I have a question and hope someone may know the answer. Iam endeavour to locate a hotel in Beechworth in 1854 called Beechworth Arms -as per my email last night-. My question is - in the early days of Beechworth, say for the first half dozen years, was it compulsory to have a license to run a hotel -whatever form it was in, a tent, building, slab etc.? When did licenses come in? Denise

Hello Denise, I haven't seen a reply to this, so here goes: Licences were introduced by Governor Macquarie in NSW in 1810, allowing publicans to sell beer ( previous to this was the infamous "Rum Rebellion" of the NSW Corps). By this means Macquarie reduced the number of public houses in Sydney from 75 to 20. The licence cost twenty Spanish dollars. There were a few more expensive licences allowing also wines. Spirits were controlled by the merchant class through the governor, remember it was still a convict settlement. The Duke of Portland stated to Macquarie "The introduction of beer into general use among the inhabitants will tend, in a great degree, to lessen the consumption of spirituous liquors." Early Port Phillip publicans had to apply to NSW court for a licence, and because of the distance, and the necessity to pay within 14 days of the granting of the licence, Melbourne hotels were unlicenced until late 1836, when Police Magistrate William Lonsdale arrived and issued licences at £25 each. These licences were validated by the NSW government retrospectively in 1838. From that time, publicans applied to the nearest magistrate's court for a licence. The building had to be of fair construction in the early days, and I would think a tent would not gain a licence, but a slab hut with accomodation for travellers would be considered. So a tent would be an illegal "grog shanty" As years went by, the government demanded higher & higher standards, lesser in the country, though even by 1880 an hotel outside Bendigo was closed "because no-one could stand upright in it, its ceilings were so low " (it was probably OK before they were forced to put in partitions and a ceiling!) Hope that answers your query At 22:47 21-02-02 +1000, you wrote: >I have a question and hope someone may know the answer. > >Iam endeavour to locate a hotel in Beechworth in 1854 called Beechworth >Arms -as per my email last night-. > >My question is - in the early days of Beechworth, say for the first half >dozen years, was it compulsory to have a license to run a hotel -whatever >form it was in, a tent, building, slab etc.? > >When did licenses come in? > >Denise regards, Ada Ackerly, Melbourne, Australia formerly Ackerly DocuSearch

Ada, Thank you for your imput. Much appreciated. The reason I asked is that I think my great-grandmother came to Beechworth from Ireland to work at the Beechworth Arms for 6 months for 35 (?what) and rations. She was a domestic servant, so this hotel probably had accommodation. This was in March 1854 and she married in December 1854...... I hope to be able to track at least where the Beechworth Arms was, if nothing else. Her future husband worked at mining and ran the Criterion Hotel on Spring Creek, which I think is now the hotel on the Cnr High and Camp STs. When I was there last year I noticed a sign/plaque in the foyer listing names of hotels thru the years, and I feel this sign was referring to the hotel which still stands and it just had its name changed. Does anyone know if that hotel...wait a mo.....just looked it up, called the NIcholas actually did start it's life under another name? Denise ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ada Ackerly" <aackers@alphalink.com.au> To: <AUS-VIC-NE-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Friday, March 01, 2002 1:18 PM Subject: Re: [