Occasional Licenses

Gladstone’s “Sunday Closing (Wales) Act” of 1881 banned the opening of pubs in Wales on the Sabbath.  It stayed in force throughout Wales till 1961.  Then various districts seceded between 1961 and 2003, when the Act was repealed. 

However, there were ways of evading the Act, as this excerpt from a Royal Commission to enquire into its Operation (1889) reveals…

Judge:                  With regard to Sunday drunkenness…?

Witness:              I shall be able to explain shortly how what I am to refer to affects Sunday drinking, if your Lordship will allow me.  It is the granting of occasional licenses at fairs and public gatherings.

J:             Are these occasional licenses given on Sunday?

W:          No, the drinking goes on on a Sunday…. A large number of these occasional licenses are granted by magistrates for fairs in the district for which I act as clerk…. Three miles from Lampeter there is a place where a fair is held annually in December.  It contains 20 houses.  And not less than 16 occasional licenses were granted for that fair last year.

J:             …20 Houses.  I suppose you mean 20 public-houses?

W:          On no, My Lord, 20 ordinary houses.

J:             There are 16 Occasional Licenses out of 20 people?

W:          There were 16 Occasional Licenses for cottages inside and outside the village on the fair day.

J:             People who would not otherwise have licenses at all, get occasional licenses?

W:          No, the licenses are granted to innkeepers.  They can only be granted to licensed persons, but the cottagers represent them.  The licensed persons get the license, but they are not there at all.  Illicit sales continue for a week or a fortnight after the fair day, especially on Sunday; to the farm servants, boys & girls, Sunday of course being a convenient day.  There are no convictions as the police cannot get evidence, although it is well known that these things go on after the fair day.

J:             Have you ever brought this before the notice of the magistrates?

W:          Yes, I addressed a letter…and it was brought before the quarter sessions.  There was a resolution passed in favour of restricting these licenses, but the law allowing an individual magistrate to grant an occasional license without consulting the other magistrates made the resolution inoperative.

J:             Then…on the occasion when these occasional licenses are granted, beer and perhaps spirits – do you include spirits too?

W:          Certainly, my Lord.

J:             –  are left over, and it takes some days for them to be sold?

W:          It is impossible to consume all the quantity that is brought into these cottages, because people who attend fairs on business have no time to go into the cottages and drink.  That is done by the farm servants, boys and girls.