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History |
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Tadcaster Brewery History
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John Smith |
Early mention of brewing in Tadcaster comes from tax lists which show that there
were breweries or brewhouses in 1341, one paying 8d. In taxes that year and
the other 4d. By 1378 five innkeepers are recorded as being in business in Tadcaster.
In about 1400 the best ale sold for 1 1/2d per gallon. A century later the price
had risen to 3d. per gallon. Evidence from Tadcaster wills suggests that there
were also substantial brewing concerns in existence in the seventeenth century.
Many brewhouses are recorded, mostly to supply a large household, an inn or
posthouse. But those containing or adjoining a maltkiln were almost certainly,
judging by the quantities, malting barley for commercial purposes and probably
supplying smaller alemakers as well. |
| Thomas Morris, common brewer, dying
in 1722, left equipment comprising 65 gallons of beer, 4 hogsheads,
20 gallons of small beer and 5 dozen barrels. The list of debts
due to him suggests customers in many local villages and as far
afield as the White Swan in York. The eighty quarters of Malt
and the numerous large brewing vessels recorded in Thomas Beaumont's
inventory (1728) speak of a thriving concern. His brewery was
kept going by his widow and then his daughter Ann. It was this
business, situated in New Street, then called Rishworth Street,
which preceded that managed by one of John Hartley's sons, Stephen,
who probably started his connections with brewing in 1758, when
he was nineteen years old. He did not buy the brewery until 1772,
after Ann Beaumont's retirement. |
| He was later joined in the enterprise
by his son William. After some years of prosperous trading
the business began to decline, so that by 1816 it became necessary
to raise monet by mortgaging the brewery to Richard Turfitt,
seedman and maltster. This, however, did not halt the decline
until in 1819, Stephen and William Hartley, described as 'common
brewers and chapmen' were declared bankrupt. A number of Hartley
properties in Tadcaster, including the Old Falcon Inn and the
Golden Lion in Bridge Street, had to be sold to cover the debts. |
Artists impression of new brewery |
| In 1845, after many uncertain years, William Hartley's widow, Jane, had to mortgage
the brewery to David Backhouse and John Hartley, who were also very active in
the coaching business. Things continued in an uncertain condition, for two years
later the new owners negotiated with Samuel Smith, a tanner of Meanwood, Leeds,
for the entry into the business of his second son, John.No doubt he brought
some much needed capital with him, for from this time the brewery began to make
progress. Jane Hartley died in 1852, after which John Smith bought the premises,
bringing in his brother William to help him. Local markets expanded with the
increase of industry in the West Riding.
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John Smiths Bottling Department
Employees
1925 |
The kind of beer made from the very hard magnesium limestone
water, rich in sulphate of lime, from Tadcaster's wells, was
the bright bitter beer which had begun to replace in popularity
the sweeter, cloudier porters which had up to then been the
working-man's drink. Some of the springs which supplied these
hard waters can still be detected , their icy cold jets bubbling
up in the sandy beach behind the church, when the river is
at the right level.
They were known locally as popple-wells and valued not just for their brewing
interest, but used in the coaching days to supply 'popple-water' at the table
of some of the principal inns of the town. It became clear that the old brewery
was not large enough to supply the increased demand. |
| At the sale of Lord Londesborough's
estate, which included much of Tadcaster, in 1873 John Smith
purchased a large section of land along Centre Lane, then occupied
by an orchard and a number of cottages. He employed the Leeds
architects Scammel and Collyer to design a new brewery of considerable
grandeur, using stone brought from his own quarries at Toulston.
John who died in 1879 did not see the completion of this magnificent £130,000.00d
building which opened in 1883. He left his personal estate,
which included such items as the barrels and brewery equipment,
in equal shares to his brothers, Samuel, a tanner from Leeds,
and William, a bachelor. His real estate mainly the Old Brewery,
went also to his two brothers as tennants-in-common for their
lifetime. On the death of either, the property was to go to
the successor, but after that, was entailed on the heirs of
Samuel, since William was inmarried and had no descendants.
Two other close members of the family, their nephews, Frank
and Henry Riley, sons of John's only sister Sarah, were apparently
not mentioned in this connection. They were now working at
the brewery under the direction of their Uncle William, and
had gone into partnership with him. Samuel died in 1880, shortly
after his brother John. |
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| William now realised that on his
own death the brewery would pass out of Frank and Henry Riley's
hands. He therefore hurried on to complete the building of
the new brewery, which was not covered by his will. As soon
as possible he transferred the stock, equipment and trade name
from the old brewery to the new. Thus when William died in
1886, Samuel Smith jnr. Inherited an almost empty building,
while the new brewery flourished under the management of the
Riley brothers, who as a result of a clause in the will changed
their name to Riley-Smith. Samuel Smith took legal advice as
to whether William had been entitled to remove the trade name
from the Old Brewery, but the advice went against him. Nevertheless,
such was the buoyancy of the brewing trade at that time that
Samuel was able to re-equip the Old Brewery, open it under
his own name in 1886 and run it in competition with the established
firm of Jon Smith's, both continuing to flourish. Further evidence
of the excellent prospects in brewing is afforded by the fact
that three other breweries opened and operated in the town
during these years. In the 1870's Benjamin Braime started a
small brewery next to the site which had been acquired by John
Smith. He was at first in partnership with Mr Wilson, but a
separate business entitled Wilson and Cundall began operations
in Maltkin Square, the site of the current central car park.
It ceded trading some time after 1893. |
John Smith's transport yard mid 1900s |
Its premises
were taken over by Benjamin Braime who then sold the High
Street brewery to John Smith's. Braime's Brewery then continued
in Maltkin Square until 1906 when it went bankrupt. These
premises later became John Smith's bottling store. In 1883
yet another brewery came into being, the Tadcaster Tower
Brewery, situated on the turnpike road from Tadcaster to
Boston Spa, in an advantageous position close to an extensive
railway sidings. The new buildings, on on acre of land bought
from the NER, were going up in the same years as the construction
of the new Smith's premises. It's owners were the partners
of Hotham & Co., a rapidly
expanding York Brewery. Of the three breweries which survive
today, only Samuel Smith's remain an independent concern,
the others having been the subject of take-over's by large
national companies. |
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