John Beal Jude (1807-1871)

Post date: Mar 27, 2017 11:58:40 AM

John Beal Jude

(1807-1871)

John, born at the Crossroad Stores in 1807, was the founder of the Kent Brewery, one of the two significant breweries in Wateringbury in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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John was the fourth son of William Jude and Sarah Beal, who owned the house and shops called the Crossroads Stores (now 188 and 190 Tonbridge Road).

John had established the Kent Brewery located at the top of Bow Road by 1833, and, in common with most breweries soon established and then expanded its chain of controlled pubs. Ralph Fremlin, who went on to found the Fremlins brewery in Maidstone in 1861, was his nephew and lived with the family whilst employed as a clerk in the Kent Brewery.

At the time of the 1851 census John was employing 18 men in total, including his other business activities. This expanded to 55 (27 in the brewery) at the 1861 census, by which time he had built and moved into Broomscroft in Canon Lane, where he also farmed.

After John died in 1871 the brewery remained in the family’s ownership for another 50 years, although from 1876 in partnership with the Hanbury family from Teston.