Did a big night out make us ‘paint the town red’?

In 1837, the mother of all nights out took place in a quiet corner of Leicestershire.

Henry de la Poer Beresford, 3rd Marquess of Waterford, and a group of his friends piled into Melton Mowbray after a day watching horse racing – and having a few glasses of sherry.

Brian Fare, from HistoryFare, a local history tours business based in the town, said after a run-in with the toll keeper, who pulled a gun on the gang, they slathered a number of buildings with red paint, including the former Swan Inn.

Mr Fare said it might have been this story that led to the well-known phrase to “paint the town red”, which is used in the modern day to describe a big night out.

Mr Fare said there was evidence to suggest the Melton knees-up took place.

He said the town regularly welcomed the rich and famous, including royals from Austria, Hungary, and India, due to its roaring hunting and horse racing scene.

The Marquess and his friends had been at the Croxton Park races before returning to the town.

“Just like horse racing today, they had a few beers and a few glasses of wine,” he said.

“They came back late at night but couldn’t get back in at the far end of town because they wouldn’t pay the toll to open the gate.

“When they rode to the other side of town, they miraculously found some tins of red paint and then went back to the toll house to attempt to screw the window shutters closed.”

Mr Fare said if it had not been for a misfire, the toll keeper would have shot at the group.

But that did not stop them from continuing their night out.

“They screwed the shutters shut, painted them red then came all the way through town daubing various buildings in red paint,” he said.

“They ripped door knockers off, smashed plant pots, tipped caravans over, and the Marquess was lifted up to paint the white swan at the Swan Inn.”

The story may sound hard to believe, but more evidence of the event was found in the 1980s.

“There was a fire at the old Swan Inn in the 80s and when they were restoring the building, they took the Swan down to clean all the black soot and grime off it and they actually found traces of the red paint on there,” Mr Fare said.

It was not a happy ending for some of the Marquess’s group, as some of them ended up in the town’s jail, later being fined £100 at Derby court, the equivalent of about £10,000 in today’s money.

“There’s a painting which depicts the Marquess being lifted up and painting the swan that depicts a brawl in the streets,” Mr Fare added.

“Whether that actually happened, we don’t know, but then some of them were arrested and when the others found out about it they went to try and break them out and threatened to kill one of the constables.”

Whether Melton Mowbray is where the popular phrase originated is debated, but what we do know is that the Marquess had a good time, and left a permanent mark on the history of the town.