Catalogue reference: HO 44/38 f252

Total Abstinence Society handbill, 1840

This handbill advertises a lecture by the Rev. G.C. Smith (1783-1863) a well known eccentric missionary who wrote the first English tract advocating the formation of temperance societies in 1829.  By 1840, when this lecture took place, attitudes had hardened.  Teetotalism or total abstinence that proclaimed that all drinking of alcohol was wrong was becoming a much more significant force than the earlier, more moderate, temperance movement.