Trust Houses Ltd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Trust Houses Ltd was a British hospitality company with temperance origins dating back to 1900. It maintained a distinctive ethos for much of the 20th century. In 1970, at which point it was operating almost 200 hotels, it merged with Forte Holdings Ltd to form Trust House Forte (THF), later the Forte Group.
In 1900, Albert Grey, the fourth Earl Grey, proposed a plan to establish a system of what were termed ‘public house trust companies’ for London and the provinces. These companies would acquire licensed premises and manage them as trusts in the interests of the community, rather than private profit. In this Grey was influenced by temperance proposals published in 1894 by Francis Jayne, Bishop of Chester, who had studied the Swedish Gothenburg system. The managers of trust-run licensed premises would be paid a fixed salary with a bonus for good management, but no commission on the sale of alcohol. The public-houses would be refreshment houses, and not merely drinking bars. Overall promotion of the scheme was carried out by an umbrella organisation chaired by Grey, the Central Public House Trust Association, which remained in being up until at least 1937.[1] His initiative coincided with the start of motor tourism, and as well as reducing alcohol consumption, the system promised to give new life to the many country inns and hotels that had languished since the end of the coaching era. Lord Grey looked to the gentry and philanthropists across the country to back the initiative in their local areas.[2][3]
Early public house trusts
Between 1900 and the outbreak of WWI, public house trust companies were mooted or formed for areas including the following:
- 1901: Derbyshire,[4] Northumberland,[5] London metropolitan area,[2] Ulster,[6] Kent,[7] Sussex,[8] Surrey[9]
- 1902: Durham,[10] Glasgow,[10] Hampshire,[10] North Yorkshire,[10] Renfrewshire,[10] Somerset[11] (later named the Western Counties Public House Trust)[12]
- late 1902/early 1903: Devon,[13] Glamorgan,[14] Lancashire,[10] Liverpool & District
- 1903: Hertfordshire,[15] Gloucestershire[16]
- 1906: Hertfordshire and Essex companies merge,[17] becoming by 1910 the Home Counties Public House Trust[18]
