South Wales Valleys Pubs

Because they did not yet have their own clubhouses many of the early rugby and soccer clubs would have been founded, met and even changed before matches, in a local public house. Indeed if anything rivaled sport in popular activity and entertainment at this time it was 'the pub'. Villages in the mining valleys had a tremendous number of public houses and beer-shops per head of the population and before licensing laws were introduced they were open the greater part of the day. A description of a pub at this time is given by Bryn Lewis, whose father kept the New Inn Hotel in Clydach Vale.

There was over eighteen pumps in the big bar alone and there was a small bar that men in working clothes weren't allowed in. On a Friday pay day, we'd have 23 people serving behind the bar, and when the hooter went for image of the communities of the South Wales the men to come up we'd start drawing the pints of beer and put them under the counter . . . There was a lot of drunkenness and nearly every Saturday night a lot of fighting . . . Women were only allowed in the 'jug and Bottle' . . . only about half a dozen women came in altogether to drink . . . I never saw women drink until I went to London in 1926. Colliers would drink eleven or twelve pints, and the beer was stronger then ... They played dominoes, rings, bagatelle ... quoits ...

Why was drinking so widespread? Drinking beer was as popular in the rural areas of Wales as it was in the valleys and it was much preferred to drinking water, milk or tea. This letter sent by a miner to a newspaper in 1881 gives some help in finding an explanation for this:

How would these very good people (who want pubs to be closed on a Sunday) like to live days, weeks and months underground without a sign of the sun, and then on a wet Sunday to keep within doors all the sunless hours, except while attending divine worship? Oh, these very generous people have their nice cosy Clubs or homes which they enjoy every day. But the collier has to live in discomfort in a small house.

Drunkenness was one result of this, though the amount of it was often exaggerated by campaigners against pubs and drinking (the Temperance Movement). In 1881 in Glamorgan the place with the highest number of convictions for drunkenness (Pontypridd) had 9.1 convictions for every 1,000 of its population. By the end of the 19th century drunkenness had declined a great deal. Some of this was due to the campaigning of the Temperance Movement, but it also had much to do with the supply of purer drinking water, the building of halls and libraries where people could meet and the growing popularity of open-air sport.