VICTORIA INN
The red brick garage and access area to the right of the house are where wheelwright PETER FRANCE had his business.
In 1830, the Tory Government led by PM The Duke of Wellington
removed duty on beer and liberalised licensing laws. This
led to a
boom in beer sales and the opening of many new alehouses.
Many of these were opened by people who were involved in
other
trades and they created an ale house in their property to
provide them
with additional income.
In 1849, Peter France, a 60 year old carpenter and
wheelwright became
an innkeeper, when he opened his house as Victoria Inn,
in honour of
Queen Victoria, who had been on the throne for 12 years.
The address at that time was Cowick Fields.
Over the next 35 years, licensing laws changed
dramatically and regularly
and this is reflected in the name being changed back and
forth between
Victoria Inn, Victoria Tavern and Victoria Hotel. During
this period there
were at least three different landlords.
William Morris
William Mervill
Frances Rees
In 1885, a police constable named David Lister was the
landlord and he
carried on in that roll until the end of the
century. In March of that year PC Lister
supervised as a body was recovered from the River Aire and taken to the
inn. Jane Creighton aged 77, a resident
of West Haddlesey, had been missing for two months.
At some point, Hartley’s Brewery of Cowick took over
ownership of the Inn
and certainly they were the owners in 1897.
In 1900, as Victoria Hotel, Robert Speight was the
landlord..
By 1904 the number of public houses had increased
dramatically causing
many social problems.
As a way of reducing this number, a new Licensing Act
was introduced toughening the qualifications for a
licence. Compensation
was paid to owners for premises that had to close. Funding came from higher
costs for licenses. Enforcement was stepped up in 1910.
In the census of 1911, the landlord was John William
Smith, but on June 1st in
that year, the West Riding of Yorkshire compensation
authority withdrew the
licence for The Victoria Inn.
Although now closed as a public house, it was still owned
by Hartley’s Brewery
until 1935 and called Victoria House.
|
1936 |
The house was sold to William Punton(33) and his wife
Elsie (30) |
|
1945 |
William Punton died in Quarter 3 aged 42 from Diabetes |
|
1945 -1960 |
Elsie Punton |
|
1960- 1970 |
Donald Punton (Elsie’s son) and wife Betty |
|
1970 -1984 |
George and Joan Shackle |
|
1984- 1988 |
Paul and Linda Shackle |
|
1988 - 2001 |
Major Hardy and Sandra Hardy |
|
2001- |
Andrew and Deborah Newton |
