Gin: The Much Lamented Death of Madam Geneva – The Eighteenth Century Gin Craze

By Patrick Dillon

In the first half of the eighteenth century, the British population grew so fond of gin – and so dissolute as a result – that Parliament passed multiple laws in a bid to stop it.

‘When a man is tired of London,’ wrote Samuel Johnson in 1750, ‘he is tired of life.’ The London of Johnson and Boswell, Fielding and Hogarth, was bursting with energy, enterprise and risk. It was also deeply mired in one of the worst drug epidemics the world has ever known.

The famous Geneva spirit, or gin, as it soon became known, arrived in London from Holland after the restoration of the monarchy in 1662. Originally hailed as a way to boost the economic prospects of England’s grain farmers, gin drinking soon reached epidemic proportions in the slums of London, where it was sold from shops and market stalls, from basements and carts on the street.

Within twenty years, thousands of men, women and children had died as a result of the drink, and English society was deeply riven by debate over its control. Economic interests grew fat and powerful on gin’s profits and clamoured for a loosening of restriction. On the other side, reformers pointed to the appalling social costs. Yet every attempt to ban gin outright ended in riots.

Brilliantly researched, with far-reaching implications for modern times, this is a fast-paced chronicle of the making, selling, and regulation of a powerful drug, and of its disastrous effects on ordinary people.