Discussion Post: Shoscombe Old Place
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sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is Shoscombe Old Place and the chosen topic is Gambling.
A few facts:
🏇🂡🎲 By the early nineteenth century, British gambling could be characterised as:
stratified by class - generally the rich would play high-stake games of cards and dice in clubs, while the poor played low stake games in their hells. Betting on horses for the rich, was done at clubs or betting houses such as Tattersalls, the poor did so primarily at race meetings. Pubs were the main gambling dens of the poor, where they would gamble on pitch and toss or other such games and buy their fractions of lottery tickets. The rich would frequent coffee-houses to gamble on the newly formed stock market and buy stocks in new companies trading abroad,
illegal for the poor, allowable for the rich...
prevalent - while there is no research data available on how prevalent gambling was at this time, gambling's association in sport and social recreation… indicate that it had a large part in the social fabric...
commercialised - gambling had begun to take place in specific locations with commercial entities run for the purpose of providing gambling. While these seemed to have started as either coffee shops or pubs, they soon developed into gaming houses (later casinos) and betting houses (later shops). What was to change was the 'house' becoming a player, whereas previously these houses provided facilities, they now developed the games and wagers so that they took a percentage of the amount waged. [Steve Donoughue]
🏇🂡🎲 Gambling was one of the issues the reforming [Victorian] middle classes energetically took up against both the highest and lowest orders. In 1845, the reformers had their first success as Parliament passed an act to amend the laws concerning games and wagers. In effect, it removed gambling from the jurisdiction of the courts. This was an attempt to remove the legal facilities for recovering gambling debts, hoping to dissuade people from an ever more unsure temptation… [Amy Milne-Smith]
🏇🂡🎲 ...the 1845 Gaming Act… did not make betting illegal but rather sought to discourage the practice by making all wagers unenforceable as a legal contract. This meant bookmakers, or bettors, could run off with the money and the law would offer you no legal protections.
The Act was set up this way to give police more powers over the working classes while still allowing gambling to take place amongst the upper classes and elite… Parts of the 1845 Act remained in place right up until 2007. Namely sections 17 and 18 which made cheating illegal, punishable by two years in jail and a £200 fine (a huge amount back then), and any gambling contracts void in the eyes of the law… [Online Betting]
🏇🂡🎲 The 1845 Act didn't make betting illegal and so what ensued was a huge expansion of betting houses. According to Charles Dickens a house had "sprung up on every street".
The 1853 Betting Act was therefore brought in making it illegal to use or keep any property for the purposes of betting or gaming.
In combination with the 1845 Act this effectively outlawed off track betting. In reality the result was a huge increase in on-street gambling instead...
What the Gaming and Betting Acts of 1845 and 1853 did do for sure is help create the Britain's love of a day out at the horse racing. The Acts allowed restricted forms of gambling at designated race tracks and I doubt the government could have predicted how popular this would be with the public.
New Victorian social reforms, such as paid holiday for workers for the first time, a growing middle class and new forms of advertisement coupled with the new technological advance of the railway saw attendances grow sharply. New race courses opened all over the country in response to this demand and special excursion trains were put on to allow all classes of people to attend the new meetings. [Online Betting]
🏇🂡🎲 The major characteristics of this new kind of betting were the appearance of professional bookmakers who were willing to take bets, for as little as sixpence or one shilling, from all comers, and the fact that on-course betting was only a tiny fraction of the total. Most of those who bet probably never witnessed a race; they followed the sport in the racing newspapers… [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 ...the Betting Act 1853… made it 'illegal to keep or use any house, office, room, or other place, for the purpose of the owner or occupier a) betting with persons resorting thereto, or b) receiving money in advance in respect of bets ...'It was announced as an attempt to deal with problems associated with working-class gambling without infringing on betting facilities enjoyed by those higher on the social scale. Therefore, the prohibitions introduced did not apply to betting amongst members of a club or to credit betting by correspondence (and later, by telegraph or telephone), which did not involve 'resorting' to premises.'
This Act, along with the anti-gaming provisions in the 1845 Act, outlawed all forms of commercialised gambling for the working classes, except for betting on-course at a race meeting (relatively few in number and still an expensive recreation for the masses). This was seen as a victory for the anti-gambling lobby; however, it just displaced the activity to another location.
Street betting was to become just as, if not more popular than betting in betting houses. [Steve Donoughue]
🏇🂡🎲 1867 The Metropolitan Street Act prohibited three or more people grouping together for the purposes of gambling within the London Metropolitan area.
1873 The Vagrancy Act provided that anyone gambling in a public place ‘...shall be deemed a rogue and a vagabond.’
1874 The Suppression of Betting Houses Act imposed penalties on persons advertising betting. It was intended to restrict the coverage of betting news and sporting tips in newspapers but there were enough loopholes in the legislation to prevent this happening.
1906 The Street Betting Act specifically outlawed loitering for the purpose of making or taking a bet. [Liam O'Brien]
🏇🂡🎲 Victorian legislation tended to outlaw those forms of ready-money gambling that were most prevalent among the working class and to allow gambling on credit, which was only accessible to the upper and the middle classes. Generally speaking, however, the laws against gambling were only sporadically enforced. [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 ...in 1890 a coalition of Nonconformist churches formed the National Anti-Gambling League. They launched a campaign aimed at the wealthiest gamblers based on the belief that gambling was an aristocratic vice that had seeped down to the lower social orders, and thus its cure must come in the same fashion… ...the campaign met with little success. Gambling was a part of elite culture, enshrined in tradition, and particularly enjoyed by the leader of fashionable society, the Prince of Wales. [Amy Milne-Smith]
🏇🂡🎲 The National Anti-Gambling League...worked to eliminate all forms of betting, including friendly card games, church raffles, and even some forms of gambling on the stock exchange… [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 People commonly bet informally on card games in their homes. Books of game rules, however, tended to omit information on betting until very late in the century… [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 ...while gambling at the [gentlemen’s] clubs certainly decreased during the nineteenth century, the popular imagination still perceived clubs as a place where a man could run through a fortune… Gambling was a recurrent public relations problem for clubs in general, although within the clubs the committees worried less about ruinous losses and more about bad credit, late hours, and negative publicity. [Amy Milne-Smith]
🏇🂡🎲 The types of games played in gentlemen’s clubs were… a means for the aristocracy [to] set itself apart from the lower classes. Whilst the majority of games played in the ‘hells’ were based on pure luck, gambling in gentlemen’s clubs required skill. As a result, playing cards were the main device used by the aristocracy, since they were more expensive than dice and involved more sophisticated games.
Whist was the most popular gentleman’s game and is a precursor to the modern game of Bridge. It involves a high level of concentration to keep track of cards, as well as knowledge of the extensive technical jargon. This was an exclusive game for the well-educated, and a skilful card player would be revered and respected by his peers. This was also a betting game… [Luke Rees]
🏇🂡🎲 ...there were several private, very private, establishments at which the interesting games of roulette and French hazard were nightly played, and where the stakes varied from a five-pound note to a humble half-crown. The Berkeley in Albemarle Street; and Lyley's; Morris's in Jermyn Street, over a bootmaker's shop; "Goody" Levy's - the gentleman who came to grief over the Running Rein case - in Panton Street: these and several others flourished at the time…
The modus operandi was pretty much the same everywhere. You pulled a bright-knobbed bell, which responded with a single muffled clang, and the door was opened silently by a speechless man who closed it quickly behind you. Confronting you was another door, generally sheeted with iron covered with green baize: in its centre a small glazed aperture, through which the visitor, in his temporary quarantine, was closely scrutinized. If the survey was unsatisfactory - if, that is to say, he looked like a spy or a stranger merely prompted by curiosity - he was bidden to be off, and in case of need he was thrust out by the strong and silent porter. If he were known, or "looked all right," the door was opened, and the visitor passed up richly carpeted stairs into the first floor. The front room was set apart for play: a long table covered with a green cloth, divided by tightly stretched pieces of string into the spaces for the "in" and the "out "- the game being hazard - and a few chairs for the players; the croupiers, each armed with a hooked stick, instead of the usual rake, for the collection of the money, faced each other in the middle of the table; the shutters were closed, and thick curtains were drawn. The back room was given up to a substantial supper of cold chickens, joints, salads, etc., which with sherry, brandy, etc., was provided gratis. In the places I have named the play, taken for what it was, was perfectly fair, so that there was no occasion for the presence of sham players, "bonnets," as they are called, who act as decoys; the company was mostly composed of men-about-town, the majority of them middle-aged, with occasionally a lawyer, a West End tradesman, and almost invariably a well-known usurer, who came there, however, to play, not to ply his trade.
Money was lost and won without display of excitement: I never saw anything approaching a "scene" in a London gaming-house. The greatest excitement was once, when about 2 AM., in the middle of play, after a sharp whistle outside which caused the croupiers at once to cut and clear away the strings dividing the table, and to cover it with a white cloth, swallowing, as some said, the dice - at all events, instantly hiding them - we heard a tremendous crash below, and found the police were breaking down the iron door with sledgehammers. The scene was very like that so cleverly portrayed in Artful Cards: when the inspector and his men entered, they found a few gentlemen peacefully supping, smoking, and chatting. We had to give our names and addresses, but never heard any more of it. [Edmund Yates, His Recollections and Experiences, 1885 [chapter on 1847-1852]]
🏇🂡🎲 Gaming has always been integral to the pub scene… Today pool and darts are the most popular bar sports, but back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was games like skittles (an early version of 10-pin bowling) and cribbage (a popular card game) that were the favourites to play...
...a number of British pubs still display evidence of the rich gambling culture that used to exist. The Queens Head in Piccadilly, for example, has an old photograph hanging on one of its walls displaying an assembly of hatted gentlemen and their dogs. Don’t be misled by the refined composure of the scene though, this pub used to be the setting for ratting – a grisly contest where bets were placed on how many rats a dog could maul within a certain time...
Human beings themselves were also integrated in the culture of bloodletting for money, with bare-knuckle fighting being commonplace in a number of establishments. The Lamb & Flag by Covent Garden developed a particularly brutal reputation for pugilism, even earning itself the nickname ‘The Bucket of Blood’. [Luke Rees]
🏇🂡🎲 The name of "hells," applied in our day to gambling-houses, originated in the room in St. James's Palace formerly appropriated to hazard being remarkably dark, and on that account called "hell." (Theodore Hook.) A few years ago there were more of those infamous places of resort in London than in any other city in the world. The handsome gas-lamp and the green or red baize door at the end of the passage were conspicuous in the vicinity of St. James's; and of St. George's, Hanover-square; and the moral nuisances still linger about St. James's parish and Leicester-square. [John Timbs, Curiosities of London, 1867 edition]
🏇🂡🎲 As the working classes were not fortunate enough to be able to pursue their gaming activities in the luxurious and safe-from-arrest surroundings of clubs they had to make do with what were commonly known as 'copper hells' - the rich gambling in 'gold' or 'silver hells'. These were very different establishments altogether. Their illegality meant that they had to be hidden from the prying eyes of the constabulary. Many had elaborate entry systems of multiple doors and grills. Their link with illegality meant that they were often associated with other illegal activities such as unlicensed drinking and prostitution. [Steve Donoughue]
🏇🂡🎲 “It is not largely carried on in public-houses. The betting men are known to the police, and the publican might lose his licence.” Tobacconists and newsvendors act as agents on the quiet, and so do barbers (always the confidants of their customers), and a great deal is still done in the streets, especially in the dinner-hour. The bookmakers move about and seek their clients in place of their clients seeking them, and are thus less open to interference. A magistrate can only impose a fine of £5, and that is not heavy enough to deter. An occasional fine is rather an advertisement than a hindrance. “What’s the good of carrying me off?” said one man, “you know well enough that it’s not me, but my guv'nor who pays..."
Every day the sporting papers have a vast circulation; they are found in every public-house and every coffee-shop. They are read, and the news and the tips given are discussed before the bets are placed...
Gambling clubs are equally irrepressible. They are raided, and perhaps closed, but are opened again, or make a fresh start in some way. One of our informants said he had heard the proprietor of one such place, after being fined, say to his friends, on leaving the Court, that the club would be open for play as usual that evening… [Charles Booth Life and Labour of the People in London, 1903]
🏇🂡🎲 Late in the century there was a flurry of interest in high-stakes casino gaming, especially in the newly opened casino in Monte Carlo. Baccarat became the rage in some wealthy circles… [David C. Itzkowitz]
Some useful resources:
The Dictionary of Victorian London Link to the main index. Click on ‘Entertainment’ - ‘Gambling’.
Gentleman behaving badly: Gambling in London Clubland By Amy Milne-Smith, on the Victorian Web.
Gambling houses On the Dictionary of Victorian London.
A History of Gambling in the UK (until 1960) By Steve Donoughue, on GamblingConsultant.
Gambling - amongst the poor On the Dictionary of Victorian London.
History Of Gambling And Bookmakers On Online Betting.
Gambling in London’s Most Ruinous Gentlemen’s Clubs By Luke Rees, on London Historians’ Blog.
Blood, Betting and Baiting: The Dark History of London’s Pubs By Luke Rees, on the Victorian Web.
You Bet!: An A-Z of Poker, Casinos and Lotteries By Liam O'Brien. The link should hopefully take you to a section listing various 19th century Acts of Parliament regarding gambling. But this is a preview on Google Books, so it may or may not work for you.
Victorian Britain (Routledge Revivals): An Encyclopedia By Sally Mitchell. The link should hopefully take you to a section on gambling. But this is a preview on Google Books, so it may or may not work for you.
The History of Gambling in England By John Ashton, 1898. On Internet Archive. Can be read online or downloaded in a variety of ways.
Original British Victorian Era Gambling Spinner On International Military Antiques. Photograph of item with brief description.
Chippy Norton - Late Victorian era Bookmaker Print on Prints-Online. Image Copyright © Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection.
Crown & Anchor By Barry E. Scott, on Navy Song.
Rare Pub Game of Crown & Anchor c. 1830 to c. 1870 English Photograph and brief description of item.
Hazard (game) On Wikipedia. A description of the dice game mentioned above.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
🏇🂡🎲 By the early nineteenth century, British gambling could be characterised as:
stratified by class - generally the rich would play high-stake games of cards and dice in clubs, while the poor played low stake games in their hells. Betting on horses for the rich, was done at clubs or betting houses such as Tattersalls, the poor did so primarily at race meetings. Pubs were the main gambling dens of the poor, where they would gamble on pitch and toss or other such games and buy their fractions of lottery tickets. The rich would frequent coffee-houses to gamble on the newly formed stock market and buy stocks in new companies trading abroad,
illegal for the poor, allowable for the rich...
prevalent - while there is no research data available on how prevalent gambling was at this time, gambling's association in sport and social recreation… indicate that it had a large part in the social fabric...
commercialised - gambling had begun to take place in specific locations with commercial entities run for the purpose of providing gambling. While these seemed to have started as either coffee shops or pubs, they soon developed into gaming houses (later casinos) and betting houses (later shops). What was to change was the 'house' becoming a player, whereas previously these houses provided facilities, they now developed the games and wagers so that they took a percentage of the amount waged. [Steve Donoughue]
🏇🂡🎲 Gambling was one of the issues the reforming [Victorian] middle classes energetically took up against both the highest and lowest orders. In 1845, the reformers had their first success as Parliament passed an act to amend the laws concerning games and wagers. In effect, it removed gambling from the jurisdiction of the courts. This was an attempt to remove the legal facilities for recovering gambling debts, hoping to dissuade people from an ever more unsure temptation… [Amy Milne-Smith]
🏇🂡🎲 ...the 1845 Gaming Act… did not make betting illegal but rather sought to discourage the practice by making all wagers unenforceable as a legal contract. This meant bookmakers, or bettors, could run off with the money and the law would offer you no legal protections.
The Act was set up this way to give police more powers over the working classes while still allowing gambling to take place amongst the upper classes and elite… Parts of the 1845 Act remained in place right up until 2007. Namely sections 17 and 18 which made cheating illegal, punishable by two years in jail and a £200 fine (a huge amount back then), and any gambling contracts void in the eyes of the law… [Online Betting]
🏇🂡🎲 The 1845 Act didn't make betting illegal and so what ensued was a huge expansion of betting houses. According to Charles Dickens a house had "sprung up on every street".
The 1853 Betting Act was therefore brought in making it illegal to use or keep any property for the purposes of betting or gaming.
In combination with the 1845 Act this effectively outlawed off track betting. In reality the result was a huge increase in on-street gambling instead...
What the Gaming and Betting Acts of 1845 and 1853 did do for sure is help create the Britain's love of a day out at the horse racing. The Acts allowed restricted forms of gambling at designated race tracks and I doubt the government could have predicted how popular this would be with the public.
New Victorian social reforms, such as paid holiday for workers for the first time, a growing middle class and new forms of advertisement coupled with the new technological advance of the railway saw attendances grow sharply. New race courses opened all over the country in response to this demand and special excursion trains were put on to allow all classes of people to attend the new meetings. [Online Betting]
🏇🂡🎲 The major characteristics of this new kind of betting were the appearance of professional bookmakers who were willing to take bets, for as little as sixpence or one shilling, from all comers, and the fact that on-course betting was only a tiny fraction of the total. Most of those who bet probably never witnessed a race; they followed the sport in the racing newspapers… [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 ...the Betting Act 1853… made it 'illegal to keep or use any house, office, room, or other place, for the purpose of the owner or occupier a) betting with persons resorting thereto, or b) receiving money in advance in respect of bets ...'It was announced as an attempt to deal with problems associated with working-class gambling without infringing on betting facilities enjoyed by those higher on the social scale. Therefore, the prohibitions introduced did not apply to betting amongst members of a club or to credit betting by correspondence (and later, by telegraph or telephone), which did not involve 'resorting' to premises.'
This Act, along with the anti-gaming provisions in the 1845 Act, outlawed all forms of commercialised gambling for the working classes, except for betting on-course at a race meeting (relatively few in number and still an expensive recreation for the masses). This was seen as a victory for the anti-gambling lobby; however, it just displaced the activity to another location.
Street betting was to become just as, if not more popular than betting in betting houses. [Steve Donoughue]
🏇🂡🎲 1867 The Metropolitan Street Act prohibited three or more people grouping together for the purposes of gambling within the London Metropolitan area.
1873 The Vagrancy Act provided that anyone gambling in a public place ‘...shall be deemed a rogue and a vagabond.’
1874 The Suppression of Betting Houses Act imposed penalties on persons advertising betting. It was intended to restrict the coverage of betting news and sporting tips in newspapers but there were enough loopholes in the legislation to prevent this happening.
1906 The Street Betting Act specifically outlawed loitering for the purpose of making or taking a bet. [Liam O'Brien]
🏇🂡🎲 Victorian legislation tended to outlaw those forms of ready-money gambling that were most prevalent among the working class and to allow gambling on credit, which was only accessible to the upper and the middle classes. Generally speaking, however, the laws against gambling were only sporadically enforced. [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 ...in 1890 a coalition of Nonconformist churches formed the National Anti-Gambling League. They launched a campaign aimed at the wealthiest gamblers based on the belief that gambling was an aristocratic vice that had seeped down to the lower social orders, and thus its cure must come in the same fashion… ...the campaign met with little success. Gambling was a part of elite culture, enshrined in tradition, and particularly enjoyed by the leader of fashionable society, the Prince of Wales. [Amy Milne-Smith]
🏇🂡🎲 The National Anti-Gambling League...worked to eliminate all forms of betting, including friendly card games, church raffles, and even some forms of gambling on the stock exchange… [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 People commonly bet informally on card games in their homes. Books of game rules, however, tended to omit information on betting until very late in the century… [David C. Itzkowitz]
🏇🂡🎲 ...while gambling at the [gentlemen’s] clubs certainly decreased during the nineteenth century, the popular imagination still perceived clubs as a place where a man could run through a fortune… Gambling was a recurrent public relations problem for clubs in general, although within the clubs the committees worried less about ruinous losses and more about bad credit, late hours, and negative publicity. [Amy Milne-Smith]
🏇🂡🎲 The types of games played in gentlemen’s clubs were… a means for the aristocracy [to] set itself apart from the lower classes. Whilst the majority of games played in the ‘hells’ were based on pure luck, gambling in gentlemen’s clubs required skill. As a result, playing cards were the main device used by the aristocracy, since they were more expensive than dice and involved more sophisticated games.
Whist was the most popular gentleman’s game and is a precursor to the modern game of Bridge. It involves a high level of concentration to keep track of cards, as well as knowledge of the extensive technical jargon. This was an exclusive game for the well-educated, and a skilful card player would be revered and respected by his peers. This was also a betting game… [Luke Rees]
🏇🂡🎲 ...there were several private, very private, establishments at which the interesting games of roulette and French hazard were nightly played, and where the stakes varied from a five-pound note to a humble half-crown. The Berkeley in Albemarle Street; and Lyley's; Morris's in Jermyn Street, over a bootmaker's shop; "Goody" Levy's - the gentleman who came to grief over the Running Rein case - in Panton Street: these and several others flourished at the time…
The modus operandi was pretty much the same everywhere. You pulled a bright-knobbed bell, which responded with a single muffled clang, and the door was opened silently by a speechless man who closed it quickly behind you. Confronting you was another door, generally sheeted with iron covered with green baize: in its centre a small glazed aperture, through which the visitor, in his temporary quarantine, was closely scrutinized. If the survey was unsatisfactory - if, that is to say, he looked like a spy or a stranger merely prompted by curiosity - he was bidden to be off, and in case of need he was thrust out by the strong and silent porter. If he were known, or "looked all right," the door was opened, and the visitor passed up richly carpeted stairs into the first floor. The front room was set apart for play: a long table covered with a green cloth, divided by tightly stretched pieces of string into the spaces for the "in" and the "out "- the game being hazard - and a few chairs for the players; the croupiers, each armed with a hooked stick, instead of the usual rake, for the collection of the money, faced each other in the middle of the table; the shutters were closed, and thick curtains were drawn. The back room was given up to a substantial supper of cold chickens, joints, salads, etc., which with sherry, brandy, etc., was provided gratis. In the places I have named the play, taken for what it was, was perfectly fair, so that there was no occasion for the presence of sham players, "bonnets," as they are called, who act as decoys; the company was mostly composed of men-about-town, the majority of them middle-aged, with occasionally a lawyer, a West End tradesman, and almost invariably a well-known usurer, who came there, however, to play, not to ply his trade.
Money was lost and won without display of excitement: I never saw anything approaching a "scene" in a London gaming-house. The greatest excitement was once, when about 2 AM., in the middle of play, after a sharp whistle outside which caused the croupiers at once to cut and clear away the strings dividing the table, and to cover it with a white cloth, swallowing, as some said, the dice - at all events, instantly hiding them - we heard a tremendous crash below, and found the police were breaking down the iron door with sledgehammers. The scene was very like that so cleverly portrayed in Artful Cards: when the inspector and his men entered, they found a few gentlemen peacefully supping, smoking, and chatting. We had to give our names and addresses, but never heard any more of it. [Edmund Yates, His Recollections and Experiences, 1885 [chapter on 1847-1852]]
🏇🂡🎲 Gaming has always been integral to the pub scene… Today pool and darts are the most popular bar sports, but back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was games like skittles (an early version of 10-pin bowling) and cribbage (a popular card game) that were the favourites to play...
...a number of British pubs still display evidence of the rich gambling culture that used to exist. The Queens Head in Piccadilly, for example, has an old photograph hanging on one of its walls displaying an assembly of hatted gentlemen and their dogs. Don’t be misled by the refined composure of the scene though, this pub used to be the setting for ratting – a grisly contest where bets were placed on how many rats a dog could maul within a certain time...
Human beings themselves were also integrated in the culture of bloodletting for money, with bare-knuckle fighting being commonplace in a number of establishments. The Lamb & Flag by Covent Garden developed a particularly brutal reputation for pugilism, even earning itself the nickname ‘The Bucket of Blood’. [Luke Rees]
🏇🂡🎲 The name of "hells," applied in our day to gambling-houses, originated in the room in St. James's Palace formerly appropriated to hazard being remarkably dark, and on that account called "hell." (Theodore Hook.) A few years ago there were more of those infamous places of resort in London than in any other city in the world. The handsome gas-lamp and the green or red baize door at the end of the passage were conspicuous in the vicinity of St. James's; and of St. George's, Hanover-square; and the moral nuisances still linger about St. James's parish and Leicester-square. [John Timbs, Curiosities of London, 1867 edition]
🏇🂡🎲 As the working classes were not fortunate enough to be able to pursue their gaming activities in the luxurious and safe-from-arrest surroundings of clubs they had to make do with what were commonly known as 'copper hells' - the rich gambling in 'gold' or 'silver hells'. These were very different establishments altogether. Their illegality meant that they had to be hidden from the prying eyes of the constabulary. Many had elaborate entry systems of multiple doors and grills. Their link with illegality meant that they were often associated with other illegal activities such as unlicensed drinking and prostitution. [Steve Donoughue]
🏇🂡🎲 “It is not largely carried on in public-houses. The betting men are known to the police, and the publican might lose his licence.” Tobacconists and newsvendors act as agents on the quiet, and so do barbers (always the confidants of their customers), and a great deal is still done in the streets, especially in the dinner-hour. The bookmakers move about and seek their clients in place of their clients seeking them, and are thus less open to interference. A magistrate can only impose a fine of £5, and that is not heavy enough to deter. An occasional fine is rather an advertisement than a hindrance. “What’s the good of carrying me off?” said one man, “you know well enough that it’s not me, but my guv'nor who pays..."
Every day the sporting papers have a vast circulation; they are found in every public-house and every coffee-shop. They are read, and the news and the tips given are discussed before the bets are placed...
Gambling clubs are equally irrepressible. They are raided, and perhaps closed, but are opened again, or make a fresh start in some way. One of our informants said he had heard the proprietor of one such place, after being fined, say to his friends, on leaving the Court, that the club would be open for play as usual that evening… [Charles Booth Life and Labour of the People in London, 1903]
🏇🂡🎲 Late in the century there was a flurry of interest in high-stakes casino gaming, especially in the newly opened casino in Monte Carlo. Baccarat became the rage in some wealthy circles… [David C. Itzkowitz]
Some useful resources:
The Dictionary of Victorian London Link to the main index. Click on ‘Entertainment’ - ‘Gambling’.
Gentleman behaving badly: Gambling in London Clubland By Amy Milne-Smith, on the Victorian Web.
Gambling houses On the Dictionary of Victorian London.
A History of Gambling in the UK (until 1960) By Steve Donoughue, on GamblingConsultant.
Gambling - amongst the poor On the Dictionary of Victorian London.
History Of Gambling And Bookmakers On Online Betting.
Gambling in London’s Most Ruinous Gentlemen’s Clubs By Luke Rees, on London Historians’ Blog.
Blood, Betting and Baiting: The Dark History of London’s Pubs By Luke Rees, on the Victorian Web.
You Bet!: An A-Z of Poker, Casinos and Lotteries By Liam O'Brien. The link should hopefully take you to a section listing various 19th century Acts of Parliament regarding gambling. But this is a preview on Google Books, so it may or may not work for you.
Victorian Britain (Routledge Revivals): An Encyclopedia By Sally Mitchell. The link should hopefully take you to a section on gambling. But this is a preview on Google Books, so it may or may not work for you.
The History of Gambling in England By John Ashton, 1898. On Internet Archive. Can be read online or downloaded in a variety of ways.
Original British Victorian Era Gambling Spinner On International Military Antiques. Photograph of item with brief description.
Chippy Norton - Late Victorian era Bookmaker Print on Prints-Online. Image Copyright © Mary Evans / Grenville Collins Postcard Collection.
Crown & Anchor By Barry E. Scott, on Navy Song.
Rare Pub Game of Crown & Anchor c. 1830 to c. 1870 English Photograph and brief description of item.
Hazard (game) On Wikipedia. A description of the dice game mentioned above.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
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Date: 2017-04-30 11:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-30 04:41 pm (UTC)And as you say, gambling being one of Watson's vices when he's well fits in so neatly. I think he isn't necessarily gambling before he meets Holmes: he runs out of money but that could simply be because he's not used to being on such a low income and is trying to live like he used to, rather than he's actively wasting money.
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Date: 2017-04-30 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-04-30 05:10 pm (UTC)