Claire, According to the Dictionary of Genealogy, "the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835 took administrative control of the towns away from the justices, and in 1888 the Local Government Act transferred administrative control of the counties to county councils". So depending upon the exact location of your ancestor's pub, ie within or without the town boundaries, the records will (should) be in the Liverpool Corporation records, or the Quarter Session records for Lancashire. The Justices of the Peace, who ran the Court of Quarter Sessions were responsible for administering "ale houses" until the reforms mentioned above. Many of the Quarter Session records have been microfilmed by the LDS, and can be ordered into your local LDS library. Hope this helps David Armstrong Maylands, Western Australia ----- Original Message ----- From: Claire To: eng-liverpool@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, July 31, 2009 10:37 PM Subject: [ENG-LIV] Researching a Publican in the 1860's Does anybody know whether there are any records of Liverpool publicans transferring their licenses and what information they might contain? I have found at least two occasions of an ancestor transferring her license in the Liverpool Mercury and two incidences of her appearing before the police courts for Sunday trading. I haven't researched a publican before so any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you Claire