RED LION, 110 WELLINGTON STREET

The Red Lion, just inside from East Street North/West side of Wellington Street.

A circa 1850s beerhouse, in 1870 the licensee was Barnard Hyde. Thomas Armstrong followed and died in 1875.  His executers transferred the licence to Charles Gee, who also brewed was there for the next fifteen years until money problems hit.  A distress for rent was charged on him with the F&F of  the household and trade being auctioned off.  Eventually he was declared bankrupt in 1891.  No accounts having been kept, Gee owed over £300 in stock rent etc.

Nathaniel Brewin landlord was from the 1890s until 1920s.  During his time the now owners, the City Brewery Lichfield, burnt down in 1916. The Munitions Ministry refused permission to rebuild the whole of their estate and around 200 pubs were acquired by the Wolverhampton & Dudley Brewery (Banks).

During the late 1930s, David Peter Dunsworth was licensee.  In March 1946, a police raid on his premises after suspicions of him running a ‘bookies’ resulted on seventy bets on horses racing that day being found on slips behind the bar. There were almost £50 in notes on Dunsworth’s person. Others were fined for ‘haunting and resorting’ to the Red Lion for the purpose of betting.

Dunsworth’s defence lawyer said betting was like drinking a disease, which didn’t help his cause. Dunsworth was fined £50 and his licence transferred on a protection order to Ernest Brooks. 

Leslie Foster was landlord in the 1950s. The Red Lion closed its doors in November 1959.

In 1900, a poisoning scandal broke in the brewing industry where invert sugar had been contaminated by arsenic, mainly in the north.  Over 6000 people were poisoned, with at least seventy fatalities, as many brewers would use extracts from the same sugar refinery.  Around 100 brewers, including Bass and Ind Coope, were involved. Panic ensued, Lichfield City Brewery, who owned the Red Lion was one of the many to have found traces of arsenic in their beer.  They eventually had to take out disclaimers in their pubs and in the press.