Daily Life in the Nineteenth Century445spread across the British Isles during industrialization.
Many motives could be discerned behind the temper-
ance campaign: Some reformers were motivated by reli-
gious morality and saw drinking as sinful; others acted
from the perspective of social class—sometimes to help
families in poverty, sometimes in fear of the poor and
crime, sometimes angry about alcohol and absenteeism
from work. Although the upper classes were notori-
ously heavy drinkers, most reformers agreed with em-
ployers that drink was “the curse of [the] working
class.” British law regulated the opening hours of ale-
houses in 1828 and began the licensing of pubs in
- Scottish clergymen won the first prohibition of
alcohol—no sales on Sundays—in 1853.
By the time that temperance leagues became active
in European cities, advocates of social control were also
becoming concerned about opium and cocaine. Opium,
has been used medicinally since ancient Mediterranean
civilizations; one of the oldest known Egyptian papyri
praises its painkilling powers. A Swiss physician popu-
larized medical opium in the sixteenth century in a
compound he named laudanum (“highly praised”). Lau-
danum, a tincture of opium dissolved in alcohol, be-
came a basic medication, and by 1800 it was widely
consumed by all who could afford it.
Britain imported tons of opium every year. Most of
this stock was reexported to the Far East, where the
British were the world’s pushers—they had used opium
addiction as a means of opening oriental markets and
they fought two Opium Wars (1839–42 and 1856–58)
to keep their drug markets open. Even subtracting the
reexportation of opium, the British home market was
enormous. Domestic consumption grew from 8.5 tons of
opium in 1827 to 30.5 tons in 1859, spawning a network
of respectable importers, auctioneers, brokers, and mer-
chants (see table 23.5). British governments shared in
this lucrative trade through an opium tariff until 1860.
The abolition of the tariff cut the price of opium to ap-
proximately one shilling (twenty-five cents) per ounce,
roughly an agricultural laborer’s weekly wages in 1860.
Opium was initially a drug of the educated and up-
per classes, because of its cost and its circulation by
physicians. In the early nineteenth century, addiction
was far more common among famous writers than crim-
inals or the poor. Virtually the entire literary commu-
nity of romanticism used opium. Thomas de Quincey
became famous for a book entitled Confessions of an Eng-
lish Opium Eater(1856), which bluntly said, “Thou hast
the keys of paradise, O just, subtle, and mighty opium!”
Coleridge became renowned for a poem (“Kubla
Kahn”) that he composed after an opium-induced fan-
tasy. Byron took a brand of laudanum called the Black
Drop and satisfied references to it appear in his writing.
Shelley used opium to relieve stress. Keats consumed
such large quantities that he even considered using it
for suicide. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s spinal prob-
lems made her dependent on a daily dose of opium, and
her husband concluded that “sleep only came to her in
a red hood of poppies.” Sir Walter Scott began taking
huge quantities during an illness and wrote at least one
of his novels under its influence. Similar lists could be
drawn of political figures (the friends of George IV of-Total
Opium home Home
imports consumption consumption
Year (in tons) (in tons) (per 1,000 population in pounds)
1827 56.6 8.5 1.31
1837 40.3 18.5 2.48
1847 n.a. 23.0 2.67
1857 68.2 28.0 2.92
1867 136.8 n.a. n.a.
1877 303.7 n.a. n.a.
n.a. Not available.
Source: Condensed from data in Virginia Berridge and Griffith Edwards, Opium and the People: Opiate Use in Nineteenth Century England(New Haven, Conn.:
Yale University Press, 1987), tables 1–2, pp. 272–74.TABLE 23.5Opium Use in England, 1827–77