INTRODUCTION

FOR MOST OF THE period between 1790 and 1815 Britain was at war with France. This led to the recruitment of large numbers of men for the army and navy and the disruption of supplies of food and drink, including wine, brandy and rum, as well as other goods from mainland Europe, the Caribbean and North America. With the deposition of Louis XVI in September 1792, his execution the following year, and the formation of a French Republic along revolutionary principles, the authorities in Britain came down hard on any attempts by the lower orders or the middle classes to campaign for social and political change. The end of the French wars brought economic depression and hardship, as large numbers of demobilised soldiers and sailors returned home. This was the background to events, such as Peterloo (1819) and the Cato Street Conspiracy (1820) in England, and the Radical War (1820) in Scotland.

The fear of foreign invasion during the Napoleonic period led, in 1805, to an outburst of patriotism among the licensed trade in Perth. An association of Perth landlords was formed called ‘The Loyal Perth Landlords’ Defence against Invasion or No Accommodation for Napoleon’. Most of the pubs in the centre of Perth were members of this patriotic organisation, including the Ship Inn, the Salutation, the Black Cow, the Bluebell, the Ewe and Lamb, the King's Arms and no less than four Lions, Black, White, Red and Golden.

RISING LIVING STANDARDS AND CHANGING TASTES

As living standards rose in the late eighteenth century, significant changes were taking place in the consumption of alcohol in Scotland. The consumption of whisky and strong ale increased at the expense of weak two-penny ale, and more wine and rum were drunk in middle-class households and taverns. By the 1790s, there was an increasing number of commercial breweries in Glasgow, and Glasgow-brewed porter was ‘now much more drunk in public houses by tradesmen, than formerly’ which had ‘diminished the consumption of whisky’. Porter was popular in Perth but mainly ‘among the higher classes for their forenoon refreshment’. A similar situation was found in Stirling where the poor drank small beer, ‘a thin vapid, sour stuff’, or whisky and ‘the more opulent’ drank English porter.