In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the police and magistrates strictly enforced the laws that applied to licensed premises. The police would often visit pubs to ensure everything was in order.

On Monday, 12 December 1921, at about 9.30 p.m., P C Roberts, the policeman stationed at West Coker, visited the Royal Oak Inn at Hardington Moor.[1] In the bar area, he found between fifteen and twenty men and two boys, Victor Partridge, aged 12, and Jimmie Hutchings, aged 10.

When Roberts asked the landlord, James Saint Partridge, to account for the boys’ presence, he said he did not know they were there.

Roberts was not someone to turn a blind eye. During the war, he spent four years with the Military Mounted Police, and he later reached the rank of sergeant before retiring in 1943.[2]

At Yeovil County Licensing Sessions on 1 February 1922, Partridge was charged with unlawfully allowing children under 14 in the bar of licenced premises during opening hours.

His solicitor entered a plea of not guilty, arguing that the room was not a bar. The magistrates rejected this defence and fined Partridge 20s.

James Partridge became the pub’s licensee after his mother died in 1911 and ran it until he died in 1938, when his nephew, Sonny White, took over.

Vic Partridge was the son of James Partridge’s cousin, Archibald Partridge. He married Ethel May Churchill in 1937. He lived until 91 and had three children: David, Margarete, and Delia.

Jimmie Hutchings was the grandson of George Hutchings, who served a 24-year jail sentence for killing PC Cox in Netherton Lane in 1876.[3]

Betty Samways has kindly supplied Vic Partridge’s photograph.

References

[1] Western Chronicle 6 January 1922 p. 10; 3 February p. 3; RG15, piece 11308, schedule 154.

[2] British Army World War 1 Service Records, 1914-1920 (Albert Victor Roberts); Somerset Guardian and Radstock Observer, 15 October 1943 p.3.

[3] RG15, piece 11308, schedule 58.