The Temperance Movement and Whisky: Wick's Dry Years and Beyond
Wick voted against alcohol licences in December 1920, but its licence holders fought the decision before the town’s licensing court refused their applications in April 1922. Its dry years grew out of a Scottish temperance movement that had begun by rejecting spirits rather than all alcoholic drinks, and a law that allowed local votes rather than imposing national prohibition.[5][7][8][9]
Temperance did not always mean abstinence
In 1829 John Dunlop founded an anti-drink society whose members renounced “ardent spirits”, including spirits and fortified wines, while allowing light wines and beers. Whisky therefore stood on the rejected side of an early temperance pledge that did not demand complete abstinence.[5]
That distinction divided campaigners. William Collins, the printer and publisher, wanted total abstinence and moved towards prohibition, parting ways with Dunlop. According to the Historical Association’s report of historian Dr Irene Maver’s lecture, Dunlop favoured “moral suasion”, persuasion rather than compulsion. Although hailed as the “Father of the Temperance Movement”, he was later marginalised.[5]
The movement nevertheless gathered substantial support: the same account records 44,000 members by 1831. Temperance was not one unchanging programme, but a movement within which persuasion, abstinence and legal prohibition could mean different things to different supporters.[5]
Those differences also entered politics. Maver’s account describes Liberals as more receptive to temperance demands, while Conservatives tended to support brewers and the licensed trade. Economic historian Padraig McKee identifies local option, allowing communities to determine licensing policy, as Liberal policy from the 1892 election, with overwhelming support among Scottish Liberal MPs.[4][5]
What the Temperance (Scotland) Act allowed
The Temperance (Scotland) Act received Royal Assent on 15 August 1913. Its stated purpose was to give electors in prescribed Scottish areas control over the grant and renewal of alcohol certificates. Its provisions came into operation in June 1920, following the delay specified in section 1.[1]
Electors had three choices: no change, limitation or no licence. A no-licence victory required both a substantial share of votes cast and support measured against the entire electoral register. Winning a simple majority of those who turned out was not enough.[1]
| Historical rule in Scotland, checked November 2026 | Requirement | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Starting a poll | A September requisition signed by at least one-tenth of the area’s electors | 1913 Act, section 5 [1] |
| Passing no licence | At least 55 per cent of votes recorded, with at least 35 per cent of registered electors voting for it | Section 2 [1] |
| Passing limitation | A simple majority, also representing at least 35 per cent of registered electors | Section 2 [1] |
| Applying limitation | Certificates reduced to no more than 75 per cent of those previously in force | Section 3 [1] |
These are historical Scottish provisions, not current licensing instructions. The Act also directed that votes for an unsuccessful no-licence resolution should be added to the limiting resolution; otherwise, where the required conditions were not met, no change applied.[1]
“No licence” was not an unconditional prohibition on every sale. Licensing courts could permit inns, hotels and restaurants to supply residents or serve alcohol with meals, but not through a public bar. That exception would become central to the severity of Wick’s decision.[1]
Wick’s vote and the publicans’ challenge
The figures printed in the John O’Groat Journal were decisive: 1,438 votes for no licence, 851 for no change and 29 for limitation. Elsewhere in Caithness, the paper reported, voters had rejected going dry.[7]
The Wick figures total 2,318 votes. No licence therefore received about 62 per cent, calculated from the newspaper’s figures, exceeding the Act’s 55 per cent threshold for votes cast. That calculation does not separately establish the threshold based on the register, which was another requirement of the law.[1][7]
The licence holders did not accept the result without a fight. In January 1921 they brought an action against Wick Town Council in the Court of Session, seeking annulment. Their objections concerned “insufficient secrecy and inconvenient lighting arrangements at polling booths”, alongside allegations of “intimidation and misapprehension”. These were the challengers’ allegations, not established findings.[8]
The council chose to defend the result, with all but three councillors supporting that course. The dispute therefore moved from the ballot box into a court challenge over how the vote had been conducted.[8]
By April 1922 the challenge had failed. The contemporary report, reproduced by the John O’Groat Journal, described the Wick Burgh Licensing Court refusing 23 alcohol licences at a sitting lasting about 15 minutes. Provost McEwen said the authorities could now give effect to the wishes of the community’s majority.[9]
The sequence matters: December 1920 was the vote, not the point at which the licensing court refused those applications. Calling 1920 the beginning of an immediately dry Wick compresses the ballot, litigation and licensing decisions into one event.[7][8][9]
Story box: even the hotels
The hotels presented a further choice. Parliament had left room for restricted licences, but Wick’s magistrates refused those applications too.[1][10]
| Story field | Record |
|---|---|
| Turning point | In April 1922 Wick’s licensing court refused hotel applications after refusing the other licences earlier that month. Contemporary report.[10] |
| Claim and verdict | Documented: Wick refused hotel licences despite the exception in the 1913 Act.[1][10] |
| What the record shows | The newspaper described Wick as becoming completely dry after the hotel refusals.[10] |
| Evidence against or gap | None found for the central claim in the supplied record. |
| Earliest known source | John O’Groat Journal, 28 April 1922, reproduced on 30 April 2022.[10] |
Not everyone welcomed the outcome. Bailie Green called it the “greatest legislative farce for many years”. His objection and the majority’s insistence that the no-licence vote must be respected appear in the same report, preserving disagreement within the town’s authorities rather than a picture of unanimous enthusiasm.[10]
What Wick’s dry years mean for whisky history
Wick’s story also belongs to the history of Pulteney distillery, but the licensing chronology and the production chronology must remain separate. A decision about local alcohol certificates does not, by itself, establish when a particular distillery stopped making spirit.[1][14]
Old Pulteney’s own history says James Henderson founded the distillery in 1826 and named it after Wick’s Pulteneytown. The producer describes Wick around 1910 as the “herring capital of the world”, placing its whisky story within the port’s fishing identity.[14]
Disputed: Old Pulteney records that prohibition was over in 1947 and production restarted in 1951, followed by refurbishment in 1958. The producer’s account acknowledges an interruption, but the year production stopped is not reliably established.[14]
The end of Wick’s dry years
Documented: Reports published in New Zealand in December 1946 said Wick had voted to end its dry status at the sixth attempt, with a majority of 441. They also reported that the town would remain dry over the new year because the licensing court did not meet until April.[13]
Disputed: The reports described the dry period as lasting 26 years and 20 years respectively. The duration cannot be settled from those conflicting descriptions alone.[13]
Beyond Wick: local votes and national politics
Wick was one part of a much wider Scottish experiment. McKee’s account records that the first polls in 1920 produced no-licence decisions in 14 towns and 12 wards of larger towns. Another eight towns and 19 wards voted for a 25 per cent reduction.[4]
Those figures distinguish towns from wards: they should not be casually recast as a count of whole towns banning sales. The mechanism operated through defined voting areas, and its outcomes included reduction as well as refusal of licences.[1][4]
A parliamentary answer in December 1965 recorded 1,131 Scottish temperance polls since the provisions took effect in 1920. Of these, 1,079 took place before 1930, including 95 in Glasgow; about 525 were repeat polls. The totals describe ballots, not that many different dry communities.[2]
Documented: East Dunbartonshire’s archive catalogue records Kirkintilloch becoming dry in 1921 and a council campaign winning the 1961 veto poll. It says Kirkintilloch remained dry until the final veto poll in 1968.[15]
Prohibition also had a parliamentary advocate. Edwin Scrymgeour represented Dundee from 15 November 1922 to 27 October 1931. His principal platform was total prohibition, and he helped unseat Winston Churchill at Dundee in 1922.[11][16]
Nor did the machinery simply disappear in 1959. The 1965 parliamentary answer explained that the provisions were then contained in the Licensing (Scotland) Act 1959. A later answer confirmed that repeal of the right to requisition temperance polls took effect on Royal Assent to the 1976 Act.[2][3]
Sources
[1] UK Parliament. Temperance (Scotland) Act 1913, 3 and 4 Geo. 5 c. 33, original King’s Printer edition, 1913.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/3-4/33/pdfs/ukpga_19130033_en.pdf
[2] UK Parliament, Hansard. Temperance Polls, written answer, HC Deb 15 December 1965, volume 722, column 283W.
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written_answers/1965/dec/15/temperance-polls
[3] UK Parliament, Hansard. Licensing Act (Implementation), written answer, HC Deb 16 November 1976, volume 919, column 482W.
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1976/nov/16/licensing-act-implementation
[4] Economic History Society. Padraig McKee, The Political Economy and Effectiveness of Early Twentieth Century British Alcohol Policy, 10 March 2026.
https://ehs.org.uk/the-political-economy-and-effectiveness-of-early-twentieth-century-british-alcohol-policy/
[5] Historical Association. The History of the Scottish Temperance Movement, report of a lecture by Dr Irene Maver, 10 April 2012.
https://www.history.org.uk/ha-news/news/1470
[7] John O’Groat Journal. Looking back: news from the Groat of yesteryear, 20 December 2020, reproducing reporting of 17 December 1920.
https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/looking-back-news-from-the-groat-of-yesteryear-221939
[8] John O’Groat Journal. Looking back, 21 February 2021, reproducing “Publicans fight no-licence decision”, 18 January 1921.
https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/looking-back-news-from-the-john-ogroat-journal-of-yesteryear-228031
[9] John O’Groat Journal. Looking back, 16 April 2022, reproducing reporting of 14 April 1922.
https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/looking-back-news-from-the-john-ogroat-journal-of-yestery-272002
[10] John O’Groat Journal. Looking back, 30 April 2022, reproducing reporting of 28 April 1922.
https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/news/looking-back-news-from-the-john-ogroat-journal-of-yestery-273242
[11] UK Parliament, Hansard. Mr Edwin Scrymgeour, historical member record, undated online edition.
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/people/mr-edwin-scrymgeour
[13] National Library of New Zealand, Papers Past. Rotorua Morning Post and Levin Chronicle, London reports on Wick, 13 December 1946.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/RMPOST19461213.2.32
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHRONL19461213.2.27
[14] Old Pulteney. About us, undated online producer history.
https://oldpulteney.com/about-us/
[15] East Dunbartonshire Leisure and Culture Trust, Archives. Thomas Stirling’s Scrapbook on the Kirkintilloch Veto Poll of 1961, undated online catalogue entry.
https://collections.edlc.co.uk/details/archive/110020516
[16] The Sunday Post. Mike Ritchie, Churchill’s road to and from Dundee remembered, 26 September 2022.
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/churchills-road-to-and-from-dundee-remembered-2/
This desk-researched article uses the supplied verified fact sheet, distinguishing reproduced contemporary reporting, parliamentary records, historical interpretation and the producer’s own account.
Last checked: November 2026