Brewing and Hop Farming in Kent
Post date: Dec 28, 2014 4:8:51 PM
The following is a dissertation written by Peter Leney, a descendant of the family who ran one of Wateringbury's breweries. The original is well-illustrated and properly referenced and acknowledged (including to Wateringbury resident, Dail Whiting, who had 3 articles published by the Brewery History Society in 2002) but this web version for practical reasons excludes illustrations and references. My sincere appreciation to Robert Colquhoun, another Leney family member for lending me the dissertation and agreeing to its publication on this site.
Brewing and Hop Farming in Kent: The History of Two Family Businesses.
Introduction
There is perhaps something romantic about hop farming and hop picking in Kent. But this dissertation is not about a rural idyll, although the history that is revealed here will I hope interest the reader enough to want to know more. This is about 2 family businesses in Kent involved in brewing and hop farming in the 19th and early 20th century and uncovers the beginnings of the business, their successes, failures and family tragedies. It looks at how changes in the brewing and agricultural industries, together with the economic climate of the early 20th century, led to the decline of the companies and will tell how I gathered the information from, amongst others, visits to county and national archives - not always finding in all of these places what I sought, but such is the burden of the historian. I was amazed to discover how little information there was, believing that surely these 2 businesses could not disappear without trace. But with the help of the archives, libraries, museums, family and newly found relatives, maps and local history societies progress was made. Census returns provided a valuable source enabling be to gradually piece together the history that is presented here.
But this was also a search of discovery in a different context, because it was as a result of researching into the involvement of my family in the First World War that sent me on this journey and it is worth recounting how it started; and here, perhaps, there is a touch of romance.
As a child I had known little about my great-uncle, Frank Hodsoll. His sister Gladys (my grandmother) had displayed above her fireplace the Manning Pike designed bronze plaque that had been presented to the families of all war dead but he was never discussed. Frank Hodsoll was 23 years old when he died. Born in Croydon he was the son of an Underwood typewriter salesman, George Hodsoll. He had enlisted in the Benbow Battalion of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve at Blandford Camp in Dorset in November 1914. By June 1915 he had been sent to Cairo where, according to his service record, he was admitted to hospital with dysentery: he was released from hospital in February 1916 and did not see any active service until, after a short spell at the Sidi Bashir camp in Abbassia, he was moved to Marseille in May 1916. From there he was moved north with his unit through France in time for the beginning of the Somme offensive. He was not to come back and on the 13th July 1917 his family had his death confirmed. No body was ever found and his name is inscribed, along with 72,000 other missing British soldiers, on the Lutyens Memorial to the Missing of the Battle of the Somme at Thiepval.
Frank's father was George Hodsoll, my great-grandfather. He had retired from Croydon during the war and moved back to Kent, the county of his family, together with his wife, Catherine. They had four daughters and two sons: Frank was the youngest. It was on Christmas Eve, 1916 that the telegram boy climbed onto his bicycle at the Post Office in the Kent village of Benenden, and rode the short distance to the modest Wealden house, Little Bathhurst. The telegram contained the news that Able Seaman Frank Hodsoll was reported missing on the 1st day of the Battle of Ancre on the Somme, 13th November 1916.
But it was my search to learn more about Frank Hodsoll that provoked an interest elsewhere. Surely there must have been others from my family that had seen active service? But I had started my search to learn about Frank through the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and a search under the Roll of Honour in my surname, Leney, elicited just 5 entries. Three I was able to discount early on as geographically wrong (my Leneys I knew to be old Kent families who had not strayed far), but I did come across a "B Leney". A Gunner in the Royal Field Artillery, he had died on 30th October 1918 at the age of 31, just 12 days before the armistice. He was born in Maidstone, and buried at West Farleigh, only a short distance away from his birthplace and my family roots. His parents were Augustus and Kate and of that I knew no more until my father recalled an Uncle Gus who he had never known.
The conversation triggered a recollection that the family had been brewers in Kent; how large and significant I did not know. I wanted to find out more. I had some unanswered questions. What was this brewery, who started it and what happened to it? Who was Augustus? And what about "B" Leney? Who was he and had he played a part even though he died so young?
Given the opportunity to write a dissertation on a subject of my choice, I decided to use my family of brewers and hop farmers as the subject. In my researches I learned about Frank's war service and that my family owned not one but two brewing businesses in Kent: Frederick Leney & Sons of Wateringbury and Alfred Leney & Co of Dover. Both businesses owned significant amounts of property, not only freehold inns, hotels and beerhouses, but in the case of Frederick Leney & Sons, large amounts of land as hop farmers. I discovered when the breweries started (and how) going back to 1783 and ending, for Frederick Leney and Sons, in 1918.1 discovered that "B" Leney was Bertram, the last Leney to be a director of that company before it went into decline and ended up being bought by Whitbread in 1927.1 also discovered extreme wealth and high social status, but a family with more than its fair share of tragedy. During this same period the other company, Alfred Leney & Co, also went into decline and was sold to Fremlin Brothers, brewing ceasing in Dover in 1927 before also becoming part of Whitbread in the 1960s.
Most surprisingly of all I discovered although the Leneys and the Hodsolls only became connected through the marriage of my grandparents in 1921, the Hodsolls had in fact been the owners of the first pub that started the Leney brewing empire, The Bull, at Wrotham, in 1661: one of the other inns owned by the family, The Green Man, was in a village called Hodsoll Street, named after an ancestor, Capt John Hodsoll (1669 -1709) Commander of HMS Squirrel.
In "Landscape for a Good Woman" Carolyn Steedman wrote, "nothing can be said to have happened in the past until you have spent 3 years at least at it and got on many trains and opened bundles of archives".1 got on many trains for my journey, but not perhaps enough. I opened bundles of archives, but again not enough - because I did not have 3 years; just a few short months.
Chapter 1
The Brewing Industry in the 19th Century and the Origins of the Leney Brewing Business
In 19th century England beer was a common product that was a prime necessity of life for the masses and a main target for their surplus spending, and it can be argued that brewing as an industry and beer as a staple commodity were vital elements of English life. In Georgian England the Prince Regent had said of the English, "beer and beef have made us what we are"; the Reverend Sydney Smith had posed the question, "What two ideas are more inseparable than Beer and Britannia?". The public house was an important feature of the social life of the English people and so too was the product sold.
Prior to the 18th century breweries produced two products: ale, the unfermented un-hopped malt liquor and beer, a hopped malt liquor with origins from the Low Countries in the 15th century. But by the 18th century all malt liquor produced in England was hopped. Introduced as a commercial crop into England in 1525, hop cultivation was concentrated in 6 principal counties, Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, where there was continuous expansion from some 35,000 acres in 1800 to reach a peak in 1878 of 71,789 acres. Two thirds of this production was in Kent where, on all but the smallest farms, 10-12 acres were devoted to hops.
Hops are an unusual crop: they are expensive to establish and maintain as ground has to be kept clean, well manured and the plants supported by a scaffolding of poles wires and strings. They require a vast labour force for the brief harvest and have but one market - the brewing industry. At its peak it was estimated between 100,000 and 250,000 people, predominantly women, made the annual journey to go "down hopping" in Kent. The workers lived in huts during the week with dependants and were visited by adult male relatives at the weekend. But as a crop it is unique in agriculture: the plants have a life of 15 - 30 years; the capital costs are high and is extremely susceptible to wet weather, damage from, pests, mildew and wilt. As an example of this susceptibility, whilst output of the crop in 1881 was around 7cwt per acre it had collapsed by 1882 to l.8 cwt and the price of Weald of Kent hops had rocketed from £6 6s to £18.15s.
Given the nature of the crop it would seem logical brewers would have taken responsibility for their own crops. But it was precisely because profitability was so unpredictable and crop cultivation was concentrated in so few areas and with such a heavy emphasis on labour that most brewers bought in their requirements through hop merchants. There were, however, exceptions; until 1920 Courage and Shepherd Neame were two large brewers who supplied their breweries with their own hops and Beere and Co, a firm of Canterbury brewers was, in 1875, to boast that every drop of beer they retailed was grown from barley and hops produced themselves.
As for the brewing it is a process changed very little over the centuries. Water is mixed with the barley malt in a mash tun under conditions turning the starch into fermentable sugars. The resulting extract is boiled with hops, then cooled and the yeast added. The yeast blends with the sugars dissolved from the malt turning into alcohol. The end product is matured, the period dependent upon the composition of the beer produced and its market. With the introduction of industrialisation in the first half of the 19th century brewing became more suited to large-scale production than most other contemporary manufacturing industries. The liquid was easy to handle and pumps could be used to move the beer quickly and cheaply through buildings. Thus the brewing process itself was simple and did not require a large labour force of skilled or semi-skilled workers. But the process of evolution from the small publican brewing his own beers to the large breweries with their own distribution networks was such that in 1796 Samuel Whitbread, which was eventually to become the owner of both Frederick Leney & Sons and Alfred Leney & Co, was able to report that for the first time it had brewed over 200,000 barrels of porter in a single season at a cost in raw materials of £200,000, with plant and machinery (including over 100 horse) valued at £500,000. From this output it supplied 500 publicans and 1000 other retailers with levels of business totaling over thirty million retail transactions from a single unit of production.
Table 1: Number of Commercial Brewers in England and Wales 1831-80
[table showing growth by decade of breweries in England and Wales from 1830 (approx 1700) to 1880 (approx 2500) to be inserted]
Source; J Baxter, The Organisation of the Brewing Industry, unpublished PhD thesis, London University, 1945, as quoted in K H Hawkins and C L Pass, The Brewing Industry, Heinemann, 1979
Before the introduction of the railways, the difficulties of distribution allowed the small publican-brewer's to co-exist happily alongside their larger commercial rivals, but the linking of the major urban areas brought increased competition. As J. Vaizey noted, the "publican-brewers methods were archaic and his products often inferior. Any commercial brewer was eventually able to supply him with beer more cheaply than he could himself. As many publicans stopped brewing and resorted to the retailing of beer alone, the percentage of beer they produced fell from 40% in 1841-45 to 10% in 1886-90 and was negligible by 1914. Against these changes, however, was the rapid increase in urban working-class population. The population of England and Wales rose from 8.8 million in 1801 to 26 million in 1881, accompanied by increasing working-class spending power. During this period the average annual output of beer rose from 13.5 million barrels in 1831-35 to 30.97 million barrels in 1875-79, while per capita consumption increased from 21.7 gallons to 33.2 gallons.
Against this industrial and economic background the Leney family made its foray into both the brewing and hop farming industries in Kent.
Table 2: Beer Output 1850-1939
[table showing rise from 1850-54 (approx 15 million barrels) to 1900-04 (approx 35 million barrels) and then decline to 1935-39 (approx 15 million barrels) of beer output to be inserted]
Beer Consumption Per Head 1856-1939
[table showing rise in per head beer consumption from 1850-54 (approx 22 gallons per head) to 1875-79 (approx 33 gallons) and then decline to 1935-39 (approx 12 gallons) to be inserted.]
Source: G B Wilson, Alcohol and the Nation, Nicholson and Watson, 1940; B R Mitchell and P Deane, Abstracts of British Historical Statistics, Cambridge University Press, 1962. as quoted in Hawkins and Pass, The Brewing Industry.
The Brewery History Society reveal that the first records of a brewery in Wateringbury date from 1778 when Richard Crow purchased the site from the estate of John Moore, a periwig maker. Richard Crow was John Moore's executor and a collar maker. It was to be his son, Thomas Crow, who was to build a brewery on the site called Wardens Hill Brewery. The business was successful and, early in the 19th century, Richard Crow approached 2 brothers, Edmund and William Pontifex (of Pontifex & Co.) with a request to install a steam power installation for improved efficiency. After agreement had been reached work proceeded but, by the time it was completed, Thomas Crow was in severe financial difficulties and unable to satisfy his debt. Perhaps he had been seduced by the new technology or the costs escalated - the reasons for the difficulty may never be known, but a long legal battle ensued which was to run until 1836. In the meantime the brewery business continued in the hands of Richard Gibbon, brother-in-law to Thomas Crow, who had died in 1821. But the legal battle was won in 1836 and the debt was finally settled when the Pontifex brothers took possession of the brewery. However, they did not run a brewery business from the premises for the following 2 years, spending the time looking for a suitable lessee.
In 1783 Abraham Leney had been born in Hartfield, in Sussex, on the edge of Ashdown Forest. Although from an agricultural background he was a schoolteacher by profession but, having married Elizabeth, he moved sometime between 1816 and 1818 the 20 miles or so to Wrotham in Kent where he took a lease on Hognore Farm with 230 acres. He was able to take advantage of the changes brought about in English agriculture as a consequence of the Enclosure Acts and the resultant improvements in agricultural efficiency and productivity. By the time of the move the two eldest children, George and Charles had been born, Frederick arriving shortly after the move in 1818. Plainly an astute businessman, Abraham had already made initial steps into the brewing business, acquiring in 1833 The Bull in Wrotham, a posting inn and brewery which was run by Charles and his young brother Frederick. In 1834 Charles married Naomi Evenden of another prominent Kent brewing family and they had two sons, Charles John and then Alfred born in 1837. George, the eldest son, was to play no part in the brewery or agricultural business, opting for a career in medicine and becoming a surgeon at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
Initially a lease had been negotiated between Abraham, Charles and the Pontifex brothers in 1836. But this was never executed and the following year Charles entered into a new arrangement with the brothers and took control of the brewery business alone: in 1838 he moved his family from The Bull to a house in Bow Road, Wateringbury, next door to the brewery. Frederick had married Ann Jewell and they had 3 children during their time at The Bull, Charles Frederick (1842) Charlotte (1845) and Augustus (1846). Augustus in later years became the driving force behind the business of Frederick Leney & Sons. But Frederick moved to Wateringbury in 1847 to join his elder brother at what had become the Phoenix Brewery, a name they adopted in 1842, and that in due course both of the Leney brewing businesses were to share. In Wateringbury Frederick and his family lived at Ivy Cottage on the Tonbridge Road where his sons Edward (1848) and Herbert (1851) were born followed by Annie and Julia in 1853 & 1854.
Frederick and his family left Wateringbury in 1851 for 3 years. Although there is no record of where they went or why, a spell with another brewery business is the likeliest explanation, to learn about the industry and bring experience back with him. But in 1854 they returned to the village and took the lease on a house in Wateringbury Street from Samuel Lancaster Lucas, who lived in Wateringbury Place. The brewery business was enjoying success during this period and in 1849 Charles acquired the Lease of Pelican Farm from Lucas and commenced hop farming for his brewery: Abraham, at Hognore Farm, was already supplying his son's business with hops. Although Pelican Farm is identified on census returns for 1871, there is no specific evidence of it on Ordnance Survey maps from 1867, but it is identified in the History of the County of Kent: "The Codds were an ancient family in this parish having had a place here called Pelicans, to which belonged a large tract of land". However substantial business growth was evident because, in 1856 (just 7 years later) Charles was able to purchase Wateringbury Place from Lucas where the family moved to from Bow Road.
Family legend recollected by a cousin is that a dispute ensued between the two brothers Charles and Frederick and maybe even their father Abraham. Certainly, in May 1859 Charles left the Brewery at the age of 43 and his youngest son Alfred purchased a brewery in Dover. At the age of only 22 Alfred must have purchased the brewery with the financial assistance of his father and possibly his uncle, James Evenden, with whom he ran the brewery until his uncle's death in 1868. The argument of a family feud can be supported by the will of Abraham Leney, which makes it clear that no part of his estate should pass to his son Charles as "he is already well provided for". Abraham moved to St Albans following the death of his wife to live with his daughter Ann and her chemist husband Edward and died on 16th February 1862, his estate being divided equally between his remaining children. Whatever the truth of the story of feuds, Charles had no further part in the Wateringbury business: he remained the owner of Wateringbury Lodge for many years but moved away from the village.
Following the departure of Charles from the business it became the duty of Frederick to run the business on his own, and shortly afterwards he purchased 6 cottages and a coal store at Gauthens Yard, part of which was later to become the gasworks. Throughout this period Pontifex & Co remained the owners of the Phoenix Brewery, and did so until March 1862 when Samuel Lucas acquired it. But his possession was to be short lived because in October of the same year Frederick had successfully purchased the freehold of the business.
And so in 1862 the name Leney went over the door of the business in Wateringbury and whilst the name the Phoenix Brewery was kept, the name Frederick Leney & Co was to go before it. 6 years later Alfred Leney &Co in Dover, also at The Phoenix Brewery, came into existence. The Leney family were to set their mark for the next 50 years on the brewing industry and the social life of Kent.
Chapter 2 Frederick Leney and Sons, Brewing and Hop Farming in the Weald
Situated just a few miles to the southwest of Maidstone is Wateringbury. In the Doomsday Book it was referred to as Otringeberge and in the Textus Rqffenis Wotringburia, deriving the name from its "low and watery situation". In 1829 the land was described as "exceeding fruitful in corn, fruit and hops", but it is a small parish, being just 1 1/4 miles square. The 1821 census shows 176 dwellings, giving a total population of 915. Being no more than a Wealden village, the Leney family brought prosperity to the area as both the brewery business and the hop farming businesses expanded and developed, the only other major business in the village being a brickworks.
By 1862 Frederick was in full control of the business and his eldest son Charles Frederick joined him in 1864. The following year he acquired a substantial property for himself, again from Samuel Lucas. This property, known as The Orpines, was later transferred into the ownership of the company and to become the home of Augustus after the death of his father.
Richmond and Turton state that it was Augustus, born in 1846, who had established the business in 1843. But this is plainly inaccurate: he did not join until 1873 and later was to become the driving force behind the business and dominate it for much of the 42 years he was involved. Part of his control was to ensure that immediate family and those with close family ties surrounded him. One of these was to be Richard Tapply who also joined the firm in 1873 at the age of 16. The Brewery History Society tells what it calls the "rags to riches" story of Richard Tapply, recording how he rose through the company to become Managing Director in later years. But there was no rags to riches story. Augustus's sister Charlotte had married William Tapply, and Richard was the younger brother who was given the opportunity of a career in the business. Whilst he arguably had abilities, nepotism was partly to be responsible for the personal successes of Richard Tapply.
Not until 1896 do business records exist of the trading activity of the company and it is only possible to guess how the business had expanded by 1881 when, at the age of 63, Frederick died leaving the substantial sum of £96,361: he left his estate, after provision of an annuity to his wife, to his 4 sons and 3 daughters. The sons, Charles Frederick and Augustus, now acquired control of the brewing side of the business while their brothers concentrated on hop framing; Edward at Hadlow Place in Hadlow and Herbert in South Barming. By 1891 Herbert had moved to the much larger Court Lodge in West Farleigh.
What is known of the business activities in this period is that in March 1883 Charles Frederick was the successful bidder at an auction where he paid £3,150 for the Camden Arms Hotel at Pembury, a property that formed part of the Earl of Camden's estate that was acquired together with "a large number of houses, 1 acre, 2 rods and 22 perch of land". Augustus demonstrated his business acumen when, in 1892, he negotiated the leases of all of the pubs owned by the Tonbridge brewing brothers, Benjamin and James Baker, at advantageous terms which amounted to 31 properties spread in various towns and villages in Kent, including 12 in Tonbridge, 2 in Hadlow and 2 in Hildenborough. The range of rents went from £160 per annum for the South Eastern Hotel to just £40 for the Good Intent, both in Tonbridge.
Following the death of his father Frederick, Augustus moved from his home in Maidstone and settled in Wateringbury with his children Frederick Barcham, Leonard, Harold, Ronald, Eleanor and Bertram. Tragedy was to strike deep into the heart of this family at a later date with three of the six children to die prematurely. During this same period Charles Frederick had established his family in nearby Tonbridge and by 1889 Richard Tapply had been entrusted with the position of Brewery manager and was living in a company owned house, in Bow Road, Wateringbury.
By now Augustus was certainly very much in control of the business, acquiring many of the assets in his own name. In January 1896 he turned it into a registered company, Frederick Leney & Co Ltd, and at the time of conversion all of the assets owned by Augustus were sold to the new company (including his home,The Orpines) for a consideration of £235,000, made up of £135,000 in cash, £25,000 in preference shares and £75,000 in ordinary shares: he was also paid £13,350 5s 3d for liabilities on the books as at 31st July 1895. At the time of the conversion to a limited company the assets included 72 freehold and 82 leasehold properties and a gasworks attached to the brewery in Wateringbury. When the company was formed Augustus naturally became Chairman with Edward, Richard Tapply and Herbert Green as the other directors. Green was yet another family member who stayed loyal to the patriarch, as he was the brother of Augustus's wife Kate and a director of a firm of Maidstone paper makers, J Barcham Green & Son. Of Charles Frederick nothing further is known: plainly he was not to be a director of the company and perhaps he had other business interests. Perhaps sibling rivalry and the dominance of his younger brother were not to his taste, but from this date he plays no further part in the history of the family business.
As a limited company the business was required to keep proper records and from 1896 minutes were kept of all board meetings: these have provided some valuable information from the date of incorporation onwards. But despite the existence of these minute books the information they contain in the early years is sparse; records often show only the date of a board meeting and who was in attendance. But the board meeting of July 18th 1899 does state that a list of applications had been received for £20,000 of debenture stock which was agreed by all of the directors, and again, in October 1902, by a further £50,000, to fund expansion of the business.
Whilst the business was expanding under the watchful eye of the autocratic Augustus, Edward and Herbert were continuing to control the family interests in hop farming, but this was becoming an industry under increasing pressure. In 1878 hop farming had reached its peak with 77,000 acres of land under cultivation in Kent, but from then on increasing quantities of cheaper hops were being imported into the country, driving down prices for British growers; the people of Kent, not just the farmers, protested. Finally, in 1908, the government listened to the concerns and introduced a charge on imported hops. But this action was too little too late and by 1909 only 32,000 acres of hops were being grown in Kent, less than half the amount of 30 years before. Whether or not the hop farming activities of the business were able to keep the brewery self-sufficient at this time is not known, but certainly as late as 1920 the records show the company buying from a co-operative, English Hops. In 1901 Jack London in "The People of the Abyss" wrote about severe storms that had decimated the area and caused considerable damage to the hops and recorded Herbert's activities as a hop farmer:
All of which was too bad for the owners, certainly; but at the worst not one of them, for one meal would have to go short of food or drink... the newspapers devoted columns of sympathy, their pecuniary losses being detailed at harrowing length. 'Mr Herbert Leney calculates his loss at £8000'; 'Mr Fremlin, of Brewery fame, who rents all the land in this parish, loses £10,000;' and 'Mr Leney, the Wateringbury brewer and brother of Mr Herbert Leney, is another heavy loser'. As for the hoppers, they did not count.
The first of the tragedies to strike the family came in 1909 when Harold, Augustus and Kate's third son, was killed in an accident whilst playing polo at Roberta Heights in South Africa, while serving with the 3rd Hussars. He was 26 years old. By this time as well his second son, Leonard, had left the country for Canada and was never to return. He had become the "black sheep of the family" although why he deserved this reputation is not known. Certainly Augustus's will stipulated that Leonard should only receive an annuity of £400 per year with the instruction that the balance of his estate be divided among his surviving children.
At a board meeting held in August 1909, Augustus's eldest son Frederick Barcham was appointed as a director, although he did not make an appearance at any board meeting again until March 1910 and appears to have had no part at all in the running of the business. Edward Leney was at that meeting, but it was his only appearance since 1906 and he did not turn up again until 1915, his main interest was agriculture. The shape of the board constructed by Augustus and the regular presence of those he had appointed as directors, Herbert Green and Richard Tapply (both people with family connections but not Leneys and on the board by his appointment), together with the regular absence of both Frederick Barcham and Edward, support the argument that Augustus was an autocratic figure: it was him, after all, who had been largely responsible for the growth of the business.
But Augustus had interests outside brewing, and he was becoming very much part of the social scene in Kent and a member of the County Council. In 1894 he became Master of the Mid-Kent Stag Hounds, a position he held until his death and employed "Will Welch to turn hounds for him and John Wilcox as kennel huntsman". In Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man, Siegfried Sassoon makes reference to Augustus and his hunting under a pseudonym:
The Coshford Vale Stag Hunt, which had been in existence as a subscription pack for about half a century, had been kept on its legs by the devoted efforts of a group of prosperous hop-farmers and a family of brewers whose name was a household word in the district. Gimlings Fine Ales were a passport to popularity, and the genial activities of Mr "Gus" Gimling, who had been master for more years than he cared to count, had kept the hunt flourishing and assured it of a friendly reception almost everywhere in the country over which it hunted.
But hunting was to be Augustus's nemesis because on the 30th October 1915 he met with the Linton Harriers at Chart Sutton. During a day's hunting at Boughton Monchelsea his horse caught its hooves in some wire while taking a fence resulting in him being thrown to the ground. Augustus was taken home unconscious and he developed a haemorrhage close to the brain that led to his death on Wednesday 3rd November. Although 68 years of age at his death, Augustus had not retired and was still very much in control of the business empire he had created from his father's legacy. He was to leave an estate of £92,807,2s 4d, a considerable sum, but a substantial amount less than the £235,000 he had acquired only 20 years before from the sale of his assets to form the company. To avoid Death Duties he may have disposed of part of his estate to members of his family but the decline of the business was already evident, both the war and the economy having take their toll. On the 16th of the same month his brother Herbert was also to die at his retirement home, Smith's Hall, in West Farleigh.
The minutes of board meetings make no reference to the deaths of Augustus or Herbert and no succession had been planned for his demise. So at a board meeting on 24th November Edward Leney (having lost two brothers in one month) quietly and with little fuss assumed the role of Chairman. At a meeting in September the youngest son of Augustus, Bertram, had expressed a wish to resign from the position of secretary to allow him to spend more time in the brewing department; Charles Hanbury was appointed in his place. Bertram had considerable responsibility, yet as a main board director he too was not to attend a meeting until March 1916, when Edward was formally elected as Chairman. But a farmer by nature, Edward was not comfortable in the role and at the age of 68 was already well past normal retirement age. Happy to pass the baton onto a younger man, he relinquished the position of Chairman on 1st November 1916, after only 6 months in the role.
This was not a happy time for the company; the strong character who, for years had shaped the business as he wanted it had gone and was to be a hard, if not impossible, act to follow. With his brother too old and not interested in taking up the challenge, the position of Chairman was passed on to Bertram Leney at the age of 27. Blood being thicker than water, it was felt that the business must remain in the family and their being no other candidates either suitable or willing Bertram was the only option. But the tenure was to be short lived because in May 1917 he was called up to fight for King and Country, never to return and died in 1918. Yet again tragedy struck at the family for just 3 years later the eldest son of Augustus and Kate's, Frederick Barcham, was to die at the age of 45 in a fishing accident at Galway in Ireland. Of their remaining children the one son, Ronald had made a career for himself in medicine and whilst he served on the board for a while had little interest in the business.
But following the death of Bertram family came to the rescue: but not a Leney this time. Whilst Frederick Barcham took over the role of Chairman, it was in a titular context, and before he resigned form the board in 1920 he attended just one board meeting, partly due to absence on service during the war. Richard Tapply, moulded and educated in the ways of the business by Augustus, had by this time been with the company for 44 years and he was to receive his reward for his loyalty by stepping into the shoes as managing director, a position occupied until 1927, when he died at the age of 70.
Board meeting minutes from 1918 onwards indicate the financial difficulties the company was to experience and the following years were to be marked by both the sale of properties and re-mortgaging to produce the funds needed to maintain profitability. Between the end of 1918 and 1st January 1920 property to the value of £69,703 was either on the market or had been sold. Among the properties disposed of was The Orpines, Augustus's old house, which was put on the market in 1919 for the sum of £8,500 but it was to be 4 years before, on 17th July 1923, it was finally purchased by Lady Burrows for £4,500. So in 1923, as a means of alleviating some of the financial difficulties, the decision was made to amalgamate with another ailing Kent Brewer Jude Hanbury & Co and benefit from the economies of scale.
Even before the end of the 19th century it had become obvious that the industry was heading for more difficult times. The cost of acquiring public houses had risen sharply and the demand for beer was not great enough to sustain all of them. Excess competition had resulted in reduced profit margins. From 1900 onwards economic depression exacerbated the financial problems of the brewing industry; real wages stopped rising and the demand for beer fell. To add to the industry's problems the 1904 Licensing Act compelled brewers to establish compensation funds to pay off publicans whose licenses were not renewed, and was itself an additional burden for an industry under pressure29. The First World War bought its own particular problems to the industry and Frederick Leney & Sons was not exempt: these are discussed in Chapter 4. The poor state of the industry in the inter-war period saw a substantial reduction in brewing businesses: in 1920 the number of breweries totalled 2,889, compared to 4,482 in 1910, and by 1930 this had further declined to 1,418.
The end of the brewery company came in 1927 when, following the death of Richard Tapply in February, the arguably inevitable decision was made to sell the business. It was sold to Whitbread's, with the assets of Jude, Hanbury & Co being sold 2 years later to the same company. Augustus's son, Dr Ronald Leney and daughter Eleanor were each to receive 2.8 million shares in Whitbread. Emily Leney, the widow of Bertram, received 1.25 million. Whitbread continued brewing at the Phoenix Brewery, primarily Gold Label and export beer for the Belgian market. Brewing finally ceased at the site in November 1981, after which it was used as a factory for producing pub signs before the site was demolished in 1983: Leney Close, with its executive homes, now identifies the site although the weathervane, in the shape of a phoenix, was salvaged at the time of demolition and sits on the roof of the Wateringbury Hotel.
Chapter 3 Alfred Leney & Co Ltd
The Leneys had established themselves in the brewing industry by 1859 when Charles, Frederick's eldest son, broke away from the Phoenix Brewery to pursue his own business interests and help his son, Alfred, in another brewing venture. But this was a differently run business to the one in Wateringbury that Alfred looked to create for his empire, even if their fate was ultimately to be the same, and his destination was Dover, just 50 miles away. As his father Charles had done before him Alfred was to acquire the assets of an existing brewery business when, in conjunction with his uncle James Evenden, he purchased a brewery in Dolphin Lane from the executors of Thomas Walker and together they traded under the name Leney & Evenden.
Dover was a sensible place to build a commercial empire, for the 19th century was a period of great change for the town. The advent of the railways resulted in the development of the harbour on a massive scale and a boom in cross channel traffic, leading to an expansion of local business. The population of the town increased by 600% between 1801 and 1901 and attempts were being made during this period to develop the town as a seaside resort with a pier and a sea front of hotels and apartments: few signs of this affluence and elegance remain today.
One year after arriving in Dover Alfred married Catherine Fremlin, the eldest daughter of James Fremlin - himself the owner of a major Maidstone brewing company and who eventually were to own Alfred Leney and Co Ltd. James' mother had been Anne Jude of Jude Hanbury & Co, which was to amalgamate with Frederick Leney & Sons in 1923: the brewing families of Kent were a tight knit community. Alfred and Catherine's first home was at 73 St James St, only a short walk from the brewery offices in Castle Street. The size of the business in these early days can be gleaned from the 1861 census that identifies him as employing 22 men. But in 1868 his uncle died and Alfred was left to run the business on his own at the age of 31 (dropping the name Evenden) trading as Alfred Leney & Co and adopting the Phoenix as the name of the brewery. Whether this was out of nostalgia for the Wateringbury
brewery is not known: if so it would dispel the family story of a feud; yet the phoenix adopted by Alfred is of a different design and that may indicate some rivalry.
By 1868 Alfred was in total control of the business and with Catherine he had his first child Alfred Charles who, just as his cousins had done before him in Wateringbury, was to follow in his father's footsteps and eventually take control of the family business. With trade expanding Alfred was a successful businessman and by 1871 his workforce had almost doubled. Still living in St James St he was shortly to move to Buckland House in London Road.
The brewery itself was situated in the centre of the town and covered an area of just over 6 acres, employing over 150 men at its peak. With its 122-foot chimney the Phoenix Brewery was an impressive landmark for the town and dominated Market Square. The Phoenix Tavern and the Alhambra Music House, both owned by the company, faced the brewery: The Alhambra, originally called the Phoenix Music Hall and later renamed the Empire Palace Theatre, had been purchased in August 1888, along with 7 other inns, from William Bacchus of Banbury for £10,000 and was to be given over by the company to the army during the First World War. Like the Brewery itself, these two properties no longer exist, both destroyed in a fire in the 1960s. One building that does still exist is the bakery next door, Igglesdens and Graves, used by Charles Dickens in David Copperfield as the setting in the search for his aunt, Betsy Trotswood.
In 1895 Alfred had already taken steps to secure his business and, probably watchful of the activities in Wateringbury, he too decided to turn his business into a limited company. Just as Augustus had done in 1895, Alfred was to sell all of his assets to the business, in this case for £140,000, and the directors were to be Alfred, as Chairman and Managing Director, and his sons Alfred Charles and Hugh, later on to be joined by their younger brother Frank. Alfred had already been on the acquisition trail having purchased in 1885 another Dover Brewery, D P Poulter in Russell Street. But the acquisitions did not stop because no sooner had the company been formed than he almost immediately purchased the Eagle Brewery in Rye and in 1896 The Army and Navy Cooperative Breweries Ltd in Folkestone, which itself purchased the Friary Brewery Co of Aldershot in 1895. Much later on, in 1912, the company was to purchase Thomas Philips & Co another (smaller) Dover Brewer.
A much liked individual, Alfred lived at Buckland House until his death in 1901 and at his funeral at St Andrews Church, Buckland, it was reported that 400 people attended the service in the church and that 1,000 people thronged into the churchyard for the burial. He was to leave £199,788, 18s 4d. He was only 63 when he died and had been in control of the businesses up until his death.
Alfred Charles as the eldest son had already been working alongside his father in the business and inherited the mantle of Chairman and Managing Director. His son was as astute as his father had been and very much involved in the running of the business. By 1900 the company owned around 100 houses and there was no question that the business would continue its growth. But it was to do this by further acquisition: Alfred Charles and his father before him had already calculated that because the beer market had stagnated during the last quarter of the 19th century growth could only be achieved through the acquisition of public houses (hence the earlier acquisitions) so as the market got more difficult the answer was not to retrench but to expand. These economic problems were exacerbated by the difficult economic conditions of the First World War and their particular impact on the brewing industry (see Chapter 4). His response to these difficulties was to acquire outright in 1923 the business of Flint and Co who ran the St. Dunstan's Brewery in Canterbury, the largest of the firms many acquisitions over the years and, established in 1797, one of the oldest brewing businesses in Kent. This was to be the last of the acquisitions, and it was to cost the company £140,000 (the same amount his father had capitalised the business for in 1895) before Alfred Leney & Co themselves became the victims of takeover as part of the industry's need for survival.
Alfred Charles also became a pillar of the local community and his role and the company's in the town during the war were significant: he was a JP and by 1933 High Sheriff of Kent, a prestigious role carrying the responsibility of being the King's judicial representative in the county. He was also appointed as a Director of Royal Insurance, testament to his abilities as a businessman. The standing under which he was held is perhaps not surprising given that brewing was one of the largest non-
maritime industries in the town and as early as 1850 there were 8 breweries in Dover:the Phoenix Brewery was not only the oldest, but also the largest and last to close.
For many years the company's most famous product was "Dover Pale Ale", which was advertised as being made solely from English hops.
The company's marketing was, over the years, to make great store on the local connections for, in 1907, the company was using the first commercial coal produced from the Shakespeare Colliery, Kent's first coal mine. Dover Pale Ale was advertised as "brewed by Kent Coal" but this claim was soon dropped when the coal proved to be of poor quality. But the company did not only produce ales because in 1910 the company established a successful mineral water business, using the "Pharos" trade mark and continuing to trade long after brewing had ceased. In March 1927 it was registered as Leney's Tables Waters Limited.
After his marriage to Bertha in 1897, Alfred Charles purchased Cranbrook House, a substantial property for himself and his family in Salisbury Road, Dover. The house no longer exits, but in Salisbury Road today the large Victorian mansion houses remaining have been mainly converted into flats: those that have been demolished long ago, like Cranbrook House, have been replaced by flats built in the 1960s and the elegance and grandeur of this part of Dover, like in much of the town, has been lost. But Alfred Charles did not live in Cranbrook House for long for, one year before his marriage, he had purchased 8 acres of garden from a local rector and keen gardener in the village of Saltwood, near Hythe, and there he started to build a new house for his wife and family. He did not move into Garden House until 1904, and it was to remain in his ownership until 1947 when it was sold to Stanley Harland. Today the house has been sold off into two properties, but the garden remains in the ownership of Stanley's son, Nigel, and is named the American Garden (after a large Californian Redwood tree planted at its centre 150 years ago) and is open to the public. The home of his father, Buckland House, is now a nursing home.
1927 was to be the turning point for the company when, following the death of Alfred Charles' younger brother and fellow director Frank, the decision was made to sell the business; the same economic conditions so severely affecting Frederick Leney & Sons were having the same effect in Dover. By 1924 some of the company's assets had already been disposed of including the well-known public house in historic Rye, the Ypres Castle. Two years later the decision was made to lease the brewery and all of the remaining tied houses to Fremlins for a period of 36 years: the freeholds were eventually bought out by them as well in 1959. Brewing ceased in Dover in 1927, although Alfred Charles, acting shrewdly, realised that the economic consequences of trying to continue alone were fruitless and secured himself a position on the board of Fremlins until 1948 when, at the age 88, he retired. By 1967 Whitbread, who had swallowed up 411 breweries since the start of the century, took over Fremlins just as they had Frederick Leney & Sons. Alfred Charles died in 1953, at the age of 93; his wife Bertha two years later at the age of 90.
Walking around Dover it is possible to see the site of the old Brewery, now taken up with an ugly 1960's multi-storey car park and a dilapidated cinema boarded up waiting for redevelopment. The registered offices in Castle Street are now an electrical discount shop, and St James Street, home to Alfred, demolished to make way for a new road and a bus garage. In Dolphin passage, behind Dolphin Lane, one of the brewery office buildings has been converted into a hostel by the local authority: named Brewery Cottage it is the only building still standing which gives a clue as to what was on the site in years gone by. Many of the Dover inns owned by the company still exist, some with their original names, but have changed hands many times over the years and bear little resemblance to the ale houses owned by the company in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Chapter 4 The Great War and its Consequences for the Industry and the Businesses.
As war raged after August 1914 the brewing industry was hit hard. Exports disappeared during the war years and post- war recovery was to be a slow and difficult process as markets were lost for good. But the home market was worst affected. Higher costs, stimulated by increases in taxation, input shortages and inflationary pressures combined with a reduction in the quality of materials used in brewing. Taxation was to be a particular burden to the brewing industry; for over two centuries it had been fair prey for wartime Chancellors of the Exchequer. But in November 1914 the duty on beer was increased from 7s 9d to 23s per barrel.
Table 8: Beer Produced, Rate of Duty,Yield and Average Price
Source: The Brewers' Almanack and Wine and Spirit Trade Annual, The Review Press 1928, as quoted by
www. europeanbeerguide.net.
The government introduced other measures hitting the industry hard and The Output of Beer (Restriction) Act of 1916 imposed controls on the volume of output and specific strength: consumption was regulated by price controls and tighter licensing regulations. Initially power was given to military and naval authorities in August 1914 to close public houses and to restrict pub-opening hours. This power was extended to civil authorities shortly afterwards and in 1915 opening hours were reduced from 16-17 hours (19.5 hours in London) to 5.5 hours, with evening closing at either 9 or 9.30pm. In all areas of the country there was concern that the effectiveness of the munitions factories was being endangered by drunkenness amongst the workers and Lloyd George, a prominent temperance supporter, actively promoted hostility to the trade:
Drink is doing us more damage in the war than all the German submarines put together... We are fighting Germany, Austria and Drink, and as far as I can see the greatest of the three deadly foes is Drink.
Both companies entered the war weakened by economic and political policies that were to have far reaching consequences. But war was to damage each of them in different ways: if the economic and political difficulties that were to cause such severe damage to the British brewing industry were not enough, the two brewing businesses were to have their own problems to contribute to their eventual sale as struggling enterprises. These were exacerbated in Wateringbury through the diminution of leadership following the death of Augustus in 1915, a year into the war and without any succession planned for death or retirement. In Dover Alfred Leney & Co was to be a particular victim of the war due to its geography, situated in a major naval base and at the closest part of mainland Britain to France.
In Wateringbury steps were underway to secure the business for the wartime circumstances. They continued to put properties up for sale and re-mortgage and in December 1915 the board made the decision to approach Lord Falmouth, landlord of two properties leased by the company, Home Farm and Woodmans, with a request that he seek alternative tenants. The following May the decision was made to close the offices in Tunbridge Wells and the stores in Chatham. Plainly the business was not in good shape because, in January 1916, the board reported on a meeting with the Estate Duty Department who had "expressed themselves willing to have the shares of Augustus valued at £3500 more than the board valuation". Despite that, the value of the shares for probate was put at £5 10s per £10 ordinary share and £4 per £10 preference share; a significant loss to his estate from the original price of 1896. From the records that exist this is the clearest indication of how the business had declined.
Frederick Barcham had joined up to support the war effort and following the appointment of Edward as Chairman on 10th May 1916 the decision was made by the board that he should in addition to his new role continue with responsibility for the farms. Bertram it was decided should have responsibility for the conduct of the brewing, malting and gas manufacturing sides of the business, as well as finance. Richard Tapply was given responsibility for wines and spirits. But events moved fast and at the end of the same month the board decided that Bertram should be made Managing Director. A telegram was sent from Cairo where Frederick Barcham was serving with the Red Cross giving approval.
Edward felt safe with Bertram at the age of 28 installed as Managing Director and that he could resign as chairman, even with Frederick Barcham away in Cairo. Edward was to retire from the business completely and move to Hastings, where he died in 1927, but even in retirement he continued to take an active interest in the farming business and, one of his first loves, his horses. Like his brother Augustus, Edward was a keen huntsman and he was to enter one of his horses, True Blue in the Grand National during the war9. During the war years the race was held at Gatwick on what is now the site of the airport but no records exist during this period as to runners, riders and owners.
Following Edward's departure the business was not to be in safe hands because, only 4 months later in March 1917, the board reported that
Bertram ... is summoned before the tribunal tomorrow and the possibility of his having to join up was received with considerable concern in that if he failed to secure exemption it would be imperative that the company move in the matter.
He was not able to gain exemption, despite trying; and so on 30 May 1917 the board granted him formal leave of absence. With the only two Leney members of the family business away serving their country, it was left to Tapply and Green to manage the business as best as they could.
Bertram enlisted in the Inns of Court Officers Training Corps and was transferred to the Royal Artillery Officers Cadet School in January 1918. But he never finished the course and enlisted as a Gunner in the Eastern Command Bombardment School Royal Field Artillery. H was never to see active service and died at the Streatham Hill Military Hospital in Exeter on 4th October 1918 at the age of 30 from Peritonitis and Cholycistitis.
Both the war and the absence of Bertram, even before his death, caused the company problems for, in the quarter ending June 30 1917, they had been guilty of over-brewing by 245 barrels. The company admitted the error stating it was caused by Bertram (responsible for brewing) being "called to the colours" at the beginning of June and that the excess had been brewed in his absence. The company was fined £100, but the bad publicity would not have been to their liking.
In Dover Alfred Leney & Co was facing a different set of challenges. Although towns other than Dover were to suffer greater loss of life and damage during the war, few were more frequently visited by the enemy, and it gets the honour of being the first town in England to be bombed when, on Christmas Eve 1914 at around midday, a German plane was spotted over the town. Its pilot leaned over the side of his plane and saw Dover 5,000 feet below him. Lifting the bomb with his hands he held the joystick with his knees and heaved the bomb over the side of the plane. It did very little damage, reportedly falling on a cabbage patch between Harold Road and the Castle. During 1915 and beyond the Germans relied on Zeppelins but by 1916 had decided that raiding planes would prove more formidable. The raids became frequent, but it was not until January 23rd 1916 that Dover experienced its first moonlight raid when, at 1:00 am, 9 bombs were dropped on Dover, one landing on the roof of an Alfred Leney & Co house, the Red Lion, killing one man and injuring two others. Another fell on the malthouse at the Phoenix Brewery causing a fire that was soon put out . The Dover brewery was to see direct action affect its business on more than one occasion, because on Sunday 19th March in the same year a large German seaplane dropped bombs on a camp of the Royal Fusiliers, killing 4 men and wounding eleven. At the same time another raider appeared and dropped a bomb on the cooperage yard of the brewery, and yet another was dropped on the firm's mineral water plant in Russell St, completely destroying it.
Because of its geography and the naval activity in the town, immediately following the declaration of war in 1914 Dover was designated a special military area and came under martial law. Steps were taken to regulate the movement of vehicles in and out of the town. Some 22,000 passes were issued and any person or vehicle entering or leaving was required to show their documents at the checkpoints. In October 1916 even more stringent controls existed making the movement of people in and out of Dover an arduous and protracted business. The system existed until a month after the Armistice and was a severe hindrance to the movement of goods from the brewery to the inns and hotels.
Despite the real practical problems that the brewery faced, the company made its contribution to the war effort. Throughout the war many people, including Lord Derby, when Secretary of State for War, and Sir John French (Commander of the British Home Forces 1915-1918) were convinced that Dover was a target for invasion and a local emergency committee was set up: Alfred Charles played his part by sitting on the committee to plan for the orderly evacuation of threatened districts.
He also played a major part in the raising of funds for a memorial to the Dover Patrol. In late July 1914 twelve destroyers arrived at Dover, forming the nucleus of the Dover Patrol that became one of the most important Royal Navy commands of the First World War. The Dover Patrol was commanded in the later stages of the war by Vice Admiral Sir Roger Keyes and after the war he set up the committee, with Alfred Charles as a member, to erect a memorial which was unveiled at Leatercote Point near St Margaret's Bay in 1921. A similar memorial is situated at Cap Nez in France.
Throughout the war the company also made arrangements for the windows of the office premises in Castle St to be used for the publication of telegrams carrying the latest news from the front, and down to the time of the armistice over 4,500 telegrams had been displayed. The cellars of the brewery were used as shelter for the population during air raids and during the winter of 1916-17 the firm handed over one of its properties, the Empire Palace Theatre, for the use of the East Sussex Regiment.
Following the cessation of hostilities in November 1918 the golden phoenix bird, which had proudly sat on top of the brewery premises had been covered up during the war because of fears that during moonlight nights it acted as a landmark, was uncovered, and business, as in Wateringbury, tried to return to some sense of normality and face the challenges that were still to lie before them before their final demise. But whilst the war may have damaged the business, it was to recover and be another 9 years after the war ended before the economics of the industry took their final toll.
Chapter 5 Conclusion
Analysing the brewing industry in the early 19th century it is easy to understand why a farmer in the Weald of Kent would see an opportunity to turn from growing hops to use them for his own production. Setting up his two sons with its own brewery made sense: there was a better return on the hops, the inn was a sound investment and it enabled the sons to be set up with their own business. Abraham Leney was a wise and forward thinking entrepreneur and fortunate that both sons, Charles and Frederick, inherited his business skills and able to make themselves prosperous from a booming brewing industry. From 1833 when The Bull at Wrotham was acquired to only just over 4 years later the Leney family moved from being publican brewers to commercial brewers and built themselves an empire, at its peak in the early 20th century, to consist between the two companies of over 400 inns, houses, hotels and farms in Kent and Sussex.
Two factors were to be responsible for the difficulties that afflicted the whole of the English brewing industry so by 1927, when both Frederick Leney & Sons and Alfred Leney & Co had been sold, the majority of remaining brewery businesses were shadows of their former selves. Firstly, the economic decline in the industry, which had begun to stagnate at around 1900 and then get into great difficulties as the overall economy headed for depression. Between 1900 and 1913 the general population grew by 13%, yet real wages stopped rising and demand for beer fell into decline, going from 31.2 gallons per head in 1895 to 26.9 in 1910. This fall in demand together with excess production inevitably led to lower profits and brewers paid for their expansion through the issue of debenture stock and preference shares; as beer sales fell, the brewers experienced difficulty in meeting interest and dividend payments and, in the case of Frederick Leney & Sons, the evidence from the remaining accounting information shows they kept re-mortgaging, compounding the problem. The 1904 Licensing Act added to the problems, establishing a compensation fund to pay off publicans, whose licenses were not renewed, becoming one more burden to bear.
The second factor to have a detrimental effect of the industry was the First World War: neither of the Leney businesses were protected from the economic realities of the day, but they were exacerbated by the severe measures introduced by Lloyd George during the war years. But in Dover the business exploited the situation to best advantage, by at least ensuring that when the inevitable happened and the business sold the major shareholder, Alfred Charles, could be secure with a directorship at Fremlins that was to last almost up until his death.
The war damaged both companies economically, but neither company was immune from the other effects of war. In Dover Alfred Leney & Co was affected by the physical affects of war through bombings and disruption, but Alfred Charles at least achieved personal kudos from exploitation of his social position in the town. The war disrupted Frederick Leney & Sons in different way, and although Bertram died in service from natural causes, his eldest brother was absent in Cairo with the Red Cross and their father and its patriarch, Augustus, failed to provide for succession so that when he died not long into the war Edward was not interested and too old: the business became leaderless and dependant on nepotism for survival. And the war years were not a good time to look for commercial skills, with so many men away fighting for their country. It is arguably the case that without the economic factors Frederick Leney & Sons would in any case have gone into decline. But whilst it is easy from a distance to be critical of these businesses, it is worth noting that between 1900, when the industry started its decline, and 1964, Whitbread were to take over 411 brewery business. They achieved this through direct purchase of individual companies and through the businesses they acquired that, like the Leneys, had discovered that acquisition was not the answer to their problems. Whilst the day of the publican brewer was largely over by 1914, the writing was already on the wall for the independent brewer and it was only to be a question of time before the market was dominated by the behemoths. Many brewery companies like those of the Leney's existed during this period, and just like them they are now largely forgotten, their history kept alive predominantly through local interest and brewery historians.