Dear Duncan,
> All that being said, the actual phrase on the sign, "To the Jug
> Department" is very strange - "off-sales", "jug & bottle" and things
> like that would be much more normal - has anybody seen this phrase in
> use elsewhere in a pub-related context? Are you 100% certain that it is
> actually relating to off-licence sales from a public house?
That's an interesting question, and I'd agree that "bottle and jug
department" seems the more common phrase. But in an unsystematic and
incomplete search of the 19th century newspapers, it seems possible to find
"Jug Department" used as a synonym for "Bottle and Jug Department" - for
example "Daily News (London, England), Saturday, April 30, 1853":
'The part of the house he went to was the "jug department" [quotation marks
in original] and almost as soon as he had entered, the dog bit him on the
leg.'
But also interesting is this from The Era (London, England), Sunday,
November 13, 1859, in a section of the paper headed "For Licensed
Victuallers": [in a discussion of complaints being brought against pubicans
for ejecting unwelcome customers] "In this instance the man had the
audacity to fetch the beer from another house, and drink it in the private,
or jug department." Which suggests not only something a little different to
a hatch in a back alley, but rather supports Duncan's assertion that one
should consider it as belonging to the upper rather than the lower end of
the social spectrum.
And consider also the case reported in the "The Sheffield & Rotherham
Independent. Supplement. (Sheffield, England), Saturday, March 01, 1856;
pg. 6; Issue 1899", a county court case for recovering an outstanding bill
for painting signboards and decorative glass panes specifically for a
"Bottle and Jug Department". In this case the publican's desire to outdo a
neighbouring house in the fineness of his signage seems to have given the
impression to the sign-writer of having an unlimited budget, which the
publican subsequently disputed.
But here, in Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (London, England), Sunday, May 13,
1866; Issue 1225, the appearance seems to be much more of a less grand
location: 'At eleven o'clock on the morning of February 13th, the prisoner
and his two companions were in front of the bar, in a compartment termed
"the jug department," and three other men, with whom they appeared to be
intimate, were in another part of the bar.'
It seems to me that it may well refer to an off-sales window (and supposing
that sign-writers are paid by the word, the abbreviation may be an
understandable one), but I think Duncan makes a good point in cautioning
that one should not assume this means a hidden away, meaner, part of the
pub. I would certainly have made that assumption, and I am grateful for
learning otherwise.
I think there is a great deal of potential in using those newspapers made
available online, in this country and overseas, just because of the size of
the corpus; for example, as a complement to dictionaries. Doubtless there
are dangers too.
Best wishes
Paul
--
Paul Betteridge, Leafield, Oxfordshire
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