it across her head; further violence was prevented by the bystanders. There had been a breeze between the parties some time previously about Freeman stopping late at the "Peacock", but it had never come to a blow. Mr Hunt, who appeared for Freeman, made an ingenious defence, pleading the exasperated feelings of the defendant at finding her husband drinking when he ought to be at his work, neglecting both his dinner, and his family of seven children. - Fined 1s 6d and 13s 6d expenses.
CIP 4 December 1858
Well I don't know about you, but my sympathies are with the wife. She was struggling to keep house and home together, in the face of a shiftless husband. At some point there has to be a question about responsibility, and making a living by selling beer to labourers who are spending the family housekeeping on their drink may not be the most reputable trade.
The Freemans were Francis and Ann Freeman of The Green, a group of poor cottages just beyond Granhams Crossing. He was a 46-year-old labourer. The baby at the court was Ann junior, and she was followed soon after by an eighth child, Isabella. The fine plus expenses, more than a week's wages, must have slowed Francis's drinking for a couple of weeks, if it didn't put them all in the workhouse...
It was precisely because of the effect of the village labourers spending their exiguous wages on beer and not on their families that the nonconformist churches, and the middle-classes in general, promoted temperance so strongly. As the century went on, there would have been an increasing social divide among the working class (or labourers’) families of the village between the respectable “chapel” families and the rest.
But lest you think it’s only the menfolk who get up to these shenanigans, here’s the womenfolk of the parish. On these two occasions, so far as I know, drink wasn’t even involved:
SUSANNAH CHAMBERS – the wife of a schoolmaster at Great Shelford was indicted for assault on Sarah Dean, the wife of a shopkeeper in the same parish. The prosecutrix deposed that, on applying to defendant for a bill owing for shop goods, she was not only abused, but beaten over the back with a Bible, which had caused her to be indisposed ever since, to corrobate which, a little boy was called, who said the defendant had only pushed the prosecutrix from her door with the Bible. However, the jury found her guilty, and she was fined 6d.
CC 30 April 1819
Even more violent was the following dispute:
GROSS ASSAULT – Jane Powter was charged by Sarah Rollinson or Rawlinson, with having grossly assaulted her on the 10th of October and used her shameful. It appeared that the greatest miracle which had been heard of for many a day, was her escape with life from the hands of the defendant. (I detect more than a trace of irony on the part of our reporter who is apparently quoting her words verbatim). She deposed that on various previous occasions, the defendant had solemnly sworn to “brain her” and “do for her”; and on the day in question, the complainant was running after the defendant’s little boy to reward him for some iniquities perpetrated towards herself, when the defendant made no more to do, but up with her fist and hit me this unlucky blow – (pointing to an eye that evidenced the receipt of a severe thump of some sort) – “I was unsensed at once”. Defendant followed up this attack by tearing complainant’s hair, pulling her cap to pieces, and rending her gown; and finally gave fierce utterance to a determination to “fight her”. In this outrage defendant was assisted by her three children, who severally used the extreme of their little exertions to further their mother’s questionable intention. Defendant of course denied the entire statement, attributing the black eye to a knock against a door, and declaring that, in her anxiety to prevent her child’s throat being cut with an oyster-knife by the bloodthirsty complainant, she had torn “all her hair off her head”. This description was accompanied with some figurative language peculiar to the defendant’s phraseology, which being replied to in a similar style by the complainant, the magistrates conveyed to the ladies, their request that they should with all convenient speed get on the other side of the door. Peace being restored by this arrangement, the bench were enabled quietly to fine Mrs Powter 6d and 11s 6d costs. Mrs Powter expressed a strongly worded opinion that she “didn’t intend to pay”.
CC 22 October 1842
What a farce!
The pubs were a vibrant centre of village life. They were an obvious place to hold events of every sort, since they had a range of public rooms. They hosted coroner’s inquests and auctions. The Ancient Shepherds, which was one of the village friendly societies (and therefore a powerful agent of self-help for the labourers and others) held their annual festival at the De Freville Arms where they had a good dinner (CC 26 July 1856). But not all of this pub life was very savoury. For instance, on 31 January 1857 the Chronicle disapprovingly reports:
COCKFIGHTING – One of these disgraceful and unlawful exhibitions at the public house in this place, on the 22nd inst. It was what was termed by lovers of that brutal amusement a grand day, as we hear it was patronized by many persons, and not of the lowest class. Several of the poor creatures were killed. A cock from Stapleford won six fights out of eight.
What it doesn’t say is that it’s quite likely that undergraduates from the University would have turned up, comfortably distant from the University proctors.
Competitions of various sorts were quite common too, usually with a prize.
ACCIDENT – On Tuesday last the 16th inst. A shooting match at pigeons took place at the Railway Tavern, for a fat hog. In the course of the afternoon, a young man named Arthur Austin, met with a serious accident by the bursting of his double-barrelled gun. The shattered fragments of one of the barrels were driven through his left hand, lacerating it fearfully.
Pigeons, of course, were a major agricultural pest, so this was pest control as well as sport.
CC 20 February 1858
So the pubs, or ale-houses, were, whether for good or evil, very much at the heart of village life. You might like to read next about the individual pubs in Shelford The Drinking Man's Guide to Victorian Shelford
Acknowledgement
In presenting this and other pieces about life in the village which use newspaper articles, I acknowledge my debt to "The Great Shelford Chronicle", a compilation of articles from the Cambridge Chronicle from 1774 to 1868. I would like to extend my recognition and thanks to the editor, Alan Bullwinkle, and the team who compiled it, and have thereby made research much easier.