Munition Worker Fined for Drunkenness

Waller Street, Luton c.1905 [Z1306/75/10/60/3]

Monday 14th October 1918: Amy Lawson, aged 25, a munition worker lodging at 63 Church Street, Luton, has pleaded guilty to having been drunk and incapable in Waller Street last night. Police Sergeant Matsell said that he had found her helplessly drunk at 11.30 p.m. He lifted her up but found she could not stand, and with the help of Inspector Janes he got her to the police station. Miss Lawson is a single woman from Rochdale working at George Kent’s, who has been lodging in Luton for eight weeks. She expressed her sorrow for being in such a position and agreed to enter into a bond to abstain, however she was a “frequenter of public houses” she was fined ten shillings and no bond was imposed, the magistrate appearing to be concerned that it would simply lead to her getting into more trouble.

Source: Luton News, 17th October 1918

Drunk Man Chases German PoWs

Peacock Inn, Lake Street c.1910 [Z1432/3/1/8/5]

Thursday 28th February 1918: William Dickins, a 60 year old labourer from Chalk Hill, Houghton Regis, has been charged with being drunk and disorderly on the highway at Leighton Buzzard on Tuesday. Police Sergeant Dennis said that Dickins was throwing his arms about in Market Square and a crowd of children had collected around him. Dickins was advised to behave himself and leave, but he went round to the back of the Peacock Inn where he said he had a gun. He was told he would not be allowed to have the gun and was asked to leave the premises, but he eventually had to be arrested and locked up. Earlier in the evening he had been seen running after German prisoners in Bridge Street; his conduct towards them had been very bad. Dickins said he remembered nothing about it and was sorry for what he had done. He had three sons serving the country and had got rather excited as one had just gone back to the front. The Chairman of the Bench noted that it had been five years since Dickins had last appeared in Court and fined him five shillings.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 5th March 1918

The Question of Prohibition

Z760/11/13, unknown man drinking, c.1915 (Bedfordshire Archives & Records Service)

Sunday 4th February 1917: A meeting is held at the Salvation Army headquarters to consider the moral and economic arguments for prohibition during the war. The economic case focused on conserving the nation’s resources. The Rev W Haughton declared that drink was using up the nation’s food – since the war began, it had used up 3,000,000 tons of food and was using more sugar than the Army had access to. Millions of acres of land were being devoted to growing grain and barley for drink production, whilst the nation was being urged to use all vacant land to grow vegetables. Valuable grain was being destroyed for the production of drink. Much was also being preached on thriftiness so that spare cash could be donated to the war effort, yet an average of £3,500,000 per week was being spent in public houses. If only more people could follow in the footsteps of the King, Lloyd George and Kitchener, who had banned drink from their tables for the duration of the war.

Others highlighted the moral and spiritual arguments, including soldiers being affected by drink when off duty and men being prevented from rehabilitation into society by the effects of drink. A resolution was carried asking the government to prohibit the sale of alcohol during the rest of the war, until 6 months following the declaration of peace.

Source: Bedford Record 6/2/1917

Inquiry into Licensing Hours

Red Lion Hotel, High Street, Bedford 1914 [Z1306/10/33/70]

Thursday 29th June 1916: The Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic) has held an inquiry at Northampton Town Hall into a proposal that the counties of Bedford and Northampton should be scheduled as an area by Order in Council. The inquiry lasted eight hours and deputations from the local authorities and representing the licensed victuallers and brewers were heard. In Bedford market last Saturday a petition was signed by 400 farmers and tradesmen requesting the Central Board not to restrict the hours during which intoxicating liquors can be sold. They consider that any restriction will cause great inconvenience and seriously affect the agricultural industry in Bedfordshire. Statistics show that drunkenness in the boroughs and the county has much decreased since the beginning of the war.

If the Order is made it is expected that the hours for indoor consumption on licensed premises or clubs will be limited to between noon and 2.30 p.m. and 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays, with the existing hours returned for Sundays but with an evening closing time of 9 p.m. Hours for consumption off the premises would be similar except that sales would stop at 8 p.m. Off sales of spirits would only be allowed during the mid-day period, and then only from Monday to Friday. There would also be a “no-treating” regulation forbidding the supply or consumption of liquor ordered or paid for by a third person. No person would be allowed to treat another, except to a meal, and men would not be permitted to treat their wives with liquor on licensed premises.

Source: Bedfordshire Times, 30th June 1916

Execution of William Reeve

Bedford Gaol [CR/PH]

Tuesday 16th November 1915: William Benjamin Reeve of Leighton Buzzard, who was found guilty last month of murdering his wife, was executed at Bedford Gaol at 8 o’clock this morning. The time between sentencing and execution was slightly longer than is usual as a fruitless appeal was made on the grounds that the Judge had misdirected the jury. During this time Reeve was an exemplary prisoner, facing the prospect of his terrible end manfully. He suffered greatly from the wound made when he cut his own throat with a razor, which caused him both pain and physical weakness, but made no complaint. He was visited daily by the Prison Chaplain, allowed to write letters, to converse with the warders, and to receive visitors. These included his parents, two married sisters, his brother George (the bandmaster of the Salvation Army in Leighton Buzzard) and three of his children - William, Florrie, and his eldest son, Corporal Charles Reeve of the Bedfordshire Regiment.[1] Corporal Reeve was suffering from a wound received at Gallipoli and was allowed out of Hospital for the visit, a sorrowful occasion which ended in tears.

Reeve told his sister that he was ready to die and was looking forward to it, and said to his brother that he had been through so much trouble during the last ten years that he would be glad when it was all over. He claimed to remember nothing of the crime but expressed great contrition, especially for the sorrow he had brought upon his parents and children. One of the warders was a local preacher who spoke to him of spiritual matters, following which he was able to say “I understand much now, and I am prepared to meet my Maker. Do not have any fear; I am prepared to go.” He recognised the evil effects of strong drink and wished to warn others against it: “If there is one thing I would like to do before I go it is to go back to Leighton and tell the people in North End to leave the drink alone”. His last letter to his parents, to whom he had given custody of his two youngest children, reads:

My dear Mother and Father,These are the last lines of your broken-hearted son. Don’t worry about me, for I am quite prepared to die, and I am certain I shall be happier where I am going, - far happier than I have been for years. I have put my trust in God. Dear father and mother, I am truly sorry for the trouble and disgrave I have brought you to. You know I was driven to do what I did, but that is done with now and I am prepared to meet my Maker. I hope and trust my children will be a help and a blessing to you. Give my love to all my sisters and brothers, one and all, also Mrs. Peasegood and Miss Peasegood, Charlie butcher and John Dimmock. I have made it all right for my children. Tell my sister to cheer up. I should like to have seen her. Be kind to little Stanley.[2]   Good-bye and God bless you all,      Your loving son, Will

The Chaplain led the way from the condemned cell to the scaffold reading the opening services of the Burial Service, as is the custom. Reeve followed, walking without assistance between two warders. Ellis was the executioner, and death was instantaneous.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 23rd November 1915

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[1] Charles survived the war, but his younger brother William Benjamin Reeve (who had been given money to go to the cinema on the day of his mother's murder) died in 1918 aged 18. 

[2] Reeve's youngest son Stanley was just four years old when his mother was murdered and his father executed. 

"I Will Not Take Drink Again"

The Globe Inn, corner of Union St and Langley Rd (now Latimer Rd)
Luton c.1914 [Z50/75/246]

Saturday 23rd October 1915: George Thomas Anderson, a soldier of the 2nd Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment has been charged at Luton Borough Court with attempting to kill himself by stabbing himself with a knife. His mother-in-law, Sarah Holland of 20, Langley Road, said that yesterday evening Anderson had supper at about 9.30 p.m. She went into the back room. When she returned to the kitchen she saw Anderson lying on the floor. She bathed the wound and sent for the doctor. When Dr. Lewis arrived at Langley Road he found Anderson in bed. He told the doctor “I don’t know why I did it. God must have guided my hand. I wish I had done myself in”. Doctor Lewis informed the police and gave them a knife smeared with blood. He was taken to the police station ambulance. The wound was in his chest, and it appears his life was saved by the knife catching on a rib.

Anderson had been serving at the Front where he had been wounded. He was recently released from hospital and came to Luton for a few days’ leave, prior to re-joining his regiment next Monday. He is believed to have been drinking heavily and it is believed drink was the cause of his actions. He told the Bench “If you look over this I promise you faithfully not to take drink again. I have been hit with shrapnel in the ear, and I had three pints yesterday. If you let me off this time I promise I will not touch a drop of beer as long as I live. It has learnt me a lesson. I don’t know what I was doing. I seemed to have lost all feeling.”  His wife said she had never had trouble of this sort before and believed her husband when he promised not to touch drink again. He was advised to see the Court Missionary and sign the pledge, was bound over in the sum of £5 and allowed to go.

Source: Luton News, 21st October 1915

Harriet Reeve Murder Trial Verdict

Harriet Reeve

Tuesday 19th October 1915: For the second day running a Bedfordshire man has been on trial at the Assizes for the murder of his wife. Yesterday Henry Charles Martin was convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter and sentenced to twelve months in gaol. Today, after a six hour trial, William Benjamin Reeve of Leighton Buzzard has been convicted of the wilful murder of his wife and has been sentenced to death. The evidence was almost identical to that given at the Police Court hearing and the inquest into Harriet Reeve's death, with the addition of Reeve’s own account of events.

Reeve was a man not in very regular employment who was in the habit of drinking rather too much. On the 5th July he had visited several public houses with a man named Thomas Major. When he returned home the worse for drink his wife was anxious to get rid of the children who were in the house and gave them money to go to the Picture Palace. Evidence was given by Private Jack Toms of the Bedfordshire Regiment, the husband of Reeve’s niece Annie. When asked whether Reeve suffered from ill-health which prevented him working Toms replied “No, I think it was laziness”. Mrs. Reeve, however, was an “industrious and sober” woman who had worked as a carpet sewer for Messrs. Aveline and Phillips. When Reeve came to Toms’ house on July 5th he heard him say “I’m going to do my old girl in tonight”, giving as his reason that she never gave him any money. When begged not to carry out this threat Reeve said his loved “his old girl”. Toms had not attached much importance to the conversation, assuming it to be the silly remarks of a drunken man.

Reeve told the court that he was a drover and labourer, who had been married for over twenty years and had lived on good terms with his wife. He was not aware that he had ever threatened his wife’s life. He admitted that on the 5th July he had had a good deal to drink. Asked about his gun he said that he had not used it for months, but it had been left loaded. The gun was peculiar in that when both barrels were loaded if the right hand barrel was fired the left hand one was also likely to go off. He could not remember any of the events of the evening his wife was killed, but he was certain he had no intention of injuring her – she was “the best friend I had got”. He did not remember how the gun and razor came to be found just outside the door, and did not have any memory of cutting his own throat with the razor. He had no recollection of telling Jack Toms he intended to “do his old girl in”; he rarely quarrelled with his wife, and had no grievance against her for not giving him money. He also had no memory of opening the drawer which contained the shot and taking out the shot flasks. He believed the gun must have gone off by accident.

In the closing speeches the prosecution said it was extremely improbably the gun could have gone off accidentally and caused Harriet Reeve such injuries. However drunk he was Reeve had clearly checked before he went home that his wife was there, and he was clearly conscious enough to take the gun from its usual place. Why else would he have cut his own throat if he was not aware he had committed a crime? He had run out of money for more drink and had grown in resentment and hostility to his wife for refusing to give him more as the day went on. The defence pointed out that there were certain discrepancies in the evidence of Jack Toms which suggested it was unreliable. Flemming, the friend of Reeve’s son, claimed to have heard Reeve threaten his wife yet young Reeve who actually lived in the house said he had never heard his father threaten his mother. There was nothing to suggest that Mrs. Reeve felt herself threatened as she had stayed seated in her chair.

The judge said that there was no evidence that Reeve was insane and drunkenness was no excuse for crime. If the jury believed Reeve’s story that the death was an accident they should find him not guilty; if they believed he did not know what he was doing, he should be found guilty but insane; the only other possible verdict was guilty of wilful murder. The jury took only twelve minutes to consider their decision before passing a unanimous verdict that he was indeed guilty of wilful murder. After spending much of the trial slumped low in his seat with his head in his hands Reeve stood unmoved while the verdict was read out. He did not reply when asked if he had anything to say as to why judgment should not be passed on him, and lowered his head while the sentence was pronounced. He swayed when the judge spoke the closing words “And may the Lord have mercy on your soul” and stood as though in a daze until the gaolers escorted him to the cells. As he left he exchanged a brief, inaudible remark with his mother who was seated in the public gallery.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 26th October 1915

Luton Artilleryman Kills His Wife

Amy Martin

Tuesday 5th October 1915: An inquest opened this afternoon in Luton into the death of Mrs Amy Martin, age 32, of Queen Square. The coroner and jury heard that at 6.30 yesterday morning Mrs Martin’s husband, Henry Charles Martin approached Police Constable Hencher in Park Square and told him “I have got to come with you. I have done my wife in.” When told that this was a very serious statement to make he replied “It’s true. I stabbed her with a knife. I believe she is dead. She drove me to it.” Martin was taken to the police station and P.C. Hencher and Inspector Janes went to Church Square. There they found Mrs. Martin in a neighbour’s house. Her throat was cut and she was lying in a pool of blood. An attempt had been made to stop the bleeding by wrapping a towel around her neck. A doctor arrived and stitched the wound. She was taken to Bute Hospital, but at 9.20 a.m. she died.

The neighbour, Mrs. Fookes, stated that as her husband did not start work until 8 a.m. on Monday they were still in bed when he was woken by a scream, “Oh, Charlie!” Realising something was wrong next door he put on some clothes and ran to the back bedroom window where he saw Mrs. Martin ban on the door and fall to the ground. He and his wife rushed downstairs and found the Martins’ son Charlie trying to staunch the blood from his mother’s throat with a small pocket handkerchief. They took her in carefully, Mr. Fookes tried to stop the bleeding and his wife ran for the doctor. The boy Charlie said he was in bed when he heard his mother scream. As he ran towards the front bedroom in which his parents slept he saw his mother rush downstairs. He followed and found her lying on the ground at Mr. Fookes’ back door.

Gunner Henry Martin is stationed in Stratford with the Royal Garrison Artillery but had been home frequently, on some occasions without leave. Mrs. Martin’s Father, Edwin Plummer of 10, Blythe Place, said his daughter was a hard working girl who had lived in Luton all her life until Martin went to work at the London Scottish Foundry Ltd. in Barking, Essex about two years ago. She had worked for Messrs. Webb and Baker, the hat manufacturers, and Martin had worked at Messrs. Brown and Green’s Foundry and then the Diamond Foundry. He believed his daughter’s marriage was not a happy one. When they lived in Barking she had come home to her father for five weeks because of the abuse. Her husband drank heavily and had lost his situations at Brown and Green’s and in Barking, where his master told him he was a drunken beast. When asked if he had known Martin to strike his daughter he replied: “It has been worse than striking – the language and drink, and they have struck each other”.

The Martins have three children, aged twelve, eleven, and seven. Mr. Plummer’s loss was his third in two years; he was still in mourning having lost both his wife and son within that time. The inquest was adjourned until Friday afternoon.

Source: Luton News, 7th October 1915

The Demon Drink

Saturday 21st August 1915: The effects of the demon drink have been in evidence at the Luton Borough Sessions this morning. George Darker from Birmingham was charged with stealing a motorcycle worth £20 on June 16th from the Midland Railway Station at Luton. The theft was reported on June 22nd by army officer Lieutenant Neale. Darker was arrested on Friday at Bedwell near Coventry and the motorcycle was recovered from Handsworth, near Birmingham. Darker appeared distressed, claiming “it was only through drink” that he did it, and saying he would like to get back into the Army where he had been a farrier’s sergeant. He was remanded in custody until tomorrow as a witness was needed from Birmingham.

In a second case James Dolling was charged with being found drunk on August 17th. P.C. Framton had found him lying at the foot of a passage in Ivy Road, where he lived at number 67, helplessly drunk. The policeman helped him up and took him to the rear of his house. He was fined ten shillings after expressing his regret at his behaviour. He told the Court “I was a teetotaller for seven years, and got a little too much beer during the holidays, and it got the better of me.”

Source: Luton Times 27 August 1915

Drunk and Disorderly at Toddington

High Street, Toddington c.1900 [Z1130/126/47b]

Monday 16th August 1915: Harry Brown, a dealer from Toddington, and his wife Mary have have been fined £1 each for being drunk and disorderly at Toddington. Police Sergeant Dennis gave evidence that he was called to Gas Street in Toddington where the Browns were both drunk and using disgusting language. Harry Brown was naked apart from his trousers and boots. He got them indoors, but they then appeared at a bedroom window from where they were swearing for about twenty minutes. P.S. Dennis was called back to the street and found Brown and his wife fighting, with a large crowd around them. They refused to go away so he had taken them to Woburn Police Station with the help of Special Constable Joseph Neal, a butcher of Toddington. Neal told the court that the couple continued to use filthy language all the way to  Woburn.

Inspector Vincent said that while at the Police Station they denied they were drunk and asked to see a doctor; the doctor certified that they were indeed drunk. Mr. Brown said he was upset because he had been called a German and he was as British as any of the magistrates. He was a traveller and had never been in trouble before. He had lived in Toddington for 12 months, had always paid his way, and tried to live respectably. He asked the magistrates how they would like to be called Germans if they weren’t, and dirty Germans at that. The couple’s fines were taken from £3 which had been deposited as bail. Mr. Brown said he did not want the balance and the police could put it in the Poor Box; Mrs. Brown, however, withdrew the balance.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 17th August 1915; Bedfordshire Standard, 20th August 1915

Neglected Children

White Lion, North Street, Leighton Buzzard c.1910 [Z50/72/159]

Wednesday 21st April 1915: A Leighton Buzzard mother has appeared in court on a charge of neglecting her two children. Mrs. Sarah Allen, a neighbour of Margaret Healey of 92, Church Street, said she had known Mrs. Healey to leave her children alone in the house for hours at a time while her husband was away. On April 7th she had heard the children crying before dinner time, and they had continued to cry until 8.30pm. During the day the children went outside in the rain and complained that they were hungry.

When Police Sergeant Tingey went to the house the place was filthy with several beer bottles standing about. He called again in the evening and as he could not get an answer he pushed the bedroom window open with a prop. Margaret Healey came downstairs drunk. Her husband, James Healey, is a private in the Bedfordshire Regiment who is home from the front wounded. He said that his wife was a good wife and mother and would be all right if she left the drink alone. Mrs. Healey promised to sign the pledge.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer and Linslade Gazette, 27th April 1915

An Ill-Tempered Recruit

Image: Park Road (now Park Street) Luton, with the Bull Inn on the left hand side, 1909 [Z1306/75/10/50/2]

Tuesday 13th October 1014, Luton: A case was heard at the Borough Police Court yesterday in which a Luton man, Peter Johnson of Chobham Street, was charged with assaulting Sergeant Leonard Sowerby of the 5^th South Staffordshire Battalion. Johnson had joined up a few weeks ago but on Sunday night he was stopped by Sergeant Sowerby outside the Bull Inn in Park Street where he was using filthy language and causing a disturbance. Sowerby told Johnson to go to his billet but Johnson's response was to strike him; his excuse was that “he came pushing me about, and I lost my temper”. When the Sergeant asked for Johnson’s name and address, Johnson hit him in the face. Detective Sub-Inspector Attwood said Johnson was well known to him as a loafer, always standing around outside public houses. Since Johnson enlisted he had rarely been sober and had already been arrested twice. The suspicion was that he had enlisted simply to get the money and now wanted to get out of it. Johnson denied this and claimed to be very sorry for his behaviour. One of the magistrates, Alderman Williams, told him It is very disgraceful after you have joined and professed you would be of service to the country to make an exhibition of yourself, and to be a nuisance to others in this way. You will have a fortnight’s hard labour”.

Source: Luton News 15/10/1914

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Note: This case is presumably one of the incidents that led to the following letter to the editor of the Luton News:

Sir. – On three successive nights last week I saw drunken Territorials reeling and brawling about the streets of the town. Such a sight was extremely painful. Now should not these men be made to know that such conduct is disgraceful? They do harm to the whole division and are discredited as men and soldiers. Then as a community we have a right to ask them to show more courage when faced with the temptation to drink. And further, to ask them to remember that drunkenness upon the public streets is a crime ...”

 The British Army WWI Pension Record shows that Peter Johnson of 21 Chobham Street enlisted on 21 September 1914 and was discharged 12 October 1914 after 22 days service.

The Bayonet Tragedy

The funeral of Private Arthur Charker [Z1306/12/7/1]

Monday 12th October 1914, Bedford: Private Arthur Charker, the Highlander bayoneted by a colleague on Friday, died of peritonitis from a punctured intestine this morning. Private John Fraser was arrested on Friday on a charge of malicious wounding, but at the Borough Magistrates' Court this morning the capital charge was brought. An inquest was held at the County Hospital this afternoon into his death at which witnesses described the events of Friday evening. Private Charker was billeted at a house in Albert Terrace where he was in a room with five others, including Private Fraser. Charker received his pay at 5pm. When the roll was called at 9.40pm he was in his room with the other five. There was an argument and Private MacVinish wanted to fight the others. Sergeant Kenneth Mackenzie who was the responsible officer that night was billeted in the same house. He said that three of the men were drunk and three sober, and that he did not think they had any drink in the room although he had seen bottles of beer in the house before even though they were not allowed. Eventually MacVinish quietened down and Mackenzie left. He returned at about 9.40pm when he heard a disturbance. Fraser was fighting with a man named Macdonald, and with help from another sergeant he separated the pair. Fraser then sat down on his bed against the wall. Sergeant Poulson told Mackenzie that Fraser had a bayonet. When asked Fraser refused to hand it over, and Mackenzie thought – but could not swear to it – that he said “And I’ll stick it into the first man that comes near me”. As he left the room to fetch some men to place Fraser under arrest he heard a scuffle, turned and saw Charker, Fraser and Macdonald fighting on the floor. Mackenzie went to fetch as many men as possible to separate them. When they were separated it became apparent that Charker had been stabbed and Mackenzie sent for the doctor. He thought Macdonald was sober but had been goading Fraser to fight.

The other sergeant, Poulson, said that Charker had been drinking heavily and the others were also under the influence. He helped Sergeant Mackenzie to calm the initial quarrel and was standing at the door when he noticed that Charker was bleeding from a cut over the eye He sent Macdonald for a towel and managed to stop the bleeding. While he was doing this Macdonald and Fraser started to fight again. They separated the pair. Fraser sat on his bed, stretched out his hand and took the bayonet in its scabbard from near the fireplace. As Fraser looked as if he meant to use it he told Sergeant Mackenzie and left the room to get an escort. He heard a “fearful scuffle” and rushed back to the room to find the three men fighting. He saw the bayonet in Fraser’s right hand and Macdonald also had hold of it. It seemed that Charker and Macdonald were trying to get the bayonet from him. Six or seven more men rushed in, there was confusion and someone said that Charker had been stabbed.

According to Private Macdonald he and three other men were sober, Fraser had had a drink or two and Charker was a little drunk. Fraser and Charker quarrelled, he did not know what about, and they came to blows. He was helping Sergeant Poulson with Charker’s eye when he realised Fraser was holding an entrenching tool above his head. Fraser struck him on the arm, they struggled and Macdonald managed to get the tool from him. When the sergeants left the room he saw Fraser had a drawn bayonet in his hand and heard him say he would put it into the first man who went near him. Charker tried to get the bayonet from him, but Fraser swung it into his stomach.

Fraser himself said that MacVinish was the first to cause a disturbance. While Sergeant Poulson was treating his eye with a towel Charker told one of the other men to go to bed. Fraser said to him “you have enough to do to look after yourself”. Macdonald then hit him (Fraser) in the face with the towel and he hit Macdonald with a trenching tool. After they fought he had gone to his bed. Macdonald challenged him again and he said that if they would leave him alone he would interfere with nobody. Charker then hit him in the eye and he got up holding the bayonet. Charker fell over him and the bayonet went into him. He was friendly with Charker and had no intention of stabbing him - they used to “knock about the streets together” back in Inverness. Fraser had tears in his eyes as he said he was sorry this had happened to his “chum”.

Charker had made a statement while he was dying in the hospital, but as it was taken under the impression that it was his dying declaration and there was no evidence that Charker was aware that his condition was fatal it could not be accepted. Acting on the Coroner’s recommendation the jury gave a verdict of manslaughter. Private Fraser will be tried for this offence, but will not face a murder charge.   

Source: Beds Times 16/10/1914

The Early Closing Order

Thursday 8th October 1914: The level of complaint about the restrictions on opening hours introduced in Luton has been such that a new order has been issued allowing licensed premises to open at any time from 6 a.m. and to sell alcoholic drinks until 9.30 p.m. After 9.30 p.m. they are allowed to remain open, but not to sell intoxicating liquor. Proving that you can never please everyone, the Luton News has published this letter to the editor:

Letter to the Editor of the Luton News Sir, - “The eating of the leek” policy adopted by the Luton Licesnsing Justices is extremely painful to all those who are desirous of a sober and decorous period, during the national crisis through which the nation is pasing, and the extra hour-and-half allowed for the consumption of minerals certainly savours of extreme ludicrousness. Where is there one patron of public-houses that would be content with swallowing cold ginger beer and lemonade these chilly October nights? It’s altogether highly farcical. I would like to ask the average working man if he cannot spend all the spare cash he has at his command for beer by 9 p.m. every night, especially in these hard and trying times. In fact, Sir, as times are, many, many shillings of our husbands spent in beer before 9 p.m. ought to go on the children’s feet or help to fill the empty cupboard, and if anyone takes the trouble upon different nights to notice when the soldiers turn out of the public houses, they will soon come to the conclusion, that in many instances, even for their welfare, the hour of 9 p.m. was amply late enough, and as regards the trade, there are many towns that have not nearly the military billeted upon them as Luton has, that have been closed at 9 p.m. weeks ago. – I remain, yours truly, A WORKING MAN’S WIFE.

 Source: Luton News 8/10/1914

When is a German not a German? When he is a Scot

Novelty postcard with pull-out section containing 12 local views, 1915 [Z1130/36/1]

8th September 1914, Dunstable: An odd case was heard at the Dunstable Borough Sessions today. A labourer from Dunstable, Rowland Mowse, had been arrested for using indecent language in the High Street. It appears he had accused another man of being a German spy, swore at him, attempted to trip him, and then used filthy language in the presence of the policeman to whom he denounced the so-called “spy” - who it turned out was actually a Scotsman. The Mayor was furious to hear that the defendant was drunk at the time given that Mowse had recently written to him complaining that his wife and children were in want of food. As the Mayor pointed out, if this was the case Mowse should not have been spending money on drink. They will now be in even worse case, as Mowse was fined £1 with 13 shillings costs, or must serve twenty one days in gaol.

Source: Luton News 10/9/1914