Inter-War

The Inter-War Years 

Over the next two decades the pub was to have a tough time. Restrictions on licenses continued and beer consumption halved. There were new and exciting leisure activities; going to the cinema or listening to the wireless; sports, such as swimming or cycling and for the well off, motoring.

This was also the era of the suburb. Huge sprawling estates of semi-detached housing sprang up on the outskirts of major towns and cities. Pubs were built too, but as their numbers were restricted, they tended to be large. They were respectable pubs for respectable people, where food and non-alcoholic drinks were available; they had function rooms, playgrounds for children and sporting facilities, such as bowling greens. They looked different too, the mock Tudor in the suburbs was reflected in the pubs, becoming known in the trade as Brewers Tudor.

This improvement was not restricted to new pubs and many older and historic pubs were improved beyond recognition, stripped of their character and identity. There were more closures too, the brewers trading in several licenses in the cities, for one in the suburbs.

Ironically another casualty of the times was the Temperance Movement, it lost support as its aims were largely achieved more by social change than campaigning; and all calls for prohibition in the U.K. were silenced by the disastrous experience in the U.S.A.

The brewing industry was still undergoing change; despite a small rise in beer consumption at the end of the First World War, it was followed by a steady decline. There was drastic consolidation, the number of breweries falling from over 3500 to under 1000 between the wars.

By the time Britain was again at war with Germany, lessons had been learned both militarily and socially. This time access to good quality beer was seen as good for moral. Pubs held events to raise money for the war effort and their cellars were used as air raid shelters; but more crucially they were seen as the beating heart of the community, a unifying place where the nation could meet and gain strength from comradeship in a truly British way. Several thousand pubs were destroyed in air raids and stories of the stoical landlord still serving from the wrecked pub passed into legend.