Credit: Samuel Davenport, after William Hogarth
Gin Lane is one of a pair of 1751 engravings by William Hogarth in support of the then-proposed Gin Act 1751. This Act of Parliament made the distillation of gin illegal in England. Whereas its pendant Beer Street shows a happy city drinking the "good" beverage of English beer, Gin Lane claims to show what would happen if people started drinking gin, a harder liquor. The scene can be identified as taking place in St Giles, a slum district of London, from the presence of St George's Church, Bloomsbury, in the background.