DOVER KENT ARCHIVES

Page Updated:- Friday, 25 February, 2022.

PUB LIST PUBLIC HOUSES Paul Skelton

Earliest 1841-

Royal George

Closed 1920s

5 Wood Street

Swanley

Royal George

Above photo, date unknown, kindly sent by Michael Norman.

Royal George 2012

Above Google image, May 2012, showing 5 (left) and 5A (right).

 

The pub was named after George IV (King 1820-1830).

Project 2014 has been started to try and identify all the pubs that are and have ever been open in Kent. I have just added this pub to that list but your help is definitely needed regarding it's history.

As the information is found or sent to me, including photographs, it will be shown here.

Thanks for your co-operation.

 

From an email received 1 February 2022.

Just seen this posted in a Swanley group on facebook re "Tom and Jerry" and "Royal George," suggests they were not 2 separate places.

The census records for 1841, 1851 and 1861 tell us that John Mills ran a small Beer house along Wood Street in Swanley Village (now numbered 5 and 5a). It was called a "Tom and Jerry".

A Beer house was a type of public house created in the United Kingdom by the 1830 Beer house Act, legally defined as a place "where beer is sold to be consumed on the premises".

They were also known as 'small' or 'Tom and Jerry' shops. Existing public houses were issued with licences by local magistrates under the terms of the Retail Brewers Act 1828, and were subject to police inspections at any time of the day or night. Proprietors of the new beer houses, on the other hand, simply had to buy a licence from the government costing two guineas per annum, Until the Wine and Beer house Act 1869 gave local magistrates the authority to renew beer house licences.

So, for nearly 40 years from 1830 Beer houses or "Tom and Jerrys" were not subject to local authority control and enjoyed a profitable and sometimes rather wild existence.

John had worked the land all his life but at the age of around 50 decided to try his luck with this new phenomenon of an unlicensed Beer house.

The 1841 census describes John as a Tom & Jerry and Agricultural Labourer, So working in the fields when opportunities and needs arose. The 1851 census does not mention the Beer house, but the 1861 census does. It looks as though he and his family were resident there all through this period. John died in 1865, 3 years after his wife Charlotte.

Their daughter, also named Charlotte married James Dunmall in 1853 and were living along Goss Hill in 1861 but had moved to Wood street by 1871 - it looks very likely that they took over the beer house when her father died. The 1881 census shows James still there although Charlotte had died. The premises now has the pub name of the "Royal George".

James remained there through the 1891 and 1901 census periods until his death in 1902, after which his son Edwin took over. He was there with his family as the licensee in 1911. By the time of the 1921 census, Edwin is still living there although the pub is no more.

The premises had returned to residential use, split into two. They are today numbered 5 and 5a Wood Street.

 

LICENSEE LIST

MILLS John 1841-65 dec'd (also Agricultural Labourer age 71 in 1861Census)

DUNMALL James 1881-1901+ (widower age 54 in 1881Census)

DUNMALL Edwin 1911-13+ (age 40 in 1911Census)

https://pubwiki.co.uk/RoyalGeorge.shtml

 

CensusCensus

 

If anyone should have any further information, or indeed any pictures or photographs of the above licensed premises, please email:-

TOP Valid CSS Valid XTHML