Outside the home, our ancestors sought refuge in pubs and taverns on cold days. In working-class areas, the public house was popularly considered as a living room outside your own home, where the heating was conveniently provided and paid for by others. Additionally, the alcohol on offer had its own warming effect!
So inviting was the warmth of the pub that those in favour of temperance fretted about it and advocated other heated spaces outside the home as alternatives. On March 21st 1891, the Croydon Chronicle and East Surrey Advertiser held a report from the local Church of England Temperance Society. A Mr C. M, Elborough criticised those wives who did not provide more agreeable attractions to counteract those of 'the well-lighted and well-warmed public houses'. He suggested men should be encouraged to go to free libraries rather than to frequent the ‘warm, corners of less desirable places.’
The Open Hearth Pub, Scunthorpe. Wikimedia Commons
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