The Chesterfield Year Book and Directory, in its first edition for 1913, published a list of licensed houses in Chesterfield, along with their location. We reproduce these in this post and take a short look at the publication in which they appeared.
The year book and directory
The Chesterfield Year Book and Directory is perhaps a much over-looked publication, though it was short-lived. It was first published in 1913 by the Broad Oaks Press (in the name of George Lee) – who published the Derbyshire Courier newspaper at the time. Publication of the yearbook and directory ceased in the 1920s.
Wine and spirit merchant TP Wood had produced an almanac for some time, but this had ceased publication in 1905. It was thought that the new Chesterfield Yearbook and Directory would ‘meet a need that has been felt ever since’ Wood’s almanacs had been discontinued.
Unlike Wood’s almanac there was no district information, but Chesterfield borough was well-covered. This included a street-by-street directory of residents and a trade directory – which didn’t appear in Wood’s almanac.
Licensed properties in 1912
We now reproduce below a little snip of Chesterfield’s licensed trade history.
There’s a short list of licenced houses and a brief report about licensed premises ‘closed for compensation’. Briefly, this was an attempt to reduce licenced premises which culminated in the Licensing Act of 1904, which allowed for compensation to be paid where licences were refused.
You can read much more about the operation of the Licensing Act in Chesterfield and indeed about the history of the licensed premises mentioned in our extracts, in John Hirst’s excellent ‘Chesterfield Pubs’ book.
