Providentialism, The Pledge and Victorian Hangovers: Investigating Moderate Alcohol Policy in Britain, 1914-1918 more

This discussion piece is based on research undertaken as part of the author‟s ongoing PhD project. Drawing on history, sociology, criminology and law, the broader empirical enquiry investigates attitudes to alcohol and their relationship with the development of laws relating to alcohol (primarily in England and Wales) from the nineteenth century onwards. It builds on the insights of moral regulation theory, as espoused by Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer2 as well as Alan Hunt3, in order to position the law within a wider project through which individual behaviour is governed. Consequently, a diverse range of sources, including newspaper reportage, cartoons, health promotion literature and advertising, are drawn upon to help understand the various ways, legally and morally, through which people were, and are, compelled to behave in particular ways. This piece focuses on the period 1914-1918 and, in accordance with these theoretical formulations, raises issues relating to both legal and extra-legal efforts to govern alcohol consumption in Britain during World War One. In particular, it draws attention to the widespread promotion of the teetotal pledge during this period as a means to help Britain‟s war effort.