East Smithfield, a trader has
a large empty room where,
as his wretched guests get
intoxicated, they are laid
together in heaps, men women
and children, until they recover
their senses, when they
proceed to drink on, or having
spent all they had, go out to
find the means to return to the
same dreadful pursuit”.
Possibly the most horrendous crime
in the name of gin was perpetrated by
Judith Dufour and her female accomplice
known as Sukey. During Miss Dufour’s
trial at London’s Old Bailey on 27th
February, 1734 – the following confession
was recorded:
to rise and reached an all-time high
in 1743 when it was recorded that 2.2
gallons (8 litres) were being consumed
per person per year. Men, women and
children alike!
Not until another fifteen years had gone
by, and the Gin Act of 1751 had been
passed, did consumption slowly begin to
decline. This Act imposed limitations on
the production and retail of gin including
increased excise taxes as well as the
necessary manpower to enforce the new
regulations. Despite firm governance
finally coming into effect it was estimated
that 9000 children in London alone died
of alcohol poisoning the same year the
Act was passed.
It was also in 1751 that renowned
artist and veracious social critic William
Hogarth, captured the darkest moments
of London’s gin ruin in his famous etching
entitled Gin Lane. The scene captured by
Hogarth represents the slum of London’s
St Giles district, a neighbourhood
reasonably described by the artist as
where “nothing but idleness, poverty,
misery and ruin are to be seen”. In the
background is the spire of St George’s
church in Bloomsbury; normally a symbol
of London’s elegance yet seen here in
stark contrast to the events below which
depict brawling drunkards, crumbling
buildings, housewives pawning goods for
gin, babies being fed on gin, scenes of
murder, suicide and various other images
of inhumanity with the most prosperous
house in the scene belonging to the
undertaker. In the bottom left hand corner
of the image is a local gin palace called
Gin Royal with a sign above the door
which famously states:
“Drunk for a penny, dead drunk
for two pence, clean straw for
nothing”.
Close friend and card partner of Hogarth’s
was popular London novelist and Court
Justice Henry Fielding. Fielding described
life in such slums as “excessive misery […]
oppressed with want, and sunk in every
species of debauchery”.
In stark comparison to the miseries
Hogarth portrayed in Gin Lane; his other
purposefully contrasting etching Beer Street
shows a more amiable and cheerful group
of people who imbibe beer compared
to those who partake of calamitous gin.
As explained by Hogarth himself “[Beer
Street] was given as a contrast, w[h]ere
“On Sunday Night we took the
Child into the Fields, and [sic]
stripp’d it, and ty’d a Linen
Handkerchief hard about its
Neck to keep it from crying,
and then laid it in a Ditch. And
after that, we went together,
and sold the Coat and Stay for
a Shilling, and the Petticoat
and Stockings for a Groat. We
parted the Money, and join’d for
a Quartern of Gin”.
The most sobering part of this story lies in
the fact that the victim was Miss Dufour’s
own two year old daughter Mary; a child
murdered for 60mls of gin.
When parliament finally passed the
first Gin Act in 1736, the nation – long
addicted – rioted from Bristol to London,
Norwich to Warrington and Liverpool to
Plymouth with mock funeral processions
held to protest ‘The Death of Madam
Genever’. Despite this early legislative
attempt at control, gin madness continued
51