Copyright © 2004 the Brewery History Society

Journal Homepage


Journal Home > Archive > Issue Contents > Brew. Hist., 114, pp. 22-33

'Masters of their own throats': the 1834 beer strikes

by Tim Holt

On Saturday, July 26th 1834 an unusual meeting took place in London at the Silver Cup public house. So many people attended that the heat became unbearable and hundreds spilled out onto the pavements eventually blocking the road. Before its close a rather extraordinary resolution was passed, all workers in the metropolis were urged to stop drinking beer produced by the Combe and Delafield brewery.

The origins of the boycott lie in a wage strike called by the Journeymen Coopers of London early in 1834. On the 1st February, after giving two week's notice, the coopers laid down their tools. Unlike their fellow cask makers in the provinces, who were employed directly by the brewers and worked in-house, the vast majority of London coopers worked for independent manufacturers, the Master Coopers - those few that were in the pay of the breweries mainly carried out repair and cleaning work (Mathias 1959: 54). The Journeymen Coopers argued that the volume of work had grown over the previous ten years; specifically, both the size and the strength of the casks they made had increased. At first the employers refused the demand for more pay, stating that although wages had not literally increased, they had done so in real terms as the cost of living had decreased over the decade. However, after four weeks had passed it appears that the Master Coopers could see no end to the dispute and accordingly were persuaded to sanction a pay rise.

Then events took an unforeseen twist; the Government had become aware of the situation and decided to intervene. In a speech to the House of Commons in early March the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James Graham, argued that an increase in wages would inevitably lead to an increase in the price of casks. This, in turn, would be very damaging to British shipping interests as they would be more open to cheaper, foreign competition (The Times, 4 March 1834). Graham also accused the Journeymen Coopers of intimidating their employers into not taking on more workers (or apprentices), so that production could not increase and prices fall. Furthermore, he had obtained signed statements from the principal coopers of five major London brewers - Barclay and Perkins, Truman, Hanbury and Buxtons, Whitbread and Co., Hoare and Co. and Taylor and Co. - asserting that no changes in the size or strength of casks had occurred (although another speaker alleged that the principal coopers had been compelled to sign the documents by their managers). To alleviate the effects of the strike the Admiralty supplied the Master Coopers with 50 butts and 200 hogsheads from His Majesty's Victualling Office in Deptford at a cost of 1s 8d when the standard price was 2s 4d.

This now gave the Master Coopers the upper hand. After informing their customers of the new supply of casks, they went on the offensive. They appealed to all those who employed coopers to dismiss any belonging to the union of Journeymen Coopers. One firm to comply with this petition was the brewer Courage and Donaldson of Horselydown Lane, Southwark who sacked one cooper. In reply the union unanimously backed a resolution 'that we will drink no more beer brewed by that firm; and further, that we pledge ourselves to use all the means we possess to induce other Unions to do the same' (Poor Man's Guardian, 15 March 1834).

Although the strike petered out a precedent had been set; workers believed they could influence the policies of brewers by boycotting their beer. It was a precedent that was shortly acted upon. Only one month later the following single line article appeared in The Times. 'The carpenters and bricklayers belonging to the Trades Unions have, in consequence of Messrs. Combe and Delafield's refusal to employ any person connected with Trade Unions, resolved to drink no more of their beer' (The Times, 5 Apr 1834). Yet this was denied five days later in a letter to the same paper from the brewers. 'Sir, With reference to a paragraph which appeared in your paper of Saturday last, we beg you will state that we have never discharged any person from our employment on account of his being a member of the Trade Union' (The Times, 10 Apr. 1834).

While it is unclear how this issue was resolved it appears that the unions were unconvinced by Combe and Delafields' denial. Unfortunately for the firm it would soon be involved in a similar, but more serious dispute. This time it would involve the building workers and their employers, the Master Builders.

The building trade had undergone major changes since the Napoleonic wars. During the conflict with France the Government had placed contracts with just six building concerns, primarily for the construction of barracks. At around the same time large works were being undertaken in London, including office blocks and workhouses, but mainly housing estates. Combined these factors gave rise to a new phenomenon, the Master Builder (Prothero 1979: 45). Previously a building had been the responsibility of one tradesman who then sub-contracted work to specialist masters, eg a master carpenter, master bricklayer, etc. In contrast, the Master Builders, who numbered about forty in London, employed directly a large and permanent workforce made up of all the building trades and oversaw all aspects of the contract from beginning to completion (Prothero 1979: 269).

By 1834 many of the Master Builders perceived their relations with their workforce as being in steady decline, expressed by the growing number of strikes in the industry. Believing the situation could only deteriorate a number of them came together and, on the 4th March,

nominated a committee. This was to meet occasionally over the next few months to assess any developments. Then, towards the end of May, placards began to appear advertising a public meeting of all Master Builders to be held on the 10th June at the City of London Tavern. Its purpose was to ”consider the propriety of reducing the present wages of the journeymen, in the proportion that provisions have declined in price since the last standard was fixed”. And also to consider the propriety of not employing any man who is a member of the Union' (PMG, 31 May 1834). The union in question was the Operative Builders' Union, formed around 1832 from an amalgamation of smaller workers' organizations (Postgate 1923: 57).

This threat may have been a ploy to warn the building workers against undertaking further industrial action. If this was the case the Master Builders concluded that it had failed for, on the 8th June, they met again. This time they convened at the London Coffee House, Ludgate Hill (which was demolished in 1867, the site now being occupied by 'Ye Olde London' public house). Here eleven resolutions were passed, the majority of which condemned the actions of the building unions and their effects upon their members. Unions were portrayed as poisoning the relationship between employer and employee, as attempting to govern the actions of employers with regard to contracts and the employment of foremen, and of attempting to replace the right of individuals to negotiate a price for their labour with the evil of collective bargaining. Of all the articles the most inflammatory requested all employees to renounce their union membership. It stated

that this meeting strongly recommends every master interested in this question publicly and solemnly to declare that from and after the 16th day of August next, he will not employ any artisan or labourer who refuses to join a declaration that he is not a member of any trade union (The Times, 3 Sep. 1834).

Those present then signed all the resolutions and the document was left in the London Coffee House for a week so that those Master Builders unable to attend could put their names to it. Thus the timetable was set for an inevitable confrontation and it was not long in coming.

Trouble began in the workshops of Lewis and William Cubitt, brothers of the more famous Thomas. The three brothers had jointly run the business from their large, purpose-built workshops on the Grays Inn Road. By 1834, however, Thomas had set up by himself and was concentrating his trade further west in Belgravia and Pimlico leaving his two brothers with the Grays Inn enterprise. On Monday the 14th July those employees of the Lewis and William who belonged to the Operative Builders' Union resolved not to drink any beer brewed by Combe and Delafield. All three brothers had had long-standing connections with the brewery, being responsible for the construction of a number of its pubs. In return for these profitable contracts Lewis and William, in their words,

to evince a grateful feeling towards that house, have all along prohibited the consumption of any other beer in their workshops; this has never been considered by the men as at all trenching on their rights or privileges, and some such regulation is absolutely necessary to limit, in some degree, the quantity that might otherwise be introduced. [The brothers], however, have not exercised this control at any of their out-door works (The Times, 21 July 1834).

The supply of beer, and gin, when the workmen arrived at six a.m. appears to have been common at the time, (although Thomas had put an end to it in his workshops by preventing beer sellers access to his premises and offering cheap coffee and cocoa as alternatives).

On Wednesday evening, according to Lewis and Williams' version of events published in The Times, they became aware of their workers' boycott and the following morning handed them an ultimatum - either drink the beer approved by the firm or resign. Most of the men left the workshops at midday, met to consider their options and then sent a deputation to the Cubitts with their decision in the evening. The union proposed that if the brothers 'would erase their names from the resolutions published by the Master Builders the Union would cease its hostility to the brewers by whom William and Lewis Cubitt were patronized' (The Times, 21 July 1834). The Cubitts responded with a flat refusal, considering

this arbitrary act of the union interfering with the trade of a house whose only offence was the having exercised their own will in the choice of builder, an additional reason for the extinction of a body which could so far depart from all sense of justice and propriety, dragging into the dispute the names and trade of a firm which had in no way made itself a party to the question; and they then told the deputation that on the 16th of the next month all the men would be expected to sign a renunciation of the trades' unions, that till then however they might resume their work, on the condition of ceasing their opposition as to the beer (The Times, 21 July 1834).

The next morning the men returned to Grays Inn Road, collected their tools and left. The brothers

then thought it their duty to suggest to the partners of [Combe and Delafield] that their continuing to be employed by them seemed to involve a question of importance to their trade, it would be better that such employment should cease. William and Lewis Cubitt have in fact surrendered this part of their business (The Times, 21 July 1834).

As a large number of their employees had now walked out, the brothers thought that to wait until the 16th of August for those remaining to sign the declaration renouncing their union membership was unnecessary. Consequently, they asked their foremen to gather signatures on a paper with the title 'We declare that we are not members of any trades' union'. According to Lewis and William 228 workers put their name to the declaration, although in a report in The Times that Saturday only three signatures were said to have been collected.

Understandably, a different account emerges from a report that appeared in the radical newspaper, The Poor Man's Guardian. This described a meeting held on Saturday the 26th of July, a week after the strike had begun. It took place at the recently opened Silver Cup pub, 51 Cromer Street, situated around the corner from the Cubitts' workshop, and was chaired by Alex Ritchie, landlord of the nearby Granville Arms, 89 Cromer Street. Its primary aim was to raise a subscription for the strikers and discuss how they could best protect themselves from the combined forces of the 'great masters'. The convention began with a rousing speech by Ritchie who asked

"What … are the journeymen of England to be brought down to the state of degradation and slavery, that they are not even to be masters of their own throats? Must they be told that they must drink whatever their employers think proper to give them? - (No, no.) "No indeed," said the Chairman. "An Englishman is a curious being: he is mild, but independent; he is patient, but courageous; he can bear with and put up with a great deal, but spur him on by oppression and tyranny he becomes a formidable opponent, and it is no easy matter to tame him. The idea of forcing Combe and Delafield's beer down their throats would not do in a country like this - it smacked too much of aristocratic tyranny - it was unfair. The Cubitts might boast of riches, but riches did not make the man. Principle did, and on that he hoped the journeymen would ultimately gain their point." - (Applause.) (PMG, 2 Aug 1834).

The next speaker, Mr Knott, gave a first-hand account of the strike's origins.

The men sent out for some beer, when, because it was not Combe and Delafield's, [the brothers] gave offence, and the foreman, named Wright, interfered. Mr Cubitt then brought in seven or eight pots of the beer of that firm, and threatened to clear his shops, if the whole of the men did not agree to sign a document to drink that beer. The men were so disgusted and indignant at the proceeding that they struck (PMG, 2 Aug 1834).

He went on to describe how the document also called upon the men to renounce the union and agree to terms that would eventually see their wages reduced from 5s to 3s 6d per day. Another journeyman advised that

the working people of London should be cautioned against drinking Combe and Delafield's beer, as there was so great a desire to have it consumed under such despotic circumstances. The proposition should be that bills be circulated, warning the public of the junto, and advising them not to drink Combe and Delafield's beer. - (Cries of "Bravo; yes, yes, no, no.") (PMG, 2 Aug 1834).

Mr Knott then returned to the fray arguing that if they agreed to drink Combe and Delafield's beer it would be the thin end of the wedge;

if we consent to that simple act, they will eventually compel you to deal at whatever shop they think proper, and receive their allowance or profit out of the five shillings a day which they pay to their journeymen. - (Hear, hear; we'll not drink it, it sha'nt be stuffed down our throats; Barclay and Perkins for ever.) (PMG, 2 Aug 1834).

Later, Mr Ritchie rose to his feet once more and described another way in which the Cubitts and Combe and Delafield cooperated to their mutual benefit. He had 'altered a house, and fitted it for the public business. He went to [Combe and Delafield], and because he had not had the house altered by Cubitt, they refused to patronise him or furnish him with beer. - (Shame.)' (PMG, 2 Aug 1834).

After speeches from several other attendees the packed meeting broke up. Such were the numbers that police had been stationed nearby, but all passed off peacefully.

The boycott of their beer by the building workers obviously had an immediate effect on Combe and Delafield's trade for, on the 8th of August, they had the following piece printed in The Times.

It is known to the licensed victuallers of London that for some time past members of the Trades' Unions, more especially of the Builders' Union, have circulated reports calculated to injure the trade of those victuallers who deal with us, by asserting that we are the partners of Messrs Cubitt … and that we are supporters of those builders in their present contention with their workmen.

We have hitherto abstained from any public notice of these reports; but our silence having been construed into an acknowledgment of their truth, and resolutions of some of the unions having been published denouncing our presumed conduct as tyrannical and unjust, and calling upon all members of the unions to abstain from drinking our beer, and from dealing with victuallers supplied by us, we are at length induced, by representations of those who have been injured, to declare that these reports are in every possible sense utterly false.

We are not, nor ever were, either as a firm or individually, partners with Messrs Cubitt; we have never had any other connexion with them than that of employers; we have never, either directly or indirectly, interfered in the disputes between them and their workmen (The Times, 8 Aug. 1834).

Yet the union who were convinced of their case and were unswayed by the brewer's argument. Therefore, Combe and Delafield had another article published in which they offered to pay 'the Operative Builders' Union, or to any other charity, 500l., if it can be proved that we have in any one instance interfered in the connections between the masters and their workmen' (The Times, 18 Aug. 1834).

Meanwhile, attempts were being made to resolve the dispute arising from the declaration renouncing union membership, a dispute that was now spreading throughout London. At a meeting chaired by Colonel Evans MP held at the beginning of August it was resolved that a deputation should attempt to hold talks with the employers. On Monday 11th another assembly was held at the Prince's Head, Prince's Street off Storey's Gate, Westminster to hear the Master Builders' negative response. In a letter from the employers' solicitor, John Evans, they refused to have any dealings with the workers' delegation.

Other, more light-hearted, gatherings were held, chiefly to raise funds for the strikers. These took the form of 'grand balls' and other entertainments staged in pubs. As a cynical Times correspondent reported,

the public houses … were yesterday filled with … mis-guided men, and while their families are starving at home, they are drinking and listening to the vagaries of the union demagogues, who so long as their ignorant dupes are the means of putting money into their pockets do not care one straw how much misery they suffer, or what they entail upon their unfortunate wives and families (The Times, 21 Aug. 1834).

August 16th came and went, the deadline by which building workers were required to sign the declaration renouncing their union membership. On the 29th the Master Builders met again at the London Coffee House to assess the situation. News of the meeting reached the journeymen builders and a deputation of ten strikers also attended. They presented the following proposal;

That the masters should in the first place withdraw the resolution they had adopted, which requests the men to declare in writing, 'that they are not members of any trades' union' - that the men would then go to work, and that in the event of any future strike the dispute would be referred to a committee of workmen, such a committee to be recognised by the masters as a competent tribunal to adjust all differences between them and their workmen (The Times, 2 Sep. 1834).

The delegation went on to assert that no compromise would be considered and that any modifications would have to be ratified by a general meeting at national level that could convene by the end of September at the earliest. Although the Masters turned down the proposal they

assured the workmen that if the union, as now constituted were dissolved, they would readily get their assistance and support to any society having for its object solely the benefit and protection of workmen, and that their committee would receive any communication from the workmen in furtherance of this view (The Times, 2 Sep. 1834)

Not surprisingly the strikers found this proposition unacceptable and the meeting broke up.

The following week a lengthy advertisement appeared in The Times written by John Evans aiming to present the Master Builders' side of the story. It began by listing a number of union practices that so agitated the employers. These included intimidation of non-union workers, a call for uniform wages irrespective of differing levels of skills, and a refusal to work overtime. One other complaint, obviously included at the behest of the Cubitts, was that 'if a merchant, by any act of his, became obnoxious to this invisible power, his goods were refused by the men; and if the master insisted upon their being received, … [a strike] ensued' (The Times, 3rd Sep 1834). Then, after describing the Masters' gatherings of the 8th July and 29th August, the piece went on to assert that they had gained 'very many' signatures from their workmen, thus renouncing the union. Evans finished with the following threat to the strikers;

All that the master builders would ask of the public is that they should offer time to such of their number as may not yet have been able to refit their establishment, being well assured that in a very few weeks they will be enabled to fill the places of all such men as shall be so ill-advised as to continue their connexion with the trades' union (The Times, 3 Sep. 1834).

This appears to have be no idle warning, as it does seem that the Master Builders were drafting in labour from outside the capital to replace the strikers. However, this is not to say that the employers had the situation completely in hand for, as mentioned in the previous quotation, contracts were having to be postponed. Furthermore, some Masters were showing signs of insecurity, being quick to deny reports that they had reduced the wages of those they still employed. The firm of Grissel and Peto made the assurance that 'on the contrary we are paying our workers the same rate of wages they received twenty years ago!' (PMG, 30 Aug. 1834).

On September 6th a reply to the Master Builders' long advertisement appeared in the Poor Man's Guardian. Predictably, there was little sympathy for the views it expressed:

At first sight it appears plausible enough - the delinquencies of the Unionists are blazoned with a master-hand. The virtues of the employers (for vices they have none!) are clothed in the chastest colours; - the former are made to appear arrogant, jealous, grasping, false, cruel, and dictatorial; - the latter (the masters) are represented as forbearing, considerate, tender of the men, and everything that is the opposite of tyrannical and rapacious! It is easy to see who draws the picture; if Old Nick were only suffered to be his own portrait-maker, he would, doubtless, pass for a most amiable fellow (PMG, 6 Sep. 1834).

After quoting generously from the advertisement the Poor Man's Guardian accuses the employers of ignoring the fact that it was they who had prepared the ground from which the strike grew. Through their own avarice in attempting to gain contracts by undercutting their competitors, they were forced to reduce the wages of their employees. The Guardian then continues by pointing out other omissions and contradictions in the Masters' piece, emphasising that power lay in their hands, not in those of the workers.

The article finished by recording the role of the press in the strike. During this period newspapers were heavily taxed or 'stamped' at 4d. a copy when the average wage was less than 10s. a week. However, a number of radical publishers consciously ignored the tax and were fined and imprisoned for their stand. One such publisher was Henry Hetherington, owner of the Poor Man's Guardian. The piece declared that the stamped press was 'the press of the slave-drivers', promoting biased, anti-unionist views of the strike which large sections of the population came to believe. It was the unstamped press that presented the true picture of events.

By a strange coincidence an editorial appeared on the same day in The Times that also referred to the Master Builders' article. As if to provide a perfect illustration for the Poor Man's Guardian's argument it declared that 'we shall dwell upon this [advertisement] no further than to say that it makes out a very strong case against the workmen'. Yet it went on to say, in a rare show of even-handedness, that

it must not be forgotten that the workmen allege … serious grounds for complaint. The chief of these, and the only one for which we have been able to discover the slightest foundation, is, that the masters have compelled them to deal at certain places and with certain persons for the purchase of articles which must enter into the materials of their daily consumption (The Times, 6 Sep. 1834).

The Times then proposed a remedy, that both parties should return to their original positions - the workmen to wind up their union and the Masters to withdraw their resolutions. Such a plan found no favour with The Poor Man's Guardian. A week later it accused The Times's advice as being 'intentionally mischievous to the interests of the workmen, and highly and intentionally advantageous to the ends of the London Coffeehouse little junta' (PMG, 13 Sep. 1834). The Times was portrayed as the mouthpiece of the Master Builders, its solution to the dispute merely a desperate attempt by the employers to save themselves from a situation they knew they were losing. The Poor Man's Guardian went on to castigate The Times for its support of the Cubitts; 'This is the same Cubitt, be it remembered, who insisted on his men drinking Combe, Delafield, and Co.'s ale; this is the same Cubitt who began the recent disturbance, and to whom Combe, Delafield, and Co., are so much indebted for bringing them to the verge of insolvency' (PMG, 13 Sep. 1834). The piece ends with this call to the workmen:

Always do precisely the reverse of what the "Times" advises, and then you will be right. It is the paid friend of your sworn foes. It has done all it could already to stab your interests, and, finding that it cannot hurt you, it turns round, and hypocritically pretends to be your friend. Beware! While it smiles in your face it plots your destruction; while you lend it your ear it accomplishes your ruin (PMG, 13 Sep. 1834).

Apart from the war of words between the radical and establishment press, little changed with regards to the strike during September. Meetings continued to be held by both camps, but it appears that no direct dialogue occurred between them. However, one piece of interesting information does emerge at this point. Figures were printed of the number of men connected with the building trade who were out on strike during this month. They were listed as follows:

Carpenters out, 548; bricklayers, 130; masons, 148; plasterers, 200; painters, 187; smiths, 49; stone-sawyers, 73; wood-sawyers, 118; bricklayers' labourers, 724; stone masons, 174; power masons, 3; miscellaneous, 21. - Total, 2,380 (The Times, 8 Sep. 1834).

While September ended in relative stagnation, the situation changed dramatically in October. At the very beginning of that month a delegation representing the strikers, consisting of building workers and shopkeepers from Southwark, met the committee of the Master Builder at the London Coffee House. Their intention was to broker an agreement between the two sides in an encounter that was to last four hours. The first to speak was the chairman of the committee, Mr Baker, who asked if the delegation had any proposals for the Master Builders to consider. 'No' was the reply from Mr Smith, the leading spokesperson for the workmen who, ironically, was neither a building worker nor a unionist. In fact, he had come to be in this position purely by chance. He had attended a public meeting in Newington 'by accident' and it was there that he was requested to form one of the current deputation. He explained that he was a tradesman who was suffering as a result of the dispute. Although he admitted that the strikers did not have any propositions for the committee they 'wished to know whether some arrangement might not be entered into?' (The Times, 8 Oct. 1834). This appeared to be a signal for the Master Builders to list their grievances, one of whom was Mr Cubitt (but which one of the three brothers is unclear). Generally, they argued against what they saw as the arbitrary nature of the walkouts. The workmen replied that the union only supported legitimate strikes and that strikes had occurred before the establishment of the Union. The Union's primary object was to benefit its members. Mr Smith also asked that 'as there was an union of the masters, no objection could be made to that of the men' (The Times, 8 Oct. 1834). Mr Baker denied that the committee of the Master Builders constituted a union and made the assurance that, once the strike was over, it would cease to meet. Then Mr Hopkinson, a saw maker from Southwark, asserted that the Master Builders declaration was an attempt to exclude all unionists, but this was also denied. Mr Cubitt explained that 'the declaration had no prospective view; all they wanted was for the men to put them in a fair situation' (The Times, 8 Oct. 1834). It was then stated that the operatives were anxious for reconciliation, to which the employers replied that they would withdraw their resolutions once the Union had been dissolved. Mr Smith agreed, but suggested that the declaration be retracted first. This was met favourably by Mr Baker who went on to say that the Master Builders had 'no objection to an union, but they objected to those laws which struck at the independence of the masters; dissolve the present union, and then form another, and the masters will willingly assist you' (The Times, 8 Oct. 1834). If this was the carrot the employers also had a stick to weald. A number of the Masters described how their workshops were being quickly remaned by workers from outside London, who, although not as skilled as the men now on strike, were learning fast. The meeting finally came to a end and 'at a late hour the deputation withdrew, with an evident feeling of satisfaction, and a hope of an early reconciliation with both parties, again promising to communicate with the committee at an early day' (The Times, 8 Oct. 1834).

However, despite these efforts the strike did not come to a speedy resolution. On the 24th October, during a meeting held at the Angel Inn, St Clements, a delegate from the Operative Builders Union informed the audience that moves were still afoot to bring about a permanent settlement. This would happen, the gathering was assured, very soon. And this was indeed the case. Some time within the following four weeks the strike finally came to an end. The final piece to refer to the strike appeared in The Times at the end of November. It stated that

The long continued differences between the large builders and their men might now be said to have ceased. Yesterday a general meeting of the [Master Builders] took place in the London Coffee-house, Luddgate-Hill, for the purpose of dissolving their body. After an arrangement and general settlement of their affairs, the meeting dissolved, with a conviction that there would not be a necessity for again assembling (The Times, 29 Nov. 1834).

Thus, after nearly four months, the strike was over. Neither of the two protagonists could claim victory. The Operative Builders' Union was soon to disappear in the December or following January. However, this was not totally due to the wishes of the Master Builders, it was also partly self-induced. The Union was already in decline in the autumn of 1834, a process accelerated by the actions of George Bevan. Secretary of the masons' section, Bevan absconded with as much of the Union's funds (£36) as he could acquire (Postgate 1923: 111). The workers' families had suffered financially, being forced to rely on money raised through subscriptions. The one positive outcome was the fact that they had negotiated the right to form a new union. The Masters had also suffered financial loses through the postponement or cancellation of profitable contracts. Yet, they did see the dissolution of the union they so despised. However, there was one party for whom there was no silver lining, Combe and Delafield. Despite the possibility that they may have been innocent victims of the dispute, they obviously suffered heavy loses through reduced beer sales. Caught in the crossfire the brewers surely never again wished to hear cries of 'we'll not drink it, it sha'nt be stuffed down our throats'.

Bibliography

Mathias, P, (1959) [1993] The Brewing Industry in England, 1700 - 1830, Gregg Revivals: Aldershot.

Postgate, R, The Builders' History, The National Federation of Building Trade Operatives:London.

Prothero, IJ, (1979) Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth-Century London: John Gast and his Times, Dawson: Folkestone.

Poor Man's Guardian

The Times


Copyright © 2004 the Brewery History Society