Whitbread

NAME:

Whitbread, Samuel

ACHIEVEMENTS:

Founded a British brewing dynasty

NICKNAME/ALIAS:

None

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:

1720, England

DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:

1796, England. Aged 76

DISCIPLINE:

Brewer

FIELD:

Brewing industry

LANGUAGE:

English

PARENTS:

Father: Henry Whitbread

Mother: ? name

SIBLINGS:

SPOUSE:

Harriet Hayton
Lady Mary Cornwallis

CHILDREN:

by Hayton:

1 son: Samuel Whitbread

2 daughters: Harriet, Mary

by Cornwallis:

1 daughter: Mary

EDUCATION:

Private tutor

Northamptonshire clergyman

MAJOR WORK:

None

LIFE AND TIMES:

During the sixteenth century, the Whitbread family were farmers in Bedfordshire. Over the next two centuries, they became minor gentry, owning land in Bedfordshire and holding office in the county. In 1736 Whitbread went to London as an apprentice clerk in a brewing company.

At the end of 1742, just before his apprenticeship came to an end, Whitbread raised money from loans and the sale of family land to join with two others in buying a small brewery in the city of London. Although well over half the value of the brewery was offset by debts, the venture prospered and was soon supplying fourteen pubs and three private houses with porter beer. They had chosen the right product: porter was a bitter, thick, strong beer, first brewed in 1722. It could be easily mass-produced and the demand for porter rose quickly during the eighteenth century.

In 1750, he and his remaining partner leased bigger premises in nearby Chiswell Street, and built the first large-scale production plant for a single product: porter. Eight years later, Whitbread’s was the largest porter brewery in London, and in 1761 Whitbread bought out his partner and became sole owner.

In 1765 he bought a country house with a large acreage in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. He was also slowly building up land and influence in Bedfordshire and in 1769 he was elected as Member of Parliament for the town of Bedford.

Two years later he was appointed justice of the peace and sheriff of Hertfordshire. In 1769 he married for the second time, to the daughter of an earl who was also the niece of the Archbishop of Canterbury and sister of <brother-in-law was> Cornwallis* (who surrendered to the American forces at Yorktown). By the 1770’s, Whitbread had acquired large tracts of land in three counties, dined with the Duchess of Bedfordshire and was educating his son at Eton, the most prestigious school in England.

Although Whitbread was building up his social status and influence through landownership, he did not neglect the business. He was quick to see the advantages of steam power for brewing and in 1785 he bought one of the first of the new steam engines made by <bought engine by> Watt*. <employed> Rennie* assisted with the adaptation of brewery machinery to steam.

Steam power at the brewery meant the brewery could get rid of two dozen of their mill horses. In addition to lowering costs, steam power sped up production and made it more reliable. Other large breweries bought steam engines but Whitbread was alone in foreseeing the application of steam power to operations other than milling and pumping water. A few years later he pioneered the adaptation a steam engine to mash crushed malt with hot liquor. More land was bought in Chiswell Street and an underground tunnel constructed to connect the storage cellars.

Whitbread was the leading brewer in London and so well-known that in 1787 the brewery was visited by King George III, Queen Charlotte and three of their daughters. One of the royal party noted with astonishment that Whitbread employed as many as two hundred workers. His success meant that storage became a problem and Whitbread, with the help of <aided by> Smeaton*, came up with a new method of storing beer underground in stone cisterns instead of the traditional wooden vats.

All Whitbread’s daughters married into landed gentry, two of them into families with aristocratic titles but no money. Whitbread lived as a country gentlemen, alternating periods at Bedwell Park and his large London house in Portman Square, with trips to the fashionable towns of Bath, Brighton and Tunbridge Wells. He was a generous and active charity supporter, particularly to schools and hospitals (he founded one of the earliest cancer wards, at the Middlesex Hospital).

In 1793 he erected a monument to the Puritan poet <built monument to> Milton* (who died in 1764) at St Giles church, Cripplegate (where Milton was buried) within a short distance of the brewery. When Whitbread retired from representing the town of Bedford in Parliament in 1790 his son was able to stand solely on the Whitbread interest and the Whitbread’s continued to represent the town until 1895. Whitbread was now a major landowner, holding land in eight counties, and he enlarged his Bedfordshire holdings further in the last decade of his life.

ASSESSMENT: Whitbread was the first to apply steam power in an innovative way in the brewing industry.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: The Duke of <house bought by> Bridgewater* bought his house.

ONELINER: Samuel Whitbread, great English brewer

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Rapp, Dean, Samuel Whitbread (1764-1815), A Social and Political History, Garland Publishing Inc., New York and London, 1987

Mathias, Peter, The Brewing Industry in England, 1700-1830, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1959

Whitbread and Co. Ltd., Whitbread’s Brewery, 1740-1920, Industrial Publicity Services Ltd., London, 1920