Our next online seminar will take place at 12.15 (UK time) on 30th October 2026 on zoom (email us for the link) featuring long-term member and recent prize winner, Dr Amy Burnett talking about her groundbreaking research on women's work in seventeenth century alehouses. Amy completed her PhD in November 2024 and since then, it has been cited as a key text in a Master's course, been requested for the UK government library, and co-won the ADHS Dissertation Prize (along with fellow winner, Dr. Taylor Dysart). In this seminar, Amy will provide an overview of some of her key arguments and hopefully leave you convinced that the early modern ale trade was, in fact, an industry of women. If you cannot attend the talk, you can follow her research at amy-burnett.co.uk and @dramyburnett on Instagram.
“Early modern alewives: a history"
This thesis argues that the early modern Westcountry ale trade was an industry of women.
There have been no book-length studies of the female ale seller, and when she is afforded a section within a chapter on the ale trade, her work is often obscured if the historian consults licences or lists of victuallers. The sources used in this study were chosen for their ability to reveal women’s licensed and unlicensed work in alehouses and inns.
This provides a foundation for chapter two, which considers probate inventories of brewers, sellers, and brewer-sellers. By the seventeenth century, these were increasingly separate occupations. While men dominated the brewing trade, women - particularly wives who were comfortably well-off - remained dominant in the selling of ale.
Petitions reveal how the licensing system did not dictate the ale trade. If a trader had a good reputation, the parish permitted them to trade. As such, ale sellers operated within a network of ‘horizontal authority’. Primarily, the working manager of the alehouse (usually a woman) needed to focus on her relationship with the community, including local authorities. The regional authorities’ relationship with the licence-holder (usually a man) was of lesser importance.
Finally, court depositions are presented as an especially strong source material for the analysis of women’s work in the ale trade. They show that the ale trade was possible without men, but impossible without women. Using a variation of the ‘verb oriented method’, court depositions show exactly what was done, when it was done, and by whom. This was an all-hours trade that relied especially on networks of women: typically, a wife stood at the helm, and was supported by daughters, female servants, female neighbours. Men’s input was limited to reprimanding criminals or entertaining male guests. As such, working in an alehouse was gender-specific - and women, particularly wives, were the ‘chiefe doers’.
