St Mary's Village, Former Temperance Hall Holm, Scotland

Text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

The Temperance movement developed as a result of rising consumption of alcohol in the early 19th century (taxation on spirits was lowered in 1822) and a recognition that drunkenness was doing no good for the physical or moral health of the population. John Dunlop (1789-1868), a Greenock lawyer and philanthropist, was recognised in his own lifetime as 'the father of Temperance in Great Britain' and recognised the value of a communal effort to promote abstinence from alcohol. He organised an initial meeting in Glasgow in 1829, attended by William Collins, a printer and publisher who fervently advocated Dunlop's views, and together they spread their ideas throughout Britain. A number of different temperance groups grew up from this initial idea, each tackling the problem in a different way; the idea in Glasgow was to provide an alternative to the Public House, the famous Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms developing as a result. Similar concerns about the harmful effects of over indulgence were apparent in the United States at this time, with movements towards prohibition beginning to take off. An exiled Scot living in the US brought Good Templary (an alternative form of Dunlop's original temperance movement) to Scotland in 1869 and the first lodge was established in Glasgow in this year. By 1876, 1 131 lodges had been established in Scotland between Orkney and the Borders, and total membership of the Good Templars had reached 83 717. Members of the Holm branch of the Orkney Good Templars initially met in the Volunteers Drill Hall in St Mary's Village, until disputes between the Templars and the Volunteers caused the Templars to build a new hall into which they subsequently moved their meetings.