A Manchester Punch-House
About the middle of the last century, a man named John Shaw, who had served in the army as a dragoon, having lost his wife and four or five children, solaced himself by opening a public-house in the Old Shambles, Manchester, in conducting which he was supported by a sturdy woman-servant, “Molly.” John Shaw, having been much abroad, had acquired a knack of brewing punch, then a favourite beverage; and from this attraction, his house soon began to be frequented by the principal merchants and manufacturers of the town, and to be known as “John Shaw’s Punch-house;” sign it had none. As Dr. Aikin says in 1795 that Shaw had then kept the house more than fifty years, we have here an institution dating prior to the memorable ’45. Having made a comfortable competence, John Shaw, who was a lover of early hours, and, probably from his military training, a martinet in discipline, instituted the singular rule of closing his house to customers at eight o’clock in the evening. As soon as the clock struck the hour, John walked into the one public room of the house, and in a loud voice and imperative tone, proclaimed “Eight o’clock, gentlemen; eight o’clock.” After this no entreaties for more liquor, however urgent or suppliant, could prevail over the inexorable landlord. If the announcement of the hour did not at once produce the desired effect, John had two modes of summary ejectment. He would call to Molly to bring his horsewhip, and crack it in the ears and near the persons of his guests; and should this fail, Molly was ordered to bring her pail, with which she speedily flooded the floor, and drove the guests out wet-shod. Tradition says that the punch brewed by John Shaw was something very delicious. In mixing it, he used a long-shanked silver table-spoon, like a modern gravy-spoon, which, for convenience, he carried in a side pocket, like that in which a carpenter carries his two-foot rule. Punch was usually served in small bowls (that is, less than the “crown bowls” of later days) of two sizes and prices; a shilling bowl being termed “a P of punch”—“a Q of punch” denoting a sixpenny bowl. The origin of these slang names is unknown. Can it have any reference to the old saying—“Mind your P’s and Q’s?” If a gentleman came alone and found none to join him, he called for “a Q.” If two or more joined, they called for “a P;” but seldom more was spent than about sixpence per head. Though eccentric and austere, John won the respect and esteem of his customers, by his strict integrity and steadfast adherence to his rules.
For his excellent regulation as to the hour of closing, he is said to have frequently received the thanks of the ladies of Manchester, whose male friends were thus induced to return home early and sober. At length this nightly meeting of friends and acquaintances at John Shaw’s grew into an organised club of a convivial character, bearing his name. Its objects were not political; yet, John and his guests being all of the same political party, there was sufficient unanimity among them to preserve harmony and concord. John’s roof sheltered none but stout, thorough-going Tories of the old school, genuine “Church and King” men; nay, even “rank Jacobites.” If, perchance, from ignorance of the character of the house, any unhappy Whig, any unfortunate partisan of the house of Hanover, any known member of a dissenting conventicle, strayed into John Shaw’s, he found himself in a worse condition than that of a solitary wasp in a beehive.
The war played the mischief with John’s inimitable brew: limes became scarce; lemons were substituted; at length of these too, and of the old pine-apple rum of Jamaica, the supplies were so frequently cut off by French privateers, that a few years before John Shaw’s death, the innovation of “grog” in place of punch struck a heavy blow at the old man’s heart. Even autocrats must die, and at length, on the 26th January, 1796, John Shaw was gathered to his fathers, at the ripe old age of eighty-three, having ruled his house upwards of fifty-eight years; namely, from the year 1738. But though John Shaw ceased to rule, the club still lived and flourished. His successor in the house carried on the same “early-closing movement,” with the aid of the same old servant Molly. At length the house was pulled down, and the club was very migratory for some years. It finally settled down in 1852, in the “Spread Eagle” Hotel, Corporation Street, where it still prospers and flourishes.
In 1834, John Shaw’s absorbed into its venerable bosom another club of similar character, entitled “The Sociable Club.” The society possesses among its relics oil-paintings of John Shaw and his maid Molly, and of several presidents of past years. A few years ago, a singular old china punchbowl, which had been the property of John Shaw himself, was restored to the club as its rightful property by the descendant of a trustee. It is a barrel-shaped vessel, suspended on a stillage, with a metal tap at one end, whence to draw the liquor, which it received through a large opening or bung-hole. Besides assembling every evening, winter and summer, between five and eight o’clock, a few of the members dine together every Saturday at 2 P.M.; and they have still an annual dinner, when old friends and members drink old wine, toast old toasts, tell old stories, or “fight their battles o’er again.” Such is John Shaw’s club—nearly a century and a quarter old.—Abridged from the Book of Days.