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The Ashtead branch of the C of E Temperance Society was founded in 1883 and
by 1886 had 107 members with sixty four ‘abstainers’ and forty three ‘total
abstainers’. Total abstainers pledged to abstain from all alcohol whilst
non-abstainers pledged only to drink alcohol with regular meals and to
‘endeavour in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both by example and effort’
to promote the Society’s aims. The junior branch, The Band of Hope, with
about 100 members in 1886, was so called because ‘the hope of the movement
is with the young’. The three leading principles of the movement were ‘that
prevention is better than cure; that restriction rather than prohibition of
the liquor traffic should be aimed at; and that persuasion was better than
coercion’.
The parish magazine periodically carried a recipe for ‘stokos’, a
‘temperance drink’, as an alternative to alcohol, the recipe for which was
as follows: ‘Mix ¼ lb fine oatmeal, 6oz sugar, ½ a lemon (sliced), with a
little warm water; add a gallon of boiling water; stir well and use when
cold’. Recipes for other ‘temperance drinks’ were also given, including
lemonade made with 2 lbs of lump sugar dissolved in boiling water, 2 oz of
citric acid and 2 sliced lemons (or a teaspoonful of essence of lemon). Such
drinks were, as the editor was at pains to point out, much better than
alcohol for those working in the open air in hot weather which ‘easily flies
to the head when exposed to the hot rays of the sun, and may bring on
intoxication or even a more serious sunstroke’.
In an attempt to provide working class men with an alternative social
venue to the pub a Working Men’s Club was established in the mid-1880s. In
May 1889 the parish magazine noted that the Club was finally fully open. It
had two rooms, each 20 foot square, equipped with two bagatelle boards and
tables for cards, chess and other games, together with a supply of daily
papers and periodicals. There was also a smaller room for the use of a
caretaker, from whom members could buy mineral water and other soft drinks.
The editor urged parishioners to join ‘this comfortable club, where every
facility for amusement and social intercourse can be obtained for the modest
subscription of 8d a month’. |
