The delicious return of Gin Lane

In 1751, William Hogarth was asked to create two prints: one depicting the evils of gin, the other the virtues of beer. Hogarth must have received a pat on the back from the brewers who commissioned him, because ‘Gin Lane’ cast gin as the greatest of all evils. It ruined mothers, and caused starvation, insanity and suicide. In ‘Beer Street’, industry and commerce thrive — and everyone is a picture of health.

Gin drinking did get severely out of hand in the 18th century. In one notorious case, a woman named Judith Dufour collected her two-year-old child from the workhouse, strangled him, dumped the body and sold his clothes for 1s 4d to buy gin (the detail from ‘Gin Lane’ above is Hogarth’s version of her). Between 1729 and 1751, eight Gin Acts were enforced to temper London’s drinking habits; the last finally worked. It encouraged ‘respectable’ sale, and put the bootleggers out of business.