My Thesis Statement
My thesis, The Keeper’s Trade: Skills, Attributes and the Pursuit of the Hotel Trade in Late-Nineteenth Century Guelph, explores the proprietor’s perspective and role in the hotel business. It concludes that during the period 1851-1916:
1. the keeper’s success was determined by possession of trade specific skills;
2. that the trade allowed for the accumulation of significant wealth;
3. that keepers’ social positions in the community were influenced by their respectability;
4. that family played a significant role in the enterprise;
5. and that many keepers were of Irish origin.

Perhaps it is appropriate to open with some wisdom from a particularly well-spoken political-economist on the character of the hotel keeper. Stephen Leacock, considering the formidable Josh Smith, proprietor of the hotel in Mariposa:

“There is usually and commonly, the burly figure of Mr. Smith, proprietor of Smith’s Hotel, standing in his chequered waistcoat, on the steps of his hostelry. It is not alone the huge bulk of Mr. Smith. It is not merely his costume, though the chequered waistcoat of dark blue with a flowered pattern forms, with his shepherd’s plaid trousers, his grey spats and patent leather boots, a colour scheme of no mean order. Nor is it merely Mr. Smith’s finely mottled face. The face, no doubt, is a notable one, - solemn, inexpressive, unreadable, the face of the heaven-born hotel keeper. It is more than that. After you have had a drink in Mr. Smith’s bar, and he has called you by your Christian name, you realize that you are dealing with one of the greatest minds in the hotel business.”

Late nineteenth-century hotel keepers managed a complex business
web and pursuit of the trade challenged the status of the keeper and family within the community. While the accumulation of their wealth largely stemmed from the liquor trade, this could lead to an oversimplification that masks the true complexity of their trade.

As I stated in my thesis, I entered into my study with the objective of demonstrating that hotel keeping was a complex business and that the late nineteenth-century hotel provided a diverse set of services to the community. Julia Roberts’ study of an earlier period in Upper Canadian history has shown this to be the case. However, following extensive research, compilation and analysis of business records from over a half a century for a variety of hotels in Guelph, I found my hypothesis in doubt. It seemed to be the case that the traffic in liquor (to adopt the governmental phrase) played an overwhelming role in the hotel trade. This is not simply a matter of biased temperance movement propaganda. My research has shown this to have been the case. When one considers the business of the hotel from a revenue standpoint, there was no question that over half of the revenues come solely from the sale of draft beer and spirits. And when exploring the contribution of liquor revenue to the profitability of the hotel, the role of liquor is supreme. Profits from the sale of drink are what made hotel keepers wealthy. As my research has shown, in 1895, for every dollar spent on beer by the keeper, he realized over $4 in revenue. So there it is. Booze is king and the hotel trade revolves around it. And therein lies the truth of the study.

While the sale of liquor may have been the motivation, pursuit of this end in itself led to a complex web of decisions. To acquire license meant that keepers also had to provide food and accommodation. Temperance hotels were a marginalized phenomenon. To be in the hotel game meant the acquisition of a liquor license. Although from a revenue standpoint, liquor was dominant, quantitatively the expenses associated with the provision of accommodation and meals were much more substantial. And, they could not be avoided. The shrewd keeper had to accept that they were required and to optimize their delivery. Additionally, possession of a license itself did not appear to be a foregone conclusion. I have shown in a number of cases that they were withheld and I remain open to discover that they were withdrawn in more cases than I came across.

The hotel keeper was first and foremost a labouring entrepreneur called upon to manage a business and demonstrate such skills as business input optimization, balancing the books, managing labour assets, planning for and forecasting demand, managing daily cashflow, credit with suppliers and deciding whether to reinvest capital in the enterprise, acquire real estate or increase the family’s quality of living. Likewise to ensure that the hotel was an ongoing concern the keeper managed relationships with licensing agents, local politicians, business leaders and equally important, with the customers of the hotel.

Mastery of skills was crucial to success in the trade.

However, to simply dwell on the business of the hotel alone, tends to deny humanity to the participants. As Julia Roberts has so aptly demonstrated, keepers had families too. Keepers “successfully integrated taverning with productive working lives and family responsibilities.” This adds an additional social layer to the study of the keeper’s trade - an appropriate complexity. Keepers’ families were raised in a balance of community involvement and possibly community condemnation. The keeper had to maintain relations with the community, with authorities and to pave a way for his family.

The narrative of the McAteer family that informs many aspects of this study demonstrated this admirably. I summarize by noting that John McAteer came to Canada with his father, mother and two siblings. Through the vagaries of fate he soon found himself supporting a widowed mother, spinster sister and a growing family of his own. Along with his wife he managed to assemble a substantial real estate portfolio from the proceeds of the keeping trade. The family participated in the business and it provided for them as well. He was respected enough in the community to be elected to town council and despite an apparent downturn in the industry; his widow went on to enjoy a comfortable retirement herself and the ability to support a substantial brood. The point of this narrative and of my thesis was to demonstrate that: The occupation of hotelkeeper in Guelph during the period 1851-1916, was one which if successful could generate significant financial reward. The trade was subject to pressures not just from rigourous licensing, but also the social pressures of a community influenced by the temperance movement.
Ultimately, from a class perspective, the hotel keeper could be described as parvenu bourgeois, usually raised from the ranks of the working class, but through accumulation of wealth allowing for the pursuit of an upper-middle-class lifestyle. Children attended private schools, vacation properties were maintained and fine clothing was part of the keeper’s family’s lot.

My study employed a methodology of asking simple questions, posing some obvious answers and attempting to substantiate them. This provided a motivation as well as a rigour to my research.

I was rewarded in discovering a superb cache of primary materials left by the McAteer family and augmenting this with a wide variety of public materials drawn from:
1. Land Registry Ledgers,
2. The R.G. Dun Credit Advisory Records
3. Manuscript Census Data;
4. Municipal Tax Records;
5. Local Newspapers and Business Directories
6. Period Photographs
While the secondary literature on this area was sparse, I was able to mine it for direction.

I tip my hat to Julia Roberts for a well-informed and comprehensive view of the role of the tavern in Upper Canadian life and a superb study of the strata of patrons that could be found in these establishments.

Robert Campbell’s work on the post-prohibition hotel also significantly informed this study. Not only through his discourse leading up to prohibition, but also through his superb analysis of the dynamics of public licensing of the liquor trade.

The study of liquor trade itself has been most recently graced with Craig Heron’s study of the ambivalence of Canadian society to the presence of alcohol in our culture. Jan Noel’s Canada Dry and Cheryl Warsh’s collection, Drink in Canada, allowed for a fuller understanding of the growth and evolution of temperance movements in Canadian society. They especially demonstrated the less than obvious social aspects that were cloaked by the outward appearance of godliness and social compassion. In this I refer specifically to political dimensions such as the temperance movement as a counter to the Orange Order, especially in Ontario.

Andrew Holman and David Burley make excellent observations in their respective works towards an understanding of how respectability can be measured within Victorian Society and the way in which hotel keepers and other small businessmen fit into that community.

I have been further subsequently informed by the work of Peter Gossage in St-Hyacinthe, where he identifies the substantial wealth of the hotelkeeper and enjoyment the fruits of an upper-middle-class living. Additionally, the Peter Groth’s work on Living Downtown has demonstrated that the distinctions between hotels and boarding houses and has documented the transition from the hotel to the apartment house.

The exploration, collation, categorization, synthesis and ultimately analysis of my research data for Guelph provided us with an ability to step across the hotel threshold and enjoy, at least virtually, a privileged position looking over the shoulder of the clerk as he entered the names of guests in the register, and to accompany the wife who went to a variety of stores to obtains provisions for the daily operation of the hotel. I have been able to appreciate the employees who found a place within the operation of the hotel and to appreciate the proprietor who functioned as a manger and supervisor to accomplish the various tasks at hand in running the hotel. The keeper managed the internal operation of the hotel and the external relations with the larger community whether it was vernacular or official.
• Cooking the meals,
• serving the drinks,
• buying the groceries,
• cleaning the rooms,
• renovating, maintaining and expanding the hotel,
• meeting the inspector,
• defending oneself in court,
• raising a family,
• subcontracting for labour,
• leasing or buying a hotel
All activities which give us some better appreciation of the complex life of a hotel keeper and family.

The keeper was in the end a social animal. Thus, the oft used description of the keeper as a character and the requirement that the keeper be deemed to have good character before granting of a license. I am aware that we are talking about character is two distinct ways. The distinction however, is one that that speaks to the particular nature of the keeper. Respected, as well as appreciated. This skill may well explain the proliferation of those of Irish origin in the trade.

My Thoughts
I may be a hackneyed expression, but I feel compelled to admit that my study has raised more questions than it has answered. I feel that this is a wonderful place in which to find myself and this research – this thesis, ultimately a preliminary report on a small fraction of my findings. The sources consulted have provided a rich vein for exploration, and they have demonstrated that there is a possibility of so much more work to be done with them.

The fact that a wide variety of sources were consulted has reinforced synthesis and allowed for the elimination of the lacunae of the sources consulted in isolation.

Public records provided a useful framework for positioning private sources and allowed for formation of a useful checksum approach. This was demonstrated for example in the use of expenses to calculate revenues and use of revenues when expenses weren’t complete. Land records pointed out where evidence of lease and rental payments might be sought in private papers and business directories pointed to municipal tax rolls which were reflected and refined by private receipts. Receipts and invoices pointed back to business directories for refinement.

While there remains a huge gap in the literature regarding the business operation of the nineteenth-century hotel and the social role and mobility of the hotel keeper, it is my hope that this thesis contributes in at least some small measure to helping to answer some questions and possibly contribute to future work in this area.

My study of the hotel has shown that there were more Irishmen running hotels than were represented in the general population. Those keepers made handsome returns on the investment, an investment largely of their specialized skills in the operation of a hotel. The hotel was a prolific part of the nineteenth century urban streetscape and individual hotel keepers enjoyed a respect of customers that may also have translated into a civic respectability, one measure of which was their electability to public office. Finally, the family participated in the running of the hotel and in so doing contributed to familial success.

My Conclusions
The keeper was a colourful, colloquial and integral member of the nineteenth-century community. Just as Leacock’s, Josh Smith radiated his presence in the community, hopefully my study of the keeper’s trade has helped to illuminate this under examined and deserving member of society.