Scotland, the birthplace of modern industrial whisky making, also saw the birth of the first of the temperance movements and an examination of their rise and fall might be of use in informing the present discussion. The beginnings of large-scale whisky commercial distilling in 1824 was facilitated by the reduction of the duty on spirits from 7s to 2s 6d (12.5p) a gallon – and a consequent reduction in the price of whisky. Consumption of the craitur in Scotland increased from about two million gallons in 1822 to approaching seven million in 1829, accompanied by a consequent increase in drunkenness. For example, in Glasgow from 1871-4 some 125,000 people were arrested as ‘drunk and incapable’. Many people felt Something Had To Be Done. Intemperance was an accepted part of upper-class Scottish society, but it had generally been conducted behind domestic doors or in private drinking clubs. The new urban working-class drunkenness on the other hand was manifested in public. Many early reformers were motivated by humanitarian impulses, but also by the fact that they felt the increasingly industrial society would be put at risk by workmen drinking, and that the middle classes would be taxed to pay the poor rates necessary to maintain the indigent drunken populace.
