temperance movement

Societies dedicated to curtailing the consumption of alcohol by total prohibition, local restriction, or encouragement of declarations of personal abstinence (‘the pledge’). Temperance movements were first set up in the USA, Ireland, and Scotland, then in northern England in the 1830s.

The proponents of temperance were drawn from evangelical or nonconformist Christians, trade unionists, Chartists, members of cooperatives, the self-help movement, and the Church of England. After 1871 the movement supported the Liberal Party in its attempts to use the licensing laws to restrict the consumption of alcoholic beverages.