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Pubs and Publicans and Licensed Victuallers 

I have helped people with London Pubs questions from Trade Directories -Kelly's directories do list Pubs under a heading Publicans which is in pub name alphabetic sequence. The publicans themselves are listed in the Commercial directory section of Kelly's in surname sequence with every other person in a business.

Licensed Victuallers is a confusing term as it seems sometimes to apply to publicans but also to people running places that sell alcohol and food and perhaps also beer retailers which at some periods may not be just off licences (bottle shops) as I first thought - if anyone has some legal definitions from 19th century please advise. Some people have ancestors living in what sounds like a pub name that in a trade directory is just a beer retailer with a street number. . 

2008 Kevan is very active with maps and Pubs and has sites at http://essexpub.net and  http://londonpublichouse.com and http://visiteastlondon.net and http://deadpubs.co.uk/index.shtml which is called London, Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Middlesex, Surrey & Sussex Pubs, Inns, Taverns & Beer Houses History & Trade Directory.


Another couple of sites of interest 

Web search in say www.google.com there is a wealth of info on pubs on the web. I have found photo etc of old pubs in Hammersmith etc using google

Some other Pub sites  

The Carfax Catalogue: Pubs in Oxfordshire

Records of Licences issued to Publicans can often be found in the records of Courts of Petty Sessions which may be county record offices

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Pubsindex was a popular lookup service run by Stan Gooch & Bob Sones sadly due sickness  their web site has been off the air. 8/2005 they said contact at pubsindex@pubsindex.freeserve.co.uk but  appears to be inactive 6/2008

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