180 Corn and Corn Products Trades 



brewers were usually given a monopoly of the borough market as 

 against "foreign beer" for instance in Weymouth and Southampton.^ 

 Sometimes it was conferred upon one or two particular brewers for a 

 limited period of time or until undone by ill-rule; in such cases prices 

 were prescribed and sales forced. Some brewers rose to considerable 

 affluence and repute. About the middle of the seventeenth century 

 Thomas Harrison of Reading was the chief brewer. He was mayor 

 several times but lost his fortune during the Civil War. Here as at 

 Abingdon the brewers were the chief men of the town.^ WiUiam 

 Hucks, member of Parliament for Wallingford, was a well-known 

 brewer of the eighteenth century. He was brewer to George I; and 

 took an active part in the local ciiic life of his community.^ The 

 lists of mayors and baihffs of Oxford during the seventeenth century 

 shows that brewing and malting were the most popular trades of their 

 time. Henley brewers were very well-known. Many very prominent 

 families were associated with the trade. Some extant breweries date 

 from this and the next centuries;'* for example, Hall's Brewery was 

 in existence before 1718. 



Some estimate of the volume of the liquor trade may be surmised 

 from the total consumption of liquors in England. Defoe undertook 

 to estimate the consumption on the basis of the malt produced in 

 1728 1 he concluded that there were no less than forty miUion bushels 

 of malt brewed and distilled in England yearly exclusive of what was 

 exported abroad, and that this was the means of making 10,000,000 

 barrels of strong beer, consumed in England, and valued at £10,- 

 000,000. Of this £3,200,000 per annum represented the value of the 

 beer sold to the retailer. His estimates in 1745 were slightly more 

 conservative, but to the same general tenor.^ This liquor was 

 retailed through 200,000 alehouses, inns and taverns throughout 

 England. The quotient of the purchases by the number of shops 

 gives £16 each as the average business per annum of these shops, 

 surely a very small business. Yet there was scarcely an inn, ale- 

 house or coffee-house in the Kingdom that did not derive a goodly 

 share of its profits from the retailing of liquors.^ 



IV. C. H., Dorset, II, 368; Hants, V, 473. 

 2 V. C. H., Berks, I, 406. 

 'V. C. H., Midd, II, 168. 

 ^ V. C. H., Oxford, II, 262-63. 



* Defoe, Plan, 197, 198,. 202, 204; Com. Eng. Tr., II, 218. For wines see Com. 

 Eng. Tr., II, 214. 



«Gent. Mag., 1736: 576. 



