Title

Sydney Nevile: Squire in the slums or progressive brewer?

Abstract

Alistair Mutch argues that Sydney O. Nevile co-operated with social workers in Somers Town owing to his own position as the son of a member of the gentry. Whitbread's subsequent pub improvement programme, Mutch contends, reflected the firm's work in this London slum. This article challenges Mutch's thesis, and points to Nevile's social status as an outsider, who survived truly by his own wits, arduous effort, sense of social inferiority and as a result of sheer luck. Involvement with Somers Town pubs came late in Whitbread's pub improvements and had impact neither on the company nor on how Nevile subsequently approached reforming pubs.

Department(s)

History

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2011.578133

Keywords

progressivism, improved public houses, Sydney Nevile, businessmen and reform, Whitbread & Company, social reform, social workers, World War I, disinterested management

Publication Date

2011

Journal Title

Business History

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