"Damn You, You Informing Bitch." Vox Populi and the Unmaking of the Gin Act of 1736

This study examines the interaction between legislation and popular culture, with a particular emphasis on the extent to which popular resistance undermined enforcement of the Gin Act of 1736. It is argued that popular resistance, while significant, had no effect on policy until members of the middle classes intervened in an attempt to restore the social relations that had existed before the Act took effect. It was only at this point that the Act became a dead letter. In this role members of the middle classes functioned as mediators between two cultures, one plebeian, the other patrician. As such, our findings suggest that the dialectic of plebeian culture and patrician culture, as variously articulated by E.P. Thompson, may be excessively stark, especially when applied to a setting as dense and heterogenous as early Hanoverian London. Our findings also suggest that working men and women in the capital worked and socialized side by side, sometimes as drinking companions, and sometimes as professional informers.