Substitute Records - the 1891 LVA List (part 2)

Last time out, I said that I suspected that a lot of the entries on the 1891 LVA list that I couldn't easily match to my existing map were off-licences, or "spirit grocers" as they were frequently known at the time. (That that term was often used as a euphemism for an actual pub, along with "wine merchant", is confusing as hell when trying to ascertain what is what)

And they were (including some food retailing chains of the era), but there are quite a lot that were actual pubs that I have verified by licence notices, sales ads etc from newspaper archives.

So far, I have added 24 'new' old pubs to the map - most closing before 1910, the latest in 1938. I have previously mapped every pub I could find in a 1943 Thoms, so would be surprised to have missed any that were open in 1891 and closed after 1943 - I'm fairly sure I am still missing some 60s-00s openings that have since closed.

This includes my 500th pre-2009 closure, Lennons of 43 Stephen Street Lower - where Masa opposite the Hairy Lemon is today, which just squeaks my 1902 start date by having probably closed in 1903.

I've also found a small handful of places that closed between 1891 and 1902; which don't meet my map rules. Should I ever push back further, I still have these recorded.

I've yet to properly dig in to some of the areas further outside the city centre due to poorer/less consistent addressing - lots of streets have been renumbered, making comparison work a trudge - and more likely to have been captured before, as a far, far higher % of suburban pubs from the Victorian era are still there.

After expanding entries with multiple pubs listed for a single owner, other oddities like a publican owning pubs two sides of a road with sequential numbers - this happened quite a bit! - and removing some duplicates that were probably due to a pub changing hands shortly before the list was written - I have it at 551 entries; with ~160 of them still trading as pubs today. These numbers may change a bit further as I finish off the list.

Only a very, very limited number are still trading with the same name as they had listed in 1891 - N0008 Mullets (albeit this has had other names since), N0211 Clarkes City Arms (as just City Arms), and the nearby N0219 Walsh's - but there is a huge caveat to this. The list is the list of the owners, and very very few gave the name of their pub if it had one.

I must also add that this list is not a list of every LVA member at the time - only those that were announcing they would not be giving Christmas boxes to customers that year.