Pub signs commemorating wars

During Remembrance Week it's good to discover that pub signs provide a pictorial link to conflicts across the centuries..

The Alma pictured arose during the Crimean War, fought between Russia and four allied forces, including Britain. It was the first war covered by journalists and their front line reports prompted Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole to travel to the Ukraine to nurse wounded soldiers.

The Battle of Alma was the first of the war and fought in 1854. There were 10,000 casualties. Pubs were given this name as a commemoration of the battle, by returning soldiers who retired to pubs or by landlords who had lost a son in battle..

This splendid picture from the Alma in Wandsworth not only shows a soldier in the thick of battle but also imaginatively has a hole where the cannon ball blasted through. Sometimes an Alma pub sign might show a woman which could have been inspired by Matthew Prior's poem of 1718 (Alma the Queen of the Body Castle plagued by evil desires) or by Spenser's Faerie Queene of 1590 (in which Alma was the mistress of the House of Temperance).

The Alma pub in Spelman Street London was a once a haunt of prostitutes and where Jack the Ripper may have found some of his victims.

Extracted from A Book About Pub Names by Elaine Saunders http://www.completetext.com/

Photo by Ewan M from http://flickr.com/search/?q=alma+pub+sign or visit his Pubology blog at http://pubology.wordpress.com/