Alistair Mutch - Brewery Historybreweryhistory.com/journal/archive/127/Liverpool.pdf · licensing registers and other archive material, but centrally on the visual record in the form

2 Journal of the Brewery History Society

The design of Liverpool pubs in the nineteenth century

Alistair Mutch

Introduction

This article explores the historical devel-opment of pubs in Liverpool, particularlyin the second half of the nineteenthcentury. Unlike Licensed to Sell by GeoffBrandwood, Andrew Davison, andMichael Slaughter, which focuses mainlyon the interior of pubs, this discussionlooks mostly at the exteriors, specificallyat the street level facade.1 In part this isbecause the evidence we have, in theform of photographs, is much richer thanthat for nineteenth-century interiors, but itis also because studies of how residentsperceive cities place much emphasis onsuch eye level features.2 In this way,pubs are a significant part of their town-scape. This article argues that Liverpoolpubs in the nineteenth century took adistinctive form, one which in many waysseems to foreshadow the branded pubsof the late twentieth century. In turn, thisdistinctive built form owes much to theadoption in Liverpool of the 'managerialsystem', in particular by the firm of PeterWalker & Son. Paul Jennings's recentvaluable account of the development ofThe Local gives us the historical back-

ground at a national level for England,and points out just how much work stillneeds to be done to explore regionaland local differences.3 The study of pubdesign in the nineteenth century hastended to focus on spectacular examplesrather than seeking to assess typicallocal patterns. The effort to do the latteris fraught with problems of the survivalof evidence, but this article seeks tobuild a framework for such analysis. Thecase of Liverpool is interesting andimportant in its own right, but furtherdevelopment of the approach taken heremay encourage others to carry out theirown local studies and add to our store ofknowledge.

The article starts by introducing aspectsof licensed retailing in nineteenth-centuryLiverpool and the nature of the evidencewhich this has left behind. There arethen some brief remarks on how othershave viewed buildings as carrying themarks of the organizational ideas whichlay behind them, before a framework foranalysis is outlined. This framework isthen applied to the development of theLiverpool pub in the mid-nineteenth cen-tury. Drawing on company records, thelicensing registers and other archivematerial, but centrally on the visualrecord in the form of photographs, this

________________________________

* This article has undergone peer review.

3Brewery History Number 127

analysis draws our attention to a particu-lar cluster of pubs run by Andrew BarclayWalker. The hub of a company whichbecame the dominant force in Liverpoollicensed retailing, this cluster exhibitscertain features - simple design based onmodels drawn from emerging shopdesign - which can be related to develop-ments in managerial practice. In this way,the built form not only reflected manage-rial practice but also consolidated it, act-ing as a visual indicator of success andso forming a 'to-hand' model for adoptionby others in the city.

Public houses in context

At the beginning of the nineteenth centurythe main way of running a pub (and theone preferred in most debate on the sub-ject) was the independent businessperson owning or renting his or her ownpremises and free to buy their supplies ofalcohol for resale from any manufactureror wholesaler - the 'free house'.4(Although we should note the importanceof 'loan ties' in London and the HomeCounties by 1800). However, for a varietyof reasons (including indebtedness onthe part of landlords and growing accessto capital on the part of brewers) therewas a trend towards the direct ownershipof public houses by brewers.5 In the vastmajority of cases such houses were runby nominally independent tenants, 'tied'to take the products of the brewery.However, in some localities, andLiverpool was the first and most distinc-tive of these, the employment of salaried

managers, liable to instant dismissal,became by the third quarter of the centurythe dominant form. This innovation canbe directly traced back to the partnershipthat went under the style of Peter Walker& Son. It was formed by the Scottishbrewer Peter Walker, who moved with hisfamily to Liverpool in the 1840s, and hisson Andrew, who ran the companybetween 1848 and 1893.6

The use of managers seems to havebegun in the 1850s and entailed thedevelopment of a managerial hierarchysupported by a detailed accounting sys-tem. House inspectors checked that thehouses were properly run and reported toa superintendent. It is this system as awhole, rather than just the employment ofmanagers as opposed to tenants, thatwas the real innovation. It was rapidlytaken up across Liverpool, if resisted inother areas of the country by both licens-ing magistrates and brewers. By the endof the nineteenth century, a majority ofthe pubs in Liverpool were run bysalaried managers, an acceleratingtrend and also one matched by the con-centration of ownership in the hands ofcompanies as indicated in Table 1. By1891 four major companies owned over aquarter of the city's pubs. It was in theranks of these companies that mostmanagers were to be found: in PeterWalker & Son, for example, 215, or 89%,of the company's Liverpool pubs, wereunder management in 1891.

For an institution which was so central toworking class life and which was a key


business sector, there has been relative-ly little attention to the pub in its socialand business context during the period.Social histories tend to neglect consider-ation of the impact of business strategieson the nature of the pub and the standardbusiness histories tend to focus largelyon brewing as opposed to retailing.7 Onenotable exception is the work on the pubsof Bradford by Jennings, but this standsout as an analytical island in the sea oflocal histories which tend to focus on listsof owners and landlords.8 The pub

remains an emotional touchstone indiscussions of English (in particular) lifeand hence there are many examples ofbooks of photographs of pubs.9 Many ofthese eschew much contextual detail,even down to the provenance of illustra-tions, but they can, as we will see, bevaluable sources in their own right.However, in considering the pub as builtform the pioneering work of MarkGirouard deserves particular attention.Girouard writes from the perspective ofan architectural historian and so his focus

A) Types of tenure 1898

Owner 667 32.10%Tenant of private owner 136 6.54%Tenant of brewer 218 10.49%Paid manager of brewer 1057 50.87%

2078

B) Owners 1891

Agents 66 3.17%Companies 1155 55.45%Individuals 859 41.24%Unknown 3 0.14%

2083

C) Major pub-owning companies 1891

Peter Walker & Son 241Robert Cain 137Rowland Bent 110Threlfalls Brewery Company 93

581

Table 1: Tenure and ownership of Liverpool public houses in 1890s. From Mutch, A. (2006)‘Public houses as multiple retailing: Peter Walker & Son 1846-1914', Business History, 48(1).


in Victorian Pubs is on the development ofparticular styles of pub.10 His main geo-graphical focus is on the rich resourcessupplied by London and his examplestend to be those recorded in the architec-tural press. Consequently, the discussionis based on distinctive illustrations ratherthan a representative sample.11

While his main focus is on London,Girouard does consider examples fromelsewhere, notably Birmingham andLiverpool. He notes that 'Liverpool pubsare very much a world of their own, ratherthan a provincial version of London pubs,and deserve a separate book'.12 Herecognizes that some of the exampleswhich he, and others, draw on, notablythe Philharmonic, are not really typical ofthe Liverpool pub.13 This magnificentbuilding, with its elaborate ironwork andworld famous toilets (tours of which areoffered to this day!) is the product of theparticular struggle for respectability andpre-eminence of the two major pub own-ers in the city, Peter Walker & Son andRobert Cain & Sons. Their real wealth,however, was generated from hundredsof more typical dockside, city centre andslum pubs which led The Times toobserve in 1875

These gin-palaces, with their flaring barrellamps and other external decorations, are insome respects peculiar to the port. The poor-er the locality, the better chance there is, itseems, of the house succeeding, and thewretched customers cannot complain thatthey are not honoured with splendid estab-lishments.14

It is these pubs which are the subject ofthis article and which constitute aremarkable collection of four books ofphotographs, Freddy O'Connor’s lavishlyillustrated Pub on Every Cornerseries.15 When one adds to this TerryCooke's Pubs of Scottie Road one has adistinctive resource which is not paral-leled in any comparable town.16 Ofcourse, it could be argued that this is aproduct of the chance survival of photo-graphic records. That there is someconnection to our major theme of thedevelopment of the managed house canbe seen in the work on Birminghamwhere the firm of Mitchells and Butlers,also a key owner of managed houses,had a similar practice of recording itspubs.17 One of our problems is that theyears of slum clearance and war dam-age have meant that the surviving builtrecord is unreliable as a means againstwhich to test this photographic recordfor representativeness. However, com-parative work (of which very much moreis needed) does seem to suggest thatwhile we might find isolated examples ofcomparable built forms elsewhere, therewas something distinctive about theLiverpool experience.18 While the recordfor Birmingham has some parallels, it isimportant to point out that the managedhouse form and its built equivalentemerges later there than in Liverpool. Ascan through the pages of the Liverpoolpub books does suggest a particularbuilt form that, briefly, seems to havemore parallels with the shop than thehouse. However, this is an impression:the task for the rest of the article is to


conduct a more structured analysis,drawing on the surviving historicalrecords and relating the built form to theway in which pubs were run. In order todo this we need to consider in a littlemore detail the connections betweenbuildings and institutions.

That historians have considered suchconnections can be observed in thefollowing from the social historian R.J.Morris's account of the Victorian self-helpwriter Samuel Smiles. In commenting onthe way in which much of Smiles'sapproach is enshrined in the buildingsof Leeds, notably the WoodhouseTemperance Hall and MechanicsInstitution, he contrasts the modest pro-portions of this building to the lavishdecoration of the later Leeds MechanicsInstitution, observing that

These buildings are a visual record of thesocial structure of each institution. TheWoodhouse Hall was placed between theWesleyan chapel, the Anglican St Mark's, andthe Bricklayers' Arms, an elegant utilitarianbuilding which hardly broke the lines of by-law back-to-back housing which surroundedit. The Cookridge Street building is an aggres-sive assertion of the cultural authority of theurban elite.19

Of course, it could be argued that this issimply a particular reading of the twobuildings. Some people might not noticethe buildings at all and others might readthem differently depending on their ownparticular perspectives. Those who writeon church architecture, however, give us

a stronger sense of the link between theform of buildings and more abstractideas.

Studies of the way in which space wasorganized in the English medieval parishchurch have shown how it was based onparticular assumptions about the formof worship.20 The chancel, screened offby the rood screen, was the exclusiveterritory of the priest, so reflecting hierar-chical assumptions. Such considerationswere repeated regularly and consistent-ly. Most church goers might not see theconnection to theological debates butsuch connections were certainly present.The plans, both horizontal and vertical,of French cathedrals were intimatelylinked to the tenets of scholastic philoso-phy.21 That the taken for granted natureof such practices shaped the use ofchurches can be seen in the violence ofthe reaction to the built environmentduring the long years of the Reformation.It was not just that statues and stainedglass were smashed, but that wholesalechanges were made to the physical lay-out of space.22 Churches in Scotlandwere partitioned to form the sort of spacewhich suited the new liturgical practices,especially the emphasis on the pulpitand the Word.23 The controversy overthe placing of the altar and the rails, ifany, which separated it, were a majorpart of the Laudian controversies inEngland. It took many years for a newbuilt form to emerge in English andWelsh Nonconformity and ScottishPresbyterianism, but congregationsstruggled to raise the finance to provide


new built settings. Of course, this discus-sion has largely been about interiors,whereas our focus is on the outside ofpubs. While such features did not excitecontroversy on the same level as reli-gious debates, there were still argumentsabout the openness and ostentation ofpubs and their claimed impact ondrinkers.24 The example of churches israised here to suggest how the built formcould reflect ideas about how organiza-tions should be run. However, in order tosee how the built form of the pub mightreflect not only architectural fashion butalso how they were owned and man-aged, we need a language for analysisand this is the task of the next section.

A vocabulary for analysing pub design

Figure 1 outlines a vocabulary based ona central difference between the designof a facade as a shop or as a house. Thisapproach is based on that adopted byBrunskill's analysis of vernacular build-ings, although the pub does not featurethere.25

The distinctions have been developed onthe basis of inspection of the physicaland visual record and are primarily orient-ed towards the task of analyzing urbanpubs. That is, a full classification schemewould require extension in two directions.To take into account the full range of vari-

Shop House

Windows

Window depth

Dividing pillars

Figure 1. A vocabulary for pub design


ation, especially in rural and small townpubs, we would wish to extend the housecategory to a much greater extent than isessayed here. A full comparison of allurban pubs would also necessitate theextension of the scheme to include ele-ments such as the nature of signage, thetreatment of areas above the windowlevel, etc. There are another two consid-erations which are not covered in the dia-gram, both related to our concentrationon facades at the ground floor level. Oneis the important nature of the plan ofpubs. We can classify these as broadlycorner, terrace or detached (Fig. 2). Aswe will see in more detail below, the over-whelming majority of Liverpool pubs wereof the corner type. There is a clear rela-tionship between the other two forms andthe continued adoption of a 'house' style

of design. The second consideration isthe relation of the facade to internalarrangements. The nature of the evi-dence required to analyze these relation-ships in more detail is beyond the scopeof this article, but inspection of thearchival evidence for Liverpool suggestsa very clear reflection of internal arrange-ments in the facade of pubs (Fig. 3). Thatis, doors correspond to particular parts ofthe pub, which tended to feature a verylarge bar area with several entrances, an'outdoor' department with its ownentrance and a fairly vestigial 'lounge',again with its own entrance.26

As the focus in this article is onLiverpool pubs, classification of thehouse style is necessarily limited. Figure4 shows a 'classic' example drawn from

Corner

Terrace

Detached

Figure 2. Pub plans


Figure 3. Trafalgar Vaults, Liverpool,1902. Redrawn from LRO 720 KIR 2395.Reproduced by permission of LiverpoolRecord Office and Edmund Kirby Limited.


a small market town and representativeof many similar examples. We note herehow the pub is developed from andretains many of the features of thehouse from which it originated (andhence the name). In this example themain windows remain of the samedimensions as domestic dwellings, withany elaboration reserved for the door-way. The bay window on the right of thepicture represents a typical example ofthe type of elaboration of windows whichis not pursued further in Figure 1.

The Liverpool pub, however, relies muchmore on the features which reflect devel-opments in retail design. Figure 5 shows

two Victorian shop fronts in Grantham,Lincolnshire which are useful for com-parative purposes. We can note here thegrowing height of the facade and thedepth of windows enabled by the devel-opment of plate glass, features whichare also emulated in the 'classic'Liverpool pub.27

The first level of our classification refersto the form of the windows. In the clas-sic shop these are straight headed,although it is possible for variations inthe character of the head of the windowto be found. This elaboration of windowshape is perhaps more found in the'house' type, with the adoption in some

Figure 4. Kings Arms, Westgate, Grantham (author).


examples of the contemporary fascinationwith the Gothic. However, if we simplyfocus on the straight headed variety, thenwe could suggest that another distin-guishing feature is the depth of windows.In retailing practice the focus was on thevertical extension of windows in bothdirections - so that they extended tointernal ceiling level in one direction andnearly to the ground in the other.Facilitated by the development of plateglass and other structural features (suchas cast-iron framing) we can see a num-ber of such large windows in theLiverpool record. However, there are

also examples of what we might termmedium and shallow depth windows.One could extend this classification tolook at the nature of the glass itself. Inexamples in Birmingham of deep andmedium depth windows, for example, theeffect of transparency is countered bythe employment of small panes ofglass.28 In Glasgow much use was madeof frosted glass to obscure windows onthe one hand and wooden infillings at thebottom of the window opening on theother to restrict the view into the pub.29

The magistrates there were muchimpressed by the ease with which the

Figure 5. Shop fronts in Grantham showing increase in height and area devoted to windows(author).


interior of Liverpool pubs could beviewed. They had

travelled along some of the streets on the topof a car, from which they could easily see intothe interior of the public-houses, the windowsof which are not obscured with figured glassor blinds as is so common in Glasgow.30

For the purpose of our analysis thesimple categories of deep, medium andshallow will be employed, medium beingtaken as windows ending at the sameheight as the window glass in doors,which tended to be fixed at waist height.

The final level of elaboration for ourpurposes is the nature of the pillars whichoften divide the facade between windowsand doors. In some cases the simpleform of the windows and doors forms thedivisions, with relatively little elaboration.In other cases far more complex forms ofpillars, with intricate capitals and moredepth articulate the facade. Such effectscan be provided by elaborate paintschemes either on plaster or wood. Ofcourse, we could extend this analysis tofurther classify these effects - to cate-gorize the headings of pillars betweenvariations on the Corinthian and simplereffects, or to detail the treatment ofsignboards. Figure 6, which we willfeature in our analysis below, is a usefulvisual illustration of these points. It is anexample of what we would define as ashop design on a corner site, with asimple form of vertical division, mediumdepth straight headed windows and asimple signboard. In fact it representspart of a 'classic' cluster of pubs whichour classification enables us to identify.However, before presenting the results ofthe analysis in more detail, we need toconsider the nature of the evidence wedraw upon.

Liverpool pubs: building on the shop

The analysis presented below is basedon volume 1 of O'Connor's four partseries, which covers the city centre. It isrestricted in this way because the task ofanalysis involves not only the classifica-tion of the visual evidence but also the

Figure 6. Camden Street Vaults, Liverpool.From O'Connor 1995, 50. Reproduced bypermission of the Bluecoat Press.


attaching of contextual information drawnfrom the licensing registers and companyrecords. The process was that a recordwas constructed for each of the selectedphotographs (as below) using MicrosoftAccess with coding against the schemeoutlined. Further contextual material wasthen attached from the supporting data-bases drawn from the licensing registers,the census and company records. This isa time-consuming process which neces-sarily restricts the scope of analysis.There are some further caveats aboutusing the visual record which need to betaken into account. The great bulk of thephotographs that O'Connor uses are ofpubs clearly marked with the insignia ofPeter Walker & Son. However, on closerinvestigation many of these houses areoften ones which the company hadacquired at a later date. In other words,the initial design may not have originatedfrom Peter Walker & Son, or the premis-es may have been converted onceacquired.

The matter is further confused by twopractices. One is that the companyundertook the management of premiseson behalf of their owners, when to allintents and purposes the pub wasdesigned and run as with the others intheir portfolio, hence explaining why pubswhich appear in the licensing registers asowned by others have a visual recordshowing them as Walker pubs.31 Theother is that Walkers supplied their beerto many other pubs (and Andrew Walkeralso operated as a major wine and spiritmerchant). Pubs which they supplied

could display an illuminated lamp andother signage. This caused some dissen-sion when contracts ended but landlordsrefused to take down the signage. Onelandlord who the company pursued wrote

Why all this bother about me in particularwhen there are scores of houses in Liverpoolhaving your name on the ends & front of thebuildings, also in the Windows, Doors &Lamps who do not draw one drop of your Ale- There are several that I could point out inthis Road and the neighbourhood. - The verynext house to my other house has your namefar more prominent than ever I had it & thehouse belongs to a firm of Brewers whowould not have a barrel of your Ale in one oftheir houses on any account.32

So the simple visual record can bemisleading. O'Connor generally suppliesinformation about the date of the photo-graph, but this does not necessarilyrepresent the original built form. In somecases he supplies two pictures of thesame pub which demonstrates the 'greatrebuilding' which occurred in Liverpool,as in many other towns across thecountry, at the end of the nineteenthcentury. It is this radical reconstruction,as well as subsequent changes, whichmakes the surviving built environment anuncertain guide. The rebuilding processinvolved the conversion of the rathersimple facades of the early designs, oftenbased on the tacking of plaster or timberforms on to the basic building, intofacades of more substantial materials(often expensive stone or brickwork).This conversion often saw more idiosyn-


cratic designs for each pub, rather thanthe more 'branded' theme that we will seebelow, with a noticeable heightening ofwindow sills and distinctive decorativefeatures. It was this movement that culmi-nated in the glories of the Philharmonicand the Vines, which can be seen asshow pubs representing the apogee ofthe Liverpool pub. Because of this, weuse the earliest photograph of thosewhich O'Connor presents, which gives ussome 70 examples for analysis.

The analysis of these examples theninvolves the drawing in of other contextu-al information. A key source here is thelicensing registers.33 In a city in whichlicensing matters were at the centre oflocal politics, the recording of data inregisters was a key weapon and a full runsurvives which enables the researcher totrace the running and ownership of pubsover time. Ownership data is presentfrom 1875, with the main use of theregisters for this analysis being from1881, selected to align with the census ofthat year. The use of this information fromthe registers enables in some cases thestatus of the pubs as tenanted or man-aged to be ascertained. This is thensupplemented by information drawn from

the records of Peter Walker & Son who,as we will see, were the dominant force.The survival of this material is veryfragmentary and consists of two lists ofproperties, indicating in particularwhether the property were owned orleased and, in the case of the latter, thelength of leases.34 It often proved difficult,because of conflicting address informa-tion (particularly significant in the case ofcorner properties, which might be knownby two street names) to identify pubsclearly. One should note here the practicein Liverpool of often not giving distinctivenames to pubs and of referring to themsimply by address.35 There are also anumber of house management accountsavailable which enable us to confirm, forexample, that the pub in Figure 6 atLondon Road and Camden Street was amanaged house for Andrew BarclayWalker from at least 1859. In this way anumber of sources can help us trackchange over time and give us confidencein the broad outlines of our analysis. Weshould note that the factors discussedmean that the amount of detailed infor-mation on specific pubs diminishes as weseek further detail in our analysis.However, looking at a broad samplerather than just illustrative examples

House Shop Total

Corner 5 48 53Terrace 1 15 16Detached 0 1 1

6 64 70

Table 2. Analysis of sample by plan and type.


shows up some distinctive patterns ofpub design.36

Table 2 shows two clear features. It indi-cates the overwhelming dominance ofwhat we have termed the 'shop' form inLiverpool, something which is confirmedby visual inspection of the remainingvolumes of pictures and which could use-fully be contrasted to the pattern in manyother areas. For this reason the rest ofthis analysis concentrates in more detailon aspects of the shop form, attempting toderive patterns within this form. Thedominance of the corner pub is also con-firmed. This was a matter of considerabledebate within Liverpool, resulting in anunsuccessful legal challenge to thepractice of extending pubs into nearbypremises. In 1875, for example, a pub atBlundell Street owned by Andrew BarclayWalker came up for transfer. An objectionwas made on the grounds that the pubhad been extended since being licensedinto neighbouring streets. The magis-trates granted the transfer on the groundsthat 'the licence [was] for the premisesoriginally licensed and we state distinctlyfrom the bench that if the parties chooseto sell in other premises they must takethe responsibility for it'.37 However, whensuch a challenge was mounted by a tem-perance association it was unsuccessful,leaving the temperance advocate WilliamCaine to remark ruefully 'we were power-less to interfere with the existing law ... atany rate, it would be a sheer waste ofmoney to attempt to dispute the matterany further'.38 Hence the pub which hastwo frontages, often with a deeper

frontage on the side street, with a range ofdoors giving access to specific depart-ments.

If we examine these shop forms in furtherdetail we find that 49 of the 64 (36 incorner pubs, 13 in terraced versions)contained straight-headed windows of thetype illustrated in Figure 6. Table 3analyses these straight-headed shoptype properties in more detail on the twofurther dimensions of our classification:the depth of the windows and the elabo-ration or otherwise of the divisions (e.g.pillars) which articulated the horizontaldimension of the facade. What thisanalysis suggests is a very pronounced'shop' form with windows which eitherreached to about waist height from theceiling or came lower down. Some ofthese 'shops' had complex facades inwhich the divisions between windows anddoors were marked by elaborate pillars,but far more common was a much simplertype. The core of the 'typical' Liverpoolpub was therefore a facade modelled onelements of contemporary retail practice,featuring relatively straightforwardfacades with a strong vertical element inwhich the effect was gained by the articu-lation of simple and repeated designelements which could be easily scaled upto reflect internal layouts. It remains torelate such a pattern to managed housesin general and to one firm in particular.

If we examine our licensing register data,we find that of the 32 'simple shops' 7were recorded in the 1881 licensing reg-ister as under the ownership of Andrew


Barclay Walker, with a further 1 owned bythe company he controlled, Peter Walker& Son. Only one other owner, WilliamClarkson, owned more than one exam-ple. He would later sell his pubs to PeterWalker & Son in 1890, declaring that

He is desirous of leaving the business entire-ly and he would feel more easy if that busi-ness which he has been so long associatedwith and has built up with such care were inthe hands of first class people such as yourCompany rather than left to be manipulatedby other parties.39

This suggests at least a close connectionwhich was mirrored in the adoption of asimilar built form. If, having identifiedAndrew Barclay Walker as a key figure,we examine his holdings in more detail,then we find that of the 11 pubs owned byhim from our sample in 1881 all wereshops in format. Nine were on cornersites, reflecting a key property strategythat we observed above. Seven of the 11were simple shops, four with deep win-dows, three with medium. A patternemerges which is confirmed by turning tothe property records. Seven of the 11

pubs recorded against Walker can betraced in these records, all of which hadthe straight headed windows bar one. Allof these houses are recorded as beingheld on lease, with terms varying fromfive to 21 years. Something of thisprocess can be seen in the history of apub which is not recorded by O'Connor,the Shamrock Vaults at the corner ofLatimer Street and Ambrose Place.40

This was the property of William Williams,builder, and William Roberts, saddler.They leased the pub to Andrew BarclayWalker in November 1866 for a 21-yearperiod. In 1880 a further lease of themortgaged property for 17 years wasnegotiated between Williams, now awarehouse owner, and Walker. From the1881 register we know that the pub wasmanaged by the 29 year old George Kay(confirmed by his entry in the census forthat year). Nine years later Williams'widow sold the property to Peter Walker& Son. So there was a process of build-ing up a business on the basis of leasedproperty which was then converted tofreehold. The earlier property was mod-elled on a pattern which produced themost effective exterior for property which

Elaborate Simple

Deep 5 15 22Medium 9 14 23Small / hybrid 1 3 4

15 32 49

Table 3. Analysis of shop types by windows and decorative effects.


was not owned, with the great rebuildingoccurring once such properties wereturned into freehold.

It is here that we can trace the connec-tions with the 'business model' adoptedby Walker. Two of the pubs for which wecan trace entries in the property recordsare on Brownlow Hill and Camden Street- the latter being the property in Figure 6.We have managed house accounts for

five pubs in 1861, including both of thesepubs (accounts which have expanded toten by 1866). Six of these pubs can betraced in O'Connor's visual record (Table4). All of these are corner pubs, with onlyone, on London Road, having archedwindows. It has an elaborate decorativescheme, as does the pub on Fox Street,with elaborate pillars between its mediumdepth windows. All the rest conform tothe pattern that we have termed the

Location Earliest Plan Facade Holding O'Connorrecorded volume &date page

26 Brownlow 1848 Corner Straight Lease 1:60Hill and 21 deepHartford Street simple

73 Byrom Street 1855 Corner Straight Lease 4: 6and 81 Great mediumCrosshall Street simple

2-4 Fox St and 1855 Corner Straight - 4: 40163 Richmond mediumRow elaborate

31 Soho St and 1856 Corner Straight - 4: 43Gomer Street deep

simple

21 London Road 1859 Corner Straight Annual tenure 1: 50and Camden mediumStreet simple

125 London 1855 Corner Arched - 1: 51Road and 2Audley Street

Table 4. Andrew Barclay Walker early managed houses.


'simple shop'. We know that the pub onBrownlow Hill was where Walker first gothis experience of the retail trade, operat-ing it in partnership with his father fromthe late 1840s. In the next decade Walkerbegan to manage pubs for his uncles,both colliery managers near St Helens.From these beginnings he went on tobuild a substantial business based onmanaged houses. Not only was thisinnovation successful for his business,but it went on to provide a model for otheroperators in the city. They adopted notonly his style of operation but much of thebuilt form which he utilised, giving rise tothe distinctive pattern to which The Timesalluded.

We can place this innovation in a widercontext which helps to explain the linkeddevelopment of both the practice ofhouse management and the built formadopted. We first need to recognize twofactors about Liverpool. One is that as amajor port city, expanding rapidly duringthis period, it was, as Milne has it, a'world city'.41 That is, in many ways itturned its face out to the world rather thanadopting practices from its hinterland.The second was that it was a city in flux,with vast numbers of temporary residentsduring the nineteenth century from twosources. Liverpool was a major emigrantcity, a stopping off point for the masses ofpeople leaving firstly Ireland and thenparts of Europe for North America. Manyof the hopeful Irish emigrants in factnever left the city but sought casual workin the docks and shipyards. The secondsource of temporary custom for the pubs

of the city came from the large numbersof sailors who arrived on eachfavourable tide.42 As a tidal port,Liverpool was subject to considerablesurges of people, often recently paid,who wanted in part to spend their moneyin entertainment. This meant that manyof the pubs had a distinctive trade inspirits. Compared to a city such asManchester, Liverpool had many morepubs with full licences.43

In the 1830s changes in legislation led tothe introduction of the beer house.44

Payment to Excise authorities bought alicense to sell beer, as opposed to thosepublic houses which also sold wines andspirits, and were subject to much tighterregulation by magistrates. Liverpool inparticular saw an explosion of beerhouses, much to the disquiet of themagistrates. Their practice was toassess the fitness of the applicant, thestructure of the building and the needs ofthe neighbourhood when granting licens-es. However, under increasing pressureto grant more licences, because of thethriving and lucrative nature of the spirittrade, a faction of magistrates agitatedfor a policy of 'free licensing', in whichmarket demand would regulate thenumbers of pubs.45 This policy operatedfrom 1861 to 1866 and resulted in anincrease of nearly 400 fully licensedpremises, converted from beerhouses.At the same time more beerhousescontinued to be opened, a process nothalted until all premises for the con-sumption of alcohol were brought underthe control of magistrates by legislation


in 1869. This combination of marketconditions and regulatory change pro-duced a very competitive market inwhich a retailing orientation was sug-gested. That is, most pubs when ownedby brewers were run more as outlets forthe distribution of beer than with theattention to customer demand whichmight characterise retailing.46 A docu-ment put out by Peter Walker & Son tocelebrate 50 years in business present-ed an explicit and forthright explanationof their 'managerial system' in the con-text of retailing.

It is a product of the natural evolution of ourcommercial system, and has its preciseequivalent in other trades in that processwhich has reduced small traders to the posi-tion of managers of large establishments,and has subjugated the instinct and theopportunity for petty personal greed to theinterests of the publics at large, as securedby stores and other large undertakings gov-erned by system and principle.47

The managerial system enabled theadoption of competitive strategies acrossthe range of Walker's pubs in the same

Figure 7. Custom House Hotel, Liverpool. From O'Connor, 1995, 78. Reproduced by per-mission of the Bluecoat Press.


fashion. For example, Walker wasalleged to have been a widespread userin the early years of the frowned uponpractice of the 'long pull'.48 This waswhere extra measure would be given forthe same price, a practice which wouldgive Walker advantage over smalleroperators. He could also use staff fromhis pubs to meet peaks of demand by, forexample, moving them from city centre todock pubs.49

This business strategy, then, favouredthe acquisition and management of alarge number of outlets on a similar basis.In doing so there was value in producing

a common visual image relatively cheap-ly and Walker seems to have done this byborrowing techniques from retailing. Wemight note here that beerhouses werealso known as 'beershops' and thatO'Connor has several examples of verysimple shopfronts employed in suchestablishments. However, Walker addedsomething more to these, drawing in par-ticular on developments in plate glass tofeature very tall facades with extensivewindows which created an impressiveappearance. In this he and his designersmay have been drawing on the strikinglymodern use of cast iron and glass in thedesign of offices such as Oriel Chambers

Figure 8. Old Angel Nottingham - corner view. A house design with other design elements(Gothic windows on the left) grafted on (author).


and 16 Cook Street.50 The consistentvisual design of outlets thus mirrored theconsistency given by the application ofdirect management, with its focus on tightdiscipline enforced by a hierarchy ofhouse inspectors. The success of directmanagement became clearly visible inthe spreading empire of outlets whichWalker opened across the city. The focusin these outlets was quite clearly on theWalkers 'brand' in the manner of someearly 21st century chains of managedhouses.51

We need to place such developments inthe context of limited channels for the dis-cussion and dissemination of new ideas

about organizational practice. This is acomment that could be applied to muchof British industry during this period andone which was explicitly made in the con-text of brewing in 1894, when a very raretreatise on management practice wasnoted as being couched in 'an open andgenerous manner almost foreign toBritish traders'.52 The built form of a com-pany's outlets was therefore a very visibleand striking reflection of its managementpractices, particularly at a time whenregional and local economies were ofmore significance. In this fashion, otherbrewers came to adopt not only housemanagement but also the built form of thepub as shop. In one of the few older pho-

Figure 9. Old Angel Nottingham - side view (author).


tographs that O'Connor presents whichshows clearly the offering of brewersother than Walkers, a pub owned by thebrewers Blezards on Vauxhall Roaddemonstrates all the features - the shopon the corner design, with windowsstretching down from ceiling to waistheight, separated by simple pillars bear-ing painted decoration - that we haveobserved appear to have their origins inthe middle of the century.53 The precisenature of the process of disseminationand adoption may be difficult to uncover,but it seems plausible to suggest on thebasis of the evidence presented that theparticular form of the Liverpool pub andthe innovation of direct management aretightly intertwined.

Conclusion

This analysis has only looked at a smallfraction of the 2000 pubs in Liverpool inthe nineteenth century. If we scan theremaining volumes of O'Connor andCooke, however, the impression is thatthe picture presented for the city centreholds true for other areas. What appearsdistinctive about Liverpool is that designfeatures which can be found in city centrepubs (and which might be found, albeit insmaller numbers, in other major towns)are also reproduced in the inner suburbs.Even smaller pubs seem to share some-thing of the magnificence of the citycentre, something which we can link tothe management of the estate. That is,much of the appearance of Liverpool'spubs might be attributed to the nature of

its economy. Other factors include thenature of local regulation of the drinkstrade and architectural fashions. Nothinghas been said in this article of the com-plex of designers, shop fitters andbuilders which must have laid behind theproduction of these pubs, and this is anarea for further investigation. However,enough has been said to indicate theinter-relationship between the built formof the pub and the management strategyof the major pub owning company in thenineteenth century.

It would be valuable to set these findingsin a comparative setting of practice inother towns and cities. To do this theclassificatory scheme would requirerefinement and extension. Of particularvalue would be its application to themanaged pubs of Birmingham, whichseem to show a number of similarities.However, it is hoped that enough evi-dence has been presented to show theadvantage of a more systematic andstructured approach to the externaldesign of the pub and its connection tobusiness practice. Of course, we lack theevidence to know how these pubs wereperceived by either their customers or thegeneral public. If we want to make aninformed assessment of what these per-ceptions might have been, a focus onwhat was typical as well as what wasspectacular might help.

Given the intensely local flavour of thepub and the market for beer in the nine-teenth century a more systematicapproach to the surviving evidence might


point us to significant differences. Forexample, to end the article in entirelyspeculative fashion, one might suggestthat an examination of London mightreveal that it is hard to distinguish anypattern! That is, in a city where the multi-ple publican (that is, the publican whoowned several outlets) was of consider-able importance and the tie was generallyin the form of loans, rather than outrightownership of property, we might expectthe pub to reflect the interests of a variedset of owners. One's impression of thesurviving evidence is of exuberant dis-play as being the only common element.However, a comparative examination ofsmall details like the nature of the headsof pillars might provoke some intriguingquestions. In Liverpool, pillars separatingwindows tend to have rather plain flatheads. If they have elaboration at all, it isin taking the consoles (the large andincreasingly decorative brackets thattypified the ends of the signboards ofmany contemporary shops as in Figure 5)up onto the signboard and using these tofurther mark out each bay. By contrast,one's impression is that in London it ismore common to have elaborate capitals,often drawing from examples fromClassical architecture, so giving a muchricher decorative scheme.

Such speculations would need muchmore detailed evidence to convince. If,though, we compare a Liverpool and aNottingham pub we can see something ofthe way in which the built form reflectsthe dominant forms of managementwhich lie behind them. Figure 7 shows

the Custom House Hotel, Liverpool. Thishas all the features of the shop form thatwe have discussed as being typical ofLiverpool, albeit ones developed on animposing scale. Such a pub representsthe triumph of a managed estate, wherethe emphasis is on the common owner-ship by the company, represented by thename painted over the windows and thedistinctive lamp. By contrast, the picturesof the Old Angel in Nottingham (Figs. 8 &9) show a pub which is a hybrid of ahouse design with elements of Victoriandisplay grafted on. The 'Gothic' windowsof the later facade, however, respect theexisting ceiling line and are not carriedround into an overall design for thewhole facade. This represents a tenantedethos in a town whose magistrates werefiercely resistant to any notion of pubmanagement. These are quite clearlyspeculations, but the hope is that othersmight take up the endeavour to establishregional clusters of styles. Once this isachieved then a properly comparativeaccount would be feasible.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to the editor and three review-ers for their time and patience in helpingme to develop the ideas in this article - aclear demonstration of the value of thereview process.


References

1. Brandwood, G., Davison, A. andSlaughter, M. (2004) Licensed to Sell: TheHistory and Heritage of the Public House.English Heritage: London.

2. Gould, P. and White, R. (1974) MentalMaps. Penguin: New York.

3. Jennings, P. (2007) The Local: A Historyof the English Pub. Tempus: Stroud.

4. Mathias, P. (1959) The Brewing Industryin England 1700-1830. Cambridge UniversityPress: Cambridge.

5. Gourvish, T.R. and Wilson, R.G. (1994)The British Brewing Industry 1830-1980.Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

6. Mutch, A. (2006) 'Public houses as multi-ple retailing: Peter Walker & Son 1846-1914',Business History, 48(1), pp. 1-17.

7. Mutch, A. (2004) 'Shaping the publichouse 1850-1950: business strategies, stateregulation and social history', Cultural andSocial History, 1(2), pp. 179-200; Gourvishand Wilson, British Brewing.

8. Jennings, P. (1995) The Public House inBradford, 1770-1970. Keele University Press:Keele.

9. Whitworth, D. (2004) Nottingham Pubs.Tempus: Stroud.

10. Girouard, M. (1975) Victorian Pubs.Studio Vista: London.

11. See also Elwall, R. (1983) Bricks &Beer: English Pub Architecture 1830-1939.British Architectural Library: London;Tresidder, R.S. (1980) Nottingham Pubs.Nottingham Civic Society: Nottingham; Eley,P. and Riiley, R. (1991) The Demise ofDemon Drink?: Portsmouth Pubs, 1900-1950.Portsmouth City Council, Portsmouth.

12. Girouard, M. op. cit., p. 193.13. Hughes, Q. (1964) Seaport: Architecture

and Townscape in Liverpool. LundHumphries: London.

14. 'The Licensing Laws in Liverpool', TheTimes, 2 September 1875, p. 6.

15. O'Connor, F. (1995) A Pub on EveryCorner. Volume One: Liverpool City Centre;(1997) A Pub on Every Corner. Volume Two:South Liverpool; (1998) A Pub on EveryCorner. Volume Three: North Liverpool;(2001) A Pub on Every Corner. Volume Four:Scotland Road, Everton and Anfield, allBluecoat Press: Liverpool.

16. Cooke, T. (1999) The Pubs of ScottieRoad. Bluecoat Press: Liverpool.

17. Mutch, A. (2002) 'Managing managers:an early 20th century information system',Management Decision, 40(3), pp 288-296;Maxam, A. (2002) Time Please: A Look Backat Birmingham's Pubs. Crown Cards:Smethwick.

18. Mutch, A. (2003) 'Manchester andLiverpool public houses compared, 1840-1914', Manchester Region History Review,16, pp. 22-29.

19. Morris, R.J. (1981) 'Samuel Smiles andthe genesis of Self-Help; the retreat to a petitbourgeois utopia', Historical Journal, 24(1), p.103.

20. Graves, C.P. (1989) 'Social space in theEnglish medieval parish church', Economyand Society, 18(3), pp. 297-322.

21. Panofsky, E. (1957) Gothic Architectureand Scholasticism. Meridian: Cleveland.

22. Duffy, E. (1992) The Stripping of theAltars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580. Yale University Press: New Haven.

23. Todd, M. (2002) The Culture ofProtestantism in Early Modern Scotland. YaleUniversity Press: New Haven.

24. Kneale, J. (1999). '"A Problem ofSupervision": moral geographies of the nine-


teenth century British public house' , Journalof Historical Geography, 25 (3), pp.333-48.

25. Brunskill, R. (2000) VernacularArchitecture: An Illustrated handbook. (FourthEdition), Faber and Faber: London.

26. As discussed in the case of the Lion inBrandwood et al, op.cit., p. 74.

27. Morrison, K. (2003) English Shops andShopping. Yale University Press: New Haven.

28. Maxam, A. op. cit.29. Gorevan, J. (2002) Glasgow Pubs and

Publicans. Tempus: Stroud.30. Glasgow Corporation Archives, M-TC

6/570 Report of the Sub-committee of theMagistrates who Visited Liverpool in March1902 to Enquire as to the Administration ofthe Licensing Acts in that City. Approved of bythe Magistrates on 2nd April 1902, p. 5.

31. Liverpool Record Office (LRO),380PWK/3/1/42 Joseph Burroughs,Agreements for Management of SmithdownRoad, Mill Street, Hurst St andNorthumberland St. 2nd November 1892.

32. LRO, 380PWK /3/1/72 Case for theopinion of counsel - display of lamps etc, 1st

June 1888.33. LRO: 347JUS 1/1/38 licensing register

(full) 1881; 347JUS 1/3/7 licensing register(beer) 1881.

34. LRO: 380PWK/2/2/1 Peter Walker &Son "Leases/Large Safe"; 380PWK 3/4/6property records. It should be noted that own-ership of pubs could be vested in Andrew B.Walker or Peter Walker & Son as companiesor in some cases in Andrew Walker as anindividual. It is therefore very difficult to get acomprehensive view.

35. O'Mara, P. (1934) The Autobiography ofa Liverpool Irish Slummy. Martin Hopkinson:London

36. Wuthnow, R. (1987) Meaning and MoralOrder: Explorations in Cultural Analysis.University of California Press: Berkeley.

37. LRO: 347 JUS 1/7/1 Book of newspapercuttings relating to licensing matters.September 1875.

38. First, Second and Third Reports fromthe Select Committee of the House of Lords(1877) on the Prevalence of Habits ofIntemperance with Proceedings, Minutes ofEvidence, Appendices and Index. IrishUniversity Press: Shannon, (1968), p. 72.

39. LRO: 380PWK/1/8 Appendix A, Bundle6, in-letters, 28th November 1890.

40. LRO: 920BNH Merseyside Deeds fromBrabner Holden, Solicitors. 920BNH/29/12Counterpart lease of the Shamrock Vaultspublic house, William Williams and WilliamRoberts to Peter Walker and Andrew Walker(‘Peter Walker & Son’) 23rd Nov 1866;920BNH/29/16 Counterpart lease WilliamWilliams and mortgagees to Sir AndrewWalker 3rd Aug 1880; 920BNH/29/20Agreement for sale of public houses inLatimer St and Great Howard St 13th Sep1888. Margaret Williams, widow, HughWilliams, civil engineer and Thomas Williams,gentleman, all of Liverpool and AndrewBarclay Walker of Gateacre.

41. Milne, G.J. (2000) Trade and Traders inMid-Victorian Liverpool: Mercantile Businessand the Making of a World Port. LiverpoolUniversity Press: Liverpool.

42. Lane, T. (1987) Liverpool, Gateway ofEmpire. Lawrence & Wishart: London.

43. Mutch, A. (2003) op. cit.44. Jennings, P. (2007) op. cit.45. Mutch, A. (2003) 'Magistrates and public

house managers, 1840-1914: Another case ofLiverpool exceptionalism?', Northern History,

40 (2), pp. 325-342.46. Mutch, A. (2006) Strategic and

Organizational Change: From Production toRetailing in UK Brewing 1950-1990.Routledge: London.

47. Peter Walker & Son (1896) Walker'sWarrington Ales. Peter Walker & Son:Warrington, p. 56.

48. LRO: 942 WAK Wakefield MSS942WAK/40 Benefactors of Liverpool: SirAndrew B. Walker Bt; Printed material,H178.1 SPA, A Spark from the Anvil: TheLiquor Traffic and the Industrial Population;The Publicans' Case Fairly Stated. AreSunday Closing and Local Option Necessaryor Desirable in the Interest of the WorkingClasses? By a Working Man & and a Non-

Teetotaller, John Jones, Temple Press:Liverpool, 1882; 'The long pull', Brewers'Journal, 15th October 1875, p. 222.

49. 'Advance of the Managerial System',Brewers' Journal, 15th October 1921, p. 417.

50. Sharples, J. (2004) Liverpool. YaleUniversity Press: New Haven; Hughes, Q. op. cit.

51. Williams, A. (1998) 'The postmodernconsumer and hyperreal pubs', InternationalJournal of Hospitality Management, 17(3), pp.221-232; Brown, S. and Patterson, A. (2000)'Knick-knack Paddy whack, give a pub atheme', Journal of Marketing Management,16(6), pp. 647-662.

52. 'Brewery Management', Brewers'Journal, 15th May 1894, pp. 238-9.

53. O'Connor, F. Vol. 3, op. cit. p. 32.


Documents

Alistair Mutch - Brewery Historybreweryhistory.com/journal/archive/127/Liverpool.pdf · licensing registers and other archive material, but centrally on the visual record in the form