The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.1 | June 2021

Local Group Programmes

Forthcoming Meetings

Strangers and Aliens

17th June

Cheryl Butler

Contact: Jane Painter and Chris Pavey Email: fareham@hgs-online.org.uk

Afternoon Group

Meetings on 3rd Wednesday of month Reports by Chris Pavey (March) Tracing your Brewery and Publican Ancestors Simon Fowler

Meeting for first time in 2021, via Zoom, there was good attendance at the Afternoon Group to hear Simon Fowler speak on researching breweries, pubs and publicans, as these frequently feature in many of our family histories. Simon described the sources for research, a key one being the licensing sessions by the licensing magistrates. The various types of licenses were discussed, as is the difficulty of tracing them due to there being no national system of listing them. Simon advised also using the census, wills, newspaper adverts, trade magazines etc as well Record Offices. Details of brewers can also be found at the Brewery History Society: www.breweryhistory.com The origin of pubs was covered. There were several types of establishments: Beer and cider house, then taverns, inns and coaching inns – all with their different rules on behaviours (no loud laughing) opening hours and what could and couldn’t be served. Other uses of the pubs was also mentioned: a centre for business, celebrations and of course the Coroner’s Court showed us that ‘pubs’ are and have been a social centre for the community for hundreds of years. Useful websites for those interested in further research is: pubhistoryproject.co.uk or pubhistorysociety.co.uk and for those with a Portsmouth based interest then our HGS editor’s website: pomeroyofportsmouth.co.uk also has information on Portsmouth pubs. (April) Members’ Afternoon, follow up from the March talk Following on from our talk from Simon Fowler last month on pubs and publicans a members’ afternoon for the group was devoted to our own family history stories of the pubs and publicans in our families. The members had many interesting anecdotes about pubs and landlords. A mention of unusual pub names revealed they might be ‘corrupted’ over time, The ‘Goat and Compass’ a corruption of ‘God Encompasses All’ for example. It was noted that some pubs were used for auctions, some caught fire and were rebuilt. There were a great variety of reasons people became publicans; people retired from farming to run a pub, many were ex military men, one landlord was known to have fought at Trafalgar.

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