Lost pubs

There's much lamentation nowadays when a pub is lost. A sad day when last orders really are the last orders.

Pubs are seen as community assets. Generally, a good thing. Worthy of protection and preservation.

But that wasn't always like that. Go back 120 years and there were many who considered pubs so irredeemably evil that they needed to be stamped out. Unfortunately, many such men served as licensing magistrates. With the power to arbitrarily refuse or remove a licence. A power they weer only too happy to abuse.

In 1902, Farnham licensing magistrates decided to refuse the renewal of the licences of nine of the town's 45 pubs. For no other reason than that they thought there were too pubs. Not then they were dens of crime, unsafe, insanitary, insolvent or anything else. Just some magistrates wanted to eliminate as many pubs as possible.

A delicensed pub was worth a fraction of its value as a pub. Especially a fully-licensed pub (one that could sell both beer and spirits). Meaning a destruction of capital for the brewer. This threat led to a fall in the price of a pubs. As a big chunk of a brewer's capital was tied up in pubs, this fall in the value of their tied estate led some to being overcapitalised. Some marked down their shares from £10 to £1. The economic impact of closures was greater than just the loss of pubs.

Between 1870 and 1914 there was a 25% fall in the number of on-licences in England and Wales. Despite a considerable growth in the population, which rose from 31.5 million in 1871 to 46 million in 1914.
 
I'll finish with some numbers. 

Number of pubs in England and Wales 1879 - 1914
Date	Full	Beer / wine	Total Pubs
1870	68,789	49,396	118,185
1875	69,184	43,884	113,068
1880	69,112	49,597	118,709
1881	68,632	38,309	106,941
1885	67,822	37,278	105,100
1890	67,315	36,498	103,813
1893	67,028	35,809	102,837
1895	66,750	35,351	102,101
1895			103,341
1900			102,189
1905			99,478
1910	64,129	28,355	92,484
1914	62,104	25,556	87,660
Sources:
Brewers' Almanack 1912, page 162.
Brewers' Almanack 1971, page 83.