Brewers, Vuctuallers, etc 10th October 1848 to 10th October 1849 totals collected | ||||||||
number of persons | Number of persons who brew their own beer | |||||||
licensed to sell beer | licensed to sell beer | |||||||
Collections | Brewers | Victuallers | To be drunk on the premises | Not to be drunk on the premises | Victuallers | To be drunk on the premises | Not to be drunk on the premises | Bushels of malt consumed by the whole |
England | 2,257 | 59,335 | 34,800 | 3,270 | 25,985 | 12,201 | 972 | 27,676,714 |
Scotland | 154 | 15,081 | 181 | 871,586 | ||||
Ireland | 96 | 14,080 | 1,204,875 | |||||
total | 2,507 | 88,496 | 34,800 | 3,270 | 26,166 | 12,201 | 972 | 29,753,175 |
Source: | ||||||||
"Statistics of British commerce" by Braithwaite Poole, 1852, page 5. |
Column 6 gives publican brewers. 25,985 in England and Wales, 181 in Scotland, none in Ireland. Pretty conclusive evidence. But it gets even better than that. Because the figures are broken down even further. The picture they paint is even more captivating.
Brewers, Vuctuallers, etc 10th October 1848 to 10th October 1849, England | ||||||||
number of persons | Number of persons who brew their own beer | |||||||
licensed to sell beer | licensed to sell beer | |||||||
Collections | Brewers | Victuallers | To be drunk on the premises | Not to be drunk on the premises | Victuallers | To be drunk on the premises | Not to be drunk on the premises | Bushels of malt consumed by the whole |
Barnstaple | 9 | 595 | 236 | 24 | 547 | 182 | 8 | 158,281 |
Bath | 43 | 722 | 451 | 139 | 415 | 151 | 29 | 679,127 |
Bedford | 54 | 1101 | 778 | 78 | 153 | 54 | 10 | 399,513 |
Bristol | 25 | 666 | 872 | 77 | 453 | 207 | 10 | 461,372 |
Cambridge | 86 | 1264 | 978 | 132 | 151 | 105 | 33 | 624,064 |
Canterbury | 53 | 882 | 345 | 55 | 11 | 22 | 5 | 310,169 |
Chester | 43 | 1037 | 358 | 14 | 592 | 187 | 1 | 221,332 |
Cornwall | 11 | 747 | 277 | 21 | 505 | 128 | 3 | 154,368 |
Coventry | 23 | 1497 | 519 | 65 | 1334 | 398 | 31 | 542,648 |
Cumberland | 24 | 1352 | 235 | 29 | 128 | 27 | 25 | 195,148 |
Derby | 20 | 1166 | 516 | 31 | 1139 | 454 | 12 | 564,541 |
Dorset | 53 | 511 | 477 | 125 | 213 | 76 | 35 | 259,871 |
Durham | 91 | 2068 | 304 | 38 | 404 | 34 | 247,514 | |
Essex | 50 | 738 | 459 | 147 | 158 | 108 | 63 | 286,576 |
Exeter | 25 | 737 | 203 | 23 | 529 | 63 | 3 | 240,101 |
Gloucester | 28 | 774 | 701 | 82 | 555 | 420 | 34 | 345,719 |
Grantham | 55 | 1104 | 656 | 57 | 603 | 186 | 16 | 385,106 |
Halifax | 57 | 1334 | 1258 | 42 | 914 | 872 | 37 | 488,975 |
Hants | 63 | 725 | 700 | 126 | 98 | 168 | 41 | 433,576 |
Hereford | 4 | 756 | 294 | 11 | 701 | 265 | 6 | 113,781 |
Hartford | 47 | 1020 | 840 | 53 | 40 | 32 | 16 | 554,992 |
Hull | 74 | 1114 | 227 | 36 | 154 | 10 | 1 | 208,463 |
Isle of Wight | 61 | 769 | 637 | 96 | 103 | 157 | 37 | 463,658 |
Lancaster | 29 | 1109 | 865 | 21 | 760 | 286 | 1 | 507,852 |
Leeds | 25 | 1015 | 848 | 52 | 900 | 570 | 39 | 615,724 |
Lichfield | 11 | 1030 | 1008 | 35 | 1001 | 849 | 16 | 305,345 |
Lincoln | 49 | 915 | 367 | 60 | 604 | 110 | 13 | 306,665 |
Liverpool | 77 | 1551 | 1205 | 22 | 19 | 14 | 1 | 763,123 |
London | 79 | 4223 | 2054 | 65 | 1 | 50 | 8 | 6,289,908 |
Lynn | 70 | 1156 | 866 | 80 | 102 | 70 | 15 | 640,092 |
Manchester | 96 | 1706 | 3102 | 157 | 971 | 1074 | 54 | 979,907 |
Newcastle | 84 | 1949 | 280 | 29 | 145 | 5 | 3 | 404,183 |
Northampton | 24 | 1038 | 381 | 122 | 761 | 175 | 37 | 325,441 |
Northwich | 30 | 1197 | 706 | 16 | 668 | 149 | 1 | 392,040 |
Norwich | 49 | 1441 | 329 | 76 | 87 | 33 | 22 | 372,053 |
Oxford | 29 | 891 | 393 | 99 | 421 | 121 | 33 | 337,695 |
Plymouth | 40 | 948 | 476 | 56 | 431 | 42 | 6 | 345,250 |
Reading | 41 | 888 | 760 | 115 | 51 | 54 | 21 | 496,466 |
Rochester | 77 | 1191 | 849 | 74 | 14 | 20 | 6 | 443,088 |
Salisbury | 28 | 577 | 264 | 101 | 351 | 117 | 44 | 297,956 |
Salop | 3 | 600 | 376 | 15 | 569 | 331 | 4 | 266,350 |
Sheffield | 32 | 1428 | 584 | 84 | 726 | 152 | 10 | 492,019 |
Stafford | 30 | 772 | 782 | 6 | 733 | 592 | 1 | 638,268 |
Stourbridge | 7 | 1383 | 1460 | 62 | 1328 | 1385 | 34 | 799,499 |
Suffolk | 52 | 728 | 409 | 111 | 259 | 170 | 66 | 328,776 |
Surrey | 83 | 1108 | 977 | 91 | 7 | 48 | 21 | 846,841 |
Sussex | 71 | 829 | 693 | 90 | 66 | 80 | 29 | 465,762 |
Wales, East | 40 | 1781 | 1523 | 19 | 1537 | 882 | 1 | 375,006 |
Wales, Middle | 1 | 724 | 104 | 1 | 657 | 94 | 91,150 | |
Wales, North | 30 | 1139 | 162 | 7 | 627 | 23 | 151,606 | |
Wales, South | 8 | 1293 | 45 | 4 | 1296 | 26 | 112,835 | |
Worcester | 5 | 531 | 366 | 53 | 501 | 309 | 23 | 205,813 |
York | 58 | 1515 | 245 | 46 | 492 | 64 | 7 | 241,106 |
total | 2,257 | 59,335 | 34,800 | 3,270 | 25,985 | 12,201 | 972 | 27,176,714 |
total (given in source) | 2,257 | 59,335 | 34,800 | 3,270 | 25,985 | 12,201 | 972 | 27,676,714 |
Source: | ||||||||
"Statistics of British commerce" by Braithwaite Poole, 1852, page 4. |
Look at the column for brewing victuallers. The areas with large numbers - over 900 - are all in the Midlands, the North and Wales: Coventry, Derby, Halifax, Lichfield, Manchester, Stourbridge, Leeds, Wales East, Wales South. The Areaes with the fewest - fewer than 100 - are all, except for Liverpool, in the Southeast: Canterbury, Hants, Hartford, Liverpool, Norwich, Reading, Surrey, London, Rochester, Sussex.
Most significant is the area with by far the fewest publican brewers: London with just 1. Brewing was already completely in the hands of commercial brewers and pub brewing as good as extinct.
The pattern is much more complex, with enormous regional variations, than I would have imagined. But I can state this with some confidence: in some regions of Britain pub breweries disappeared in the first half of the 19th century.
4 comments:
Not just publican brewing but also private brewing remained more widespread in England longer than in Scotland. I have something somewhere that refers to this.
Ooh. I just remembered this:
"Birmingham is a thriving town, and much beer must be consumed there, but like Manchester it is cursed with the licensed victuallers brewing their own. Now this practice is little known in L'pool. In all my travels I have seen no place where I feel so certain a Brewer of a genuine article might so certainly be successful as L'pool." (Letter from William McEwan to his uncle, August 1852)
And the figures prove him right for Manchester and Liverpool. But why is Birmingham not in the table?
Birmingham, I believe I'm correct in saying, came under the "Lichfield" collection - excise districts did not automatically correspond to county boundaries, nor did they automatically take the names of large towns/cities, and in any case Brum was probably still quite small - smaller than Lichfield, which had the cathedral – when the excise "collections" were first drawn up in the 17th century.
Incidentally, I only just discovered that the name Birmingham quite possibly means "the ham of the descendants of Beorma", "Beorma" being a name meaning "frothy" or "yeasty", of course, and the same root as the word "barm". So there we are - it's YOUR city, Barm …
I've always wanted my own city. Can I get them to pay tithes, do you think?
Looking at the Lichfield figure it confirms McEwan's statement again, with 1030 victuallers, a mere 22 of whom did not brew their own beer. Fascinating.
Post a Comment