Accurate transcriptions of the 1921 census are being added to the pub history site, starting with London.
I have been building the pub history site for twenty years. It currently costs me about a thousand pounds a year to run, excluding my time.
I visited Pompeii a few times, which show the early Roman Tabernae (taverns). And research shows that the early licensing allowed a beer house to open for about two pounds a year, hence every other building in many of Hertfordshire towns was once a pub.
Search over 60 thousand pages of pub history and London history by surname, street name or pub.
You can search the entire site in the local search engine, which is OK, and can be searched by surname or address or pub name.
Some families, only spend a few months in the licensed trade, others span many decades.
The pub history site does record minute details of research of people, buildings and streets from diverse sources, including Pepys diaries and taverns visited, pub tokens, newspaper reports, masonic records of meetings, Sun Fire insurance records, early maps and street directories, and surveys of London, window and hearth taxes, licensing petty sessions records, census detail, births, christenings, marriages, deaths and wills. There are also a significant number of images of the buildings, business cards and other related material.
Here is the story of the Carlton Tavern, in Maida Vale. It was demolished a day or two before being listed for historical reasons, and has since beeen rebuilt, for this same reason.
This history of any old London building, whether it be a pub, a church, or any other landmark that is identifiable in history is important in how to understand where, and how, London evolved through time, and what originally existed before the masses of modern architecture was built. The relevance of politics in the formation of modern London, or other cities is open to question.
Random stuff
In addition to public houses, are the many coffee houses and taverns, Inns, chop houses and hotels. Many of these pre-date public houses, and many are now the exchanges for business, and were formerly a place for meeting associates, reading newspapers and share dealings. Here are the wine merchants, victuallers, coffee houses etc in 1809 from the London Holden directory. I am building the latest listing on the london taverns blog. Here are many thousands of London listings.
The London Brewery, Golden lane established 1804. For supplying the public with genuine malt liquor
The Licensed Victualler Asylum in 1844, and a list of its subscribers, mostly with pubs, to the charity.
One of the lazy ways to search the site for pubs by postcode is via Ewans Pubology site, and I have some listed by postcode too. I am working on this slowly.
Some of the victuallers joined the freemasons societies and their lodges. Here are some listings of the Grand Lodge memberships; and a second listing of Grand Lodge memberships. And a third listing Grand Lodge memberships, from a second book of Grand Lodge freemasonry records; and a fnal list Grand Lodge memberships finishing this book of Freemasons initiation Grand Lodge records with very useful dates and sometime their ages.
Pubs are closing every day for a variety of reasons, mainly financial. During the early part of the 20th century, and in particular between 1904 and the first world war in 1914, a series of measures through the temperance movement, were executed where too many public houses were spoiling a neighbourhood. This led to the Licensing Act in 1904; which allowed Notice by the way of a Compensation authority to recommend to close down licensed premises for a fee, or compensation. The licences were of varying types, some were full licences, others were beer, some listed themselves as ante-1869 which meant they could have been bought for two guineas a year without any magisterial licensing issues as was the case in the earlier beer act of 1830. Here are a some newspapers reports on Compensation which also often aid in naming an early beer house.
A quick jump into the present day, and many pub chains are being bought up by investment funds, e.g. Stonegate is now the biggest pub co.
Another brilliant resource was the Licensed victuallers institution. This had royal patronage, and therefore it was a charitable institution which was popular, and quite wealthy.
Many of the more astute licensed victuallers were involved in the Licensed Victuallers Association. This association was an insurance to protect members of licensees families, in times of hardship.
A considerable number of children, were named in a list of those most in need of reward at the Institution, and their detailed reasons. There was then a vote to choose those who should receive this help. This was limited by numbers. Those children who were lucky enough were then educated to a standard which enabled them to learn a trade.
Older ex licensees, or their wives, were sometimes offered a place to live out their lives.
The Licensed Victuallers Association is also brilliant in naming many of the early victuallers at a licensed house.