"Damn You, You Informing Bitch." Vox Populi And The Unmaking Of The Gin Act Of 1736

Journal of Social History, Winter, 1999 by Jessica Warner, Frank Ivis

On August 16, 1738, Sarah Miller, wife of Michael Miller, stood outside the residence of Anne and George Adams and started screaming. She was, it was later claimed, there "to deter the said Anne Adams and others from ... giving Evidence against any person or persons who Should Offend against the Statute ... for laying a duty upon the Retalers of Spirituous Liquors ... and thereby to defeat the Execution of the said Act and to render the same useless and ineffectual." "Damn you, you informing Bitch," she is alleged to have exclaimed, and "Speaking the said Words great Numbers of Persons ... to the Number of Twenty did then and there Assemble themselves" outside the Adams' residence on London's Shoe Lane. Once the crowd was gathered, Sarah sought "to Excite the said persons ... to do some Bodily harm to the said Anne Adams," and toward that end she again identified Anne as an "informing Bitch who goes partners with the Informers ..." "You bitch," she added, "you had Share of the money ... which you bought your Scarlett cloack with ... "It was at this point that Anne Adams became truly frightened, and a few minutes later she miscarried. She was, it was further alleged, "in danger of losing her own life also." Unmoved, "Sarah Miller did then and there continue with the aid [of a] "1 Great Number of persons ... insulting and abusing of the said Ann Adams ..." [1] When it was all over, Anne decided to prosecute Sarah Miller, who was duly indicted in October of 1738, only to be acquitted by a jury two months later. [2]

This paper examines how communities in Hanoverian London punished the informers in their midst, and in the process helped subvert legislation designed to reform the morals of the working poor. The same materials shed considerable light on the rules of everyday life in Hanoverian London, and as such afford a glimpse into the workings of popular culture in an urban context. Our specific questions are fourfold. First, which statutory inducements caused Anne Adams and others like her to transgress the rules of her community by informing against its members, and how did the same inducements affect everyday life in greater London? To answer this pair of questions we examine the background to the Gin Acts of 1733, 1736, 1737, and 1738, and measure the impact of each on prosecutions brought by informers, ensuing attacks on informers and their agents, and per capita consumption of domestic distilled spirits. Second, which rules of the community did the informers violate? To answer this particular question we examine how the informers entrapped their victims, and then examine how these stratagems violated basic notions of community, obligation, and generosity in Hanoverian London. Third, which groups took it upon themselves to uphold the rules of the community? To answer this particular question we analyze popular attacks on informers, with an emphasis on the composition and behavior of the crowds involved. And fourth, to what extent did Sarah Miller and others like her contribute to the unmaking of the Gin Act of 1736, rendering "the same useless and ineffectual"? To answer this final question we examine the different factors that contributed to the unmaking of the Gin Act of 1736 just four years after it became law, with a particular emphasis on how the various agencies responsible for enforcing the Act became the mediators of political change.

These questions place our study on the intersection between the morality of the elites of early Hanoverian England and the morality of the people whom they governed. They address the larger question of how legislation and popular culture interact, each modifying the other in the process. By the same token, our materials offer a new perspective on plebeian culture in eighteenth-century London, and on the extent to which it intersected with the high or patrician culture of the country's elites. Of particular interest is the dialectic of "patrician culture" and "plebeian culture," as articulated by E.P. Thompson. [3] We look for and find both in a complex urban environment, the former primarily in the form of the legislative acts and other public statements issued by the nation's political elite; at the same time, we will also find mediators between the two cultures. These players, in turn, were to play a key role in articulating the standards of the larger community in such a way that their political masters c ould understand and act on them without seeming to submit to what one source described as "the rough discipline of the rabble." [4]

The study is set in greater London, even though informers would appear to have been active wherever distilled spirits were widely distributed. Two women in Norwich, described as "very expert in their Business," entrapped "several Top-Distillers, and a great number more of petty Traders in Spirituous Liquors." [5] An informer in Bristol ended up "set in the Stocks," and "while he was there, the Mob brought a Pitch-Kettle, pitch'd him all over, and afterwards roll'd him in Feathers ..." [6] London, however, was by far the nation's largest market for distilled spirits, meaning that it offered professional informers an especially high concentration of potential victims. [7] Moreover, the sheer size and concentration of the population afforded the same informers unique opportunities to form partnerships and operate in relative anonymity as they moved from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of new victims.