United Kingdom Alliance

The United Kingdom Alliance was a temperance movement in the United Kingdom founded in 1853 in Manchester to work for the prohibition of the trade in alcohol in the United Kingdom. This occurred in a context of support for the type of law passed by General Neal Dow in Maine, United States, in 1851, prohibiting the sale of intoxicants.

The idea was initiated by Nathaniel Card (1805–1856), an Irish cotton manufacturer and member of the Society of Friends. He had earlier been a member of the Manchester and Salford Temperance Society, and had taken his inspiration from the success of what later became known as the Maine law. At a private meeting at Card's house on 20 July 1852, the National League for the Total and Legal Suppression of Intemperance was formed. Those present included Joseph Brotherton Member of Parliament for Salford and his cousin Alderman William Hervey, also of Salford. At a subsequent meeting of the League they formed a Provisional Committee based in Manchester. It was not, as some people thought, simply another temperance movement or teetotal organisation; the organisers believed that temperance societies fail until legal temptations for drink and drunkenness was taken away. They aimed for legislative suppression of traffic in intoxicating beverages.

On 14 February 1853, the name of the organisation changed to the United Kingdom Alliance for the Suppression of the Traffic in all Intoxicating Liquors. In June that same year Sir Walter C. Trevelyan became their first president. The secretary was T. B. Barker, whom William Molesworth had described as the "soul of the agitation". The General Council held their first meeting in October. Their early devotees were a mixed group of Temperance reformers, and Anti-Corn Law League agitators. The membership included Father Matthew, James Silk Buckingham, the London publisher William Tweedie, Samuel Bowly, Sir Joseph Cowen, Frederic Richard Lees (1815–1897),Joseph Livesey of Preston and Samuel Pope. Together they developed a resolution:

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