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More Information...
Publisher: Whitbread & Company Ltd., 1964.
Hard Cover, 54 pages, 5.5 x 8.0.
Item #1348
The title says it all! It's the story of London's famed brewery, Whitbread's, as told by the company itelf. The book was first published in 1947, and re-issued periodically over the years. This copy is the 1964 edition. Contains more than 50 color and black & white photos and illustrations. A terribly fun little book! An Excerpt: Porter became popular gradually as a result of a combination of circumstances. Taxation brought about changes in eighteenth-century drinking habits: malt was taxed more than hops, which made brewers encourage the drinking of beer rather than ale. Before 1772 the beers generally brewed in London were ale, 'strong' and 'twopenny'. This last was a pale beer introduced into London from the country where it was popular; its name was derived from its price of 4d per quart. Some drinkers preferred a pint of 'half-and-half', that is half of ale and half of beer; others called for a tankard of 'three-threads', a mixture of all three beverages. Thus to serve a pint the publican had to draw from two or three separate casks. To overcome this inconvenience, the brewers produced a brew uniting the flavours of ale, beer and twopenny. It was called 'entire' or 'intire-butt' and later got the generic name of porter. It was sold at about 32d a quart. Samuel Whitbread spent his income wisely and generously. John Howard's earlier financial help was repaid by handsome contributions to enable him to investigate prison conditions on the Continent, and on Howard's death, when a monument was erected in St Paul's to his memory, Whitbread wrote the inscription. In 1768 Whitbread was elected Member of Parliament for Bedford, in which capacity he served for an unbroken period of twenty-two years. To quote from his daughter's memoirs: 'He was really the first man who mentioned the slave trade in the House of Commons and called Mr Pitt's attention to it . . . the early and small meetings to enquire into the slave trade were held in his Drawing-room in Portman Square.... 'To have followed his daily life,' concludes Mrs. Gordon, 'those who saw him with his children would have supposed he had nothing else to do but attend to them. Those who knew him in his Brew-house Yard or Counting House only thought he had his trade as his first and last object. Those who saw him in his own hospitable Country House at Bedwell Park, Herts, 20 miles from London, would have supposed he had been brought up to the then rare but now fashionable life of an active and tasteful Country Gentleman'. In 1758 Mrs Whitbread gave birth to the son and heir who was to succeed the founder as head of the business and as member for Bedford. The boy was educated at Eton, Oxford and Cambridge. At the age of thirty he married the sister of one of his school friends, afterwards Earl Grey the famous Whig statesman who piloted the Reform Bill through Parliament. Two years later, in 1790, Samuel the younger succeeded his father as MP for Bedford. He did not follow his father in politics, however, for he was a Whig, but, although father and son agreed to differ amicably upon most political questions, they were united on that most dear to old Samuel Whitbread's heart, the abolition of slavery.
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