SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Is there a register of pub licensees? I have just learned that my maternal grandmother (who I never met) was at one time the landlady of the famous Scarbrough Taps Hotel.If this is true then it would have to have been sometime between 1920 and 1939; I have spent ages searching the net without success - help!

Sarah Atkinson?She is th only female licensee listed from the Turn of the century until 1968.If so, she succeeded the license from her brother, Frederick William Wood, on 28th October 1898 and held it until 12th September 1919 [although she is still listed in the 1920 Kelly's Directory as the Licensee] when it transfered to her son Edward Theodore Silverwood Atkinson, who had previously been a plumber.    

I can't believe you got so much info so quickly! Unfortunately it doesn't help as my grandmas name was Barbara Ellen BATEY (or Barbara Ellen ELSEY), so from what you have uncovered she was either living there as the landlords wife and not as the licensee, or I may have been misled altogether.

there will be records of the licensees under the licencing sessions for the period as anyone running a public house had to be licenced.wherever the records for leeds sessions are kept (which might be West Yorkshire Archives).They might show something although if as stated above the licensee remained the same,I would suspect that she might actually have been a barmaid instead of the licensee .it is amazing how peoples memory over people who worked in pubs gets confused.One of my ancestors was a barman instead of the licensee when I checked records of the pub he was supposed to have run against the census.

Steve Jones is correct. The information comes from the Licensing Registers which are held by the West Yorkshire Joint Archive Service.

just to resurrect this thread.Has anyone been upstairs here?is there anything left of the music hall it used to be?

Resurrecting the thread again. There is a board prominently located inside the Taps which lists most of the licensees up to the present day.
I say most because,rather strangely,there is a request for information as to who ran the pub post 2nd world war. Can't remember the exact dates as we'd had a couple,lol. Still a good pub,in my opinion,they also seem to like it on Tripadvisor.

Hi all. Attached are photos of the licencees of the Taps going back to the 1800s. Amazing how recent the missing names are,complete with the request for information.

In the 18th century it was common for licensing proceedings to be posted in the local press, together with reports of minor infringments, Directories also included names. In the 20th century there were usually no such reports and directories seem to have stopped in the early 1950s.Teh records shoud still be available in the archives, but maybe that is the reason for lack of knowledge of more recent licensees

Think this chap could have sorted this but we don't hear from him anymore