The Woodboy occupied a large site compared with other pubs on this map of 1886. Benjamin Rudkin was landlord as early as 1815. Mike Brown in his Tiger Tales & Ales cites a Mr Watts brewing there in 1808, and of him selling his brewing equipment at this time.
In a July 1842, an article in a local paper featured the case of William Glover of Cossington, who charged William Watts of stealing a bundle of his in the Woodboy.
The tables were turned however when it became clear that Glover had the bundle on him two hours after he clamed it had been stolen. Glover admitted he was very drunk that night and didn’t know what part of the town he was in. The bench declared that he was altogether a precious specimen of ‘a country bumpkin’ and ordered Glover to pay William White the cost of his time.
List of Woodboy licensees from Joseph Regan’s research of Leicester Directories. There is very often some discrepancies in the directories’ dates which does not take anything away from Joseph’s work which was all done pre-internet days. James Addison died in 1882, in Liverpool on his way back from holiday, his wife Elizabeth took over. 1864 Mary Garner was listed as owner,George Sherriff according to the licensing register took over c 1906, when he died wife Marry assumed control c1922.
Richard Tomkin was made bankrupt 1900. As yet no photograph has emerged of the Woodboy, Woodboy Street.
Tom Barclay in his memoirs wrote of living in Woodboy St in the around the 1840s. “our door in the court in Woodboy St was seldom open in summer and hardly ever in winter, it would never do to let the cold in. Public Houses were allowed to open far into the night, at this period, and children of any age were allowed to go in and out of them; often have I gone to the Woodboy public house for a farthings worth of small beer”
There was another Woodboy in Fleet Street in Leicester.
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