Crusade against Drink in Victorian England - Shiman, Lilian Lewis

Drink, 'the curse of Britain', was sweeping the land, or so it seemed to many Englishmen in the early decades of the nineteenth century. A 'moderation' temperance reform organized in 1829 largely under middle class auspices soon gave way to a radical commitment to total abstinence in a great variety of worker self-help groups.