William Hogarth: Beer Street and Gin Lane

Beer Street and Gin Lane are arguably Hogarth’s two best known and certainly his most overtly political prints. He designed and published them as part of a campaign in support of the government’s Gin Act, eventually passed in the summer of 1751. Gin, an abbreviation of ‘geneva’, was first distilled in Holland in the early 17^th century, where it was originally produced as a medicine and sold in chemists’ shops to treat stomach complaints. Distilled from grain, and flavoured with the juice of juniper berries, it became especially popular in England after the arrival of William and Mary from the Netherlands in 1688. Cheap gin, without the juniper flavouring, was readily available in the firs