Letter

Letter dated 4 January 1954 sent by the Home Secretary's office to A.W.J. Lewis, MP, clarifying the legal position regarding the implementation of a colour bar in hotels. The letter was sent in response to a question about London's Green Park Hotel, which had refused to serve non-whites. The letter suggests that 'inns' were obliged under common law to provide refreshment unless there were reasonable grounds for not doing so, but that it was debatable whether large hotels should be regarded as 'inns'. Furthermore it indicates that the courts were entitled to take into account the manner in which a hotel serviced the public when renewing licenses to premises. Before the mid-1960s, there was little legislation to prevent racial discrimination in the provision of services.