‘Tosspots’ and ‘Quaffers’: Characterizations of Drinking and Drunkenness in Hamilton City, 1945-1989

Abstract

This thesis investigates how drinking and drunkenness behaviours were characterized and viewed in Hamilton city and how they were influenced by a number of factors between the release of the 1945-46 Royal Commission on Licensing’s findings and the passing of the 1989 Sale of Liquor Act. In doing so this study seeks to examine drinking and drunkenness in an historical context that acknowledges these things as existing in more than simply a pathological light.

Through the themes of legislative change, cultural difference and characterizations of youth drinking and drunkenness this study answers a call to examine people’s understandings of drinking and drunkenness and the meanings they give to drinking and drunkenness in order to create a broader understanding of Hamilton’s and New Zealand’s history.