Licensing Act 1904

{{Infobox UK legislation

| short_title = Licensing Act 1904

| type = Act

| parliament = Parliament of the United Kingdom

| long_title = An Act to amend the Licensing Acts, 1828 to 1902, in respect to the extinction of Licences and the grant of new Licences.

| year = 1904

| citation = 4 Edw. 7. c. 23

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| royal_assent = 15 August 1904

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| repealing_legislation = {{ubli|Licensing (Consolidation) Act 1910}}

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| status = repealed

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The Licensing Act 1904 (4 Edw. 7. c. 23) was a controversial act of the British Parliament regulating the closure of public houses (pubs) in England and Wales. It was introduced by the Home Secretary, supported by Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and passed by his Conservative Party.Ruddock F. Mackay, Balfour: Intellectual Statesman (Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 220–221 [https://archive.org/details/balfourintellect00mack online].Paul Jennings, "Liquor licensing and the local historian: the 1904 Licensing Act and its administration", The Local Historian, 39 (2009), pp.24–37.

The issue helped the Liberal Party win the 1906 United Kingdom general election by a landslide.A. K. Russell, Liberal Landslide: The General Election of 1906 (1973), pp.11–12, 80–88. The Licensing Act 1904 aimed to reduce the number of pubs. It proposed to compensate brewers for the cancellation of their licence, through a fund the brewers themselves would have to pay into.Norman Lowe, Mastering Modern British History (3rd ed. 1998), pp.267–268. This led many Nonconformists who adhered to temperance (see United Kingdom Alliance) to denounce it as a "brewers' bill". Meanwhile, the brewers themselves were generally dissatisfied, and they let their customers know.Paul Jennings, " 'Grasping a Nettle': The 1904 Licensing Act" in Biographies of Drink ed by Mark Hailwood and Deborah Toner (2015), pp.30–48.