History
The 19th century witnessed a ground swell of societal efforts to reduce the endemic problem arising from the personal consumption of alcohol. The aim was to encourage individuals to embrace moderation in their drinking lifestyle. In 1832 seven men of Preston, led by Joseph Livesey, came to acknowledge that this was not solving an individual’s problem with alcohol. So the ‘seven’ signed a pledge of total abstinence, The tale is told that one of them, Dicky Turner, had a stutter and on signing the pledge proclaimed, “In future I’m going to be ‘ttttotal’”. Hence the term ‘teetotaller’ was coined.
In the North East of England temperance societies were formed in many towns and so in the 1850’s the need for a regional umbrella body arose.On 15th September 1858 an inaugural meeting in Newcastle was called and the North of England Temperance League was established with the aims of total abstinence for the individual and prohibition for the nation. Apart from Islamic states, prohibition is on no one’s agenda today.
Sir Walter Trevelyan, who had prohibited public houses on his Northumberland estates, was its first President and remained so until 1868.Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle, became the President in 1892 and remained so until her death in1921.In an obituary, recorded in the annual report of the League that year, it was said of her: ‘No theories of the liberty of the subject, or speculations of pseudo scientists, could weaken her unshakeable conviction that ‘Temperance reform lay at the root of all reform”.
Industrialists were keen members of the League. Among them was Sir George Hunter, Chairman of Swan Hunter who built the Mauritania in his shipyard on Tyneside. The league had invaluable support from working class leaders such as Thomas Burt and Arthur Henderson.
Thomas Burt, a lifelong teetotaler, is acknowledged to be the first working class MP to be elected to parliament (Morpeth 1874). He had become Secretary of Northumberland Miners Union in1863. At the age of 10 he began work in a coal mine. From 1892 to 1895 he held the ministerial post of Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade and from 1910 to 1918 was Father of the House of Commons. His loyalty to the League over many years was an inspiration to many.
Speaking at the TUC Congress in 1905 Burt stated, “I regard the temperance question as one of the greatest social topics of the time. If democracy is to have a great future, one of the things it will have to do will be, individually and collectively, to grapple with the drink problem.”
Arthur Henderson, a leader of the Labour Party was Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary in the first Labour administration and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934. A temperance enthusiast all his life and on that he would not compromise, since he saw no sense in transforming capitalism "to a democracy penalised and paralysed by drink".
In his youth he came to live in Newcastle and joined a local Good Templar meeting affiliated to the League. In later life he was to acknowledge the impact the meeting had on him. He stated, “I am fully entitled to speak of what the organization has done for my life, seeking in a very small way to be useful to my fellows, I owe an everlasting debt of gratitude.”
Arthur Henderson
By the 1930’s the endemic drink problem of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had drastically diminished and a period of sobriety was established. The Hulton Readership Survey estimated that 40% of the population were abstainers and that young people aged 16 to 25 were most likely to abstain.
The Report of the Royal Commission on Licensing England and Wales 1929-31 noted that there had been a marked change in public attitude towards drunkenness and a distinct advance in sobriety especially among young people. Factors contributing to this success were: the advocacy of temperance workers; the spread of education; counter attractions to drinking; reduction of licenses; restriction of hours; the heavy increase in excise duties. Beer had more than doubled in price and the cost of spirits increased three and four times. The report states:” There can be no doubt that these large increases in price..… have imposed a strong check on the consumption of liquor and contributed substantially to the diminution of insobriety.”
By its own success the temperance movement had created its own demise. After the end of the Second World War, it was felt that the drink problem had gone away. The prevalent social attitude was encapsulated by the Conservative Government’s Home Office Minister’s peroration on the Third Reading of the 1961 Liquor Licensing Bill “Let’s stamp the floor with the feet of freedom”(Homer).The pent up feeling from years of rationing had its impact on the liberalizing of the sale of alcohol.
Confirmation of the success of temperance advocacy may be seen in the Ministry of Health’s refusal to the request of Dr Max Glatt to attend a WHO conference on Alcoholism in Copenhagen. The Ministry considered that there was no alcoholism in England. Such complacency ignored the reversal of the gains that had been hard won over the years due to the lack of control over the future marketing strategies of the drinks industry. In 1933 Sir Edgar Saunders, Director of the Brewers Society, unveiled the brewers’ plans. His words were ominous:
“ Unless you can attract the younger generation to take the place of older men, there is no doubt that we shall have to face a steadily falling consumption of beer. That is a very serious matter for an industry of this sort…unless we can attract and secure the younger customers who will become the mainstay of the public house…. If we begin advertising in the press, we shall see that the continuation of our advertising is contingent upon the fact that we get editorial support as well in the same papers. In that way it is wonderful how you can educate public opinion, generally without making it too obvious that there is a publicity campaign behind it at all…We want to get the beer drinking habit instilled into thousands, almost millions, of young men who do not at present know the taste of beer,”
The results of the Drink’s Industry marketing and sponsorship strategies are clearly seen. By the 1980s, young people had become the heaviest drinkers in the population. So over the past 150 years we have come full circle in the nation’s drinking habits.
During the 60’s the League continued to hold its open air meetings during Race Week on the Town Moor and its Annual Church Service.Its affiliated bodies continued to lose members and close. Although one of its affiliates, the International Organisation of Good Templars could still fill Newcastle Civic Hall for a demonstration and Durham Cathedral for a service celebrating its one hundredth Birthday in1968.
Leagues Revival of Active Work
Stay Dry Campaign 1984
The Norwegian Government’s prevention institute had organized an AlkocuttCampaign with very attractive material. Helge Kolstad, then President of IOGT International, was in charge of the Alkocutt campaign.He gave permission for the United Kingdom Temperance Alliance (now Alliance House Foundation to use the materials. The Stay Dry logo was designed and tested on a number of Newcastle University students. They appreciated the design perceiving it to mean “cut down on drinking or cut it out”. The booklet Umbrellas and Alcohol was published together with posters with situational drinking messages. To compliment the campaign ‘A Lot of Bottle ‘ by Derek Rutherford and illustrated and designed by Ian Kellas was published.
Students from schools and colleges attended a Stay Dry Summer School at Eastwood Grange, Ashover Derbyshire. Maureen Longley was acquainted with the musical group James who spent the week at Eastwood entertaining the students.
When the Stay Dry Campaign came to an end the UKTA permitted the Campaign Against Drink Driving to use the office
for a number of years until the decision was taken to sell the office. Since then the League has been a grant making body.
Stay Dry - Umbrellas & Alcohol
Meeting Today’s Challenge
It is claimed that a number of young people appear to be embracing an alcohol free lifestyle. In order to facilitate and support this cultural change, the board of the NETL have had permission by the Charity Commission to change its name to Temperance North with a new logo and website. It was intended to do this two years ago but covid restrictions delayed the launch.
Temperance North aims are to support individuals embracing an alcohol-free lifestyle and to reduce alcohol related harm by promoting science based policies independent of commercial interests.
The campaign was conceived at the time the Government had published its document ‘Drinking Sensibly’ which the Journal the Doctor*29th March 1984 was appalled by its derision of abstinence:
“The most exasperating stumbling block is the official Government line contained in the policy document ‘Drinking Sensibly’. That the encouragement of abstinence is neither practical nor desirable.
The UKTA was the custodian trustee of the NETL and had in the past financially supported the activities of the League.The NETL owned premises at 83 Jesmond Road Newcastle, occupied by a number of tenants.The League was no longer engaged in active temperance work.It was decided that the campaign should be centered in Newcastle using the NETL office. A campaign manager’s post was advertised and Maureen Longley was the successful candidate.
Martin Shaw agreed to support the campaign. On the date to launch the campaign, Martin Shaw was engaged in a play in Liverpool, hence the campaign was officially launched in Liverpool and not Newcastle.
Fortuitously it was in the days when Health Authorities had Health Education officers who purchased a great deal of the campaign material - despite the government’s sentiments in Drinking Sensibly. This enabled national coverage of the campaign.
The campaign was also helped when the writer of the play “Too Much Punch for Judy” sought our help to print and publish it. The play depicted the tragedy of drink driving.
