A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



MALTING 



Malting has, no doubt, been for centuries a 

 Suffolk industry in the sense that more malt 

 has been produced in the county than was 

 needed for its own consumption. But during 

 the last decade of the nineteenth century the 

 industry has entered on a new phase, not merely 

 of expansion, but of technical and economic 

 development which, as it is largely to be attri- 

 buted to favouring conditions of locality, deserves 

 special mention in the history of the county. 

 Twenty years ago small maltings were to be 

 found in nearly every village, the product of 

 which was collected and disposed of by dealers in 

 the towns. The small malt-houses are still 

 everywhere to be seen, but the work they used 

 to do has been almost entirely concentrated at 

 the ports, where immense buildings have sprung 

 up, constructed on scientific principles in imme- 

 diate contact with the water transport, which 

 delivers the material and carries away the malt 

 at a minimum of cost for freight. This change 

 is due to a variety of causes. In the first place, 

 the barley malted in Suffolk is no longer grown 

 there, but comes by the shipload from the 

 Pacific coast, the Danube, the Sea of Marmora, 

 Asia Minor, Tunis, and Algeria, so that the ports 

 arenearestto all the sourcesof supply. The Suffolk 

 ports have the further advantage of being nearest 

 to the largest demand for malt, which is that of 

 the great London breweries. The malting itself 

 cannot be done in London because it requires 

 plenty of space and a free supply of pure 

 air. Both of these were available around the 

 Ipswich dock, and at Lowestoft, Woodbridge, 

 Beccles, and Snape, where malting is now ex- 



tensively carried on, and whence the malt can 

 be easily transported to the Thames in barges. 

 The largest firm of maltsters in Ipswich employ 

 a dozen lighters and some fifteen barges (which 

 they build themselves) in this work, and they 

 also have five steamers of their own engaged in 

 bringing the barley from foreign ports. 



Another factor in producing the concentration 

 above described has been the technical progress 

 made in the industry. The rough and ready 

 country malting of former days would not satisfy 

 the demands of modern scientific brewing. It is 

 not so much a matter of machinery, though 

 machinery is extensively used in turning, hoisting, 

 and delivering the barley, as of adapting the 

 buildings to the several processes so as to 

 preserve the right temperature for each process, 

 whilst economizing the labour spent in transition 

 from one to the other. The maltings have 

 accordingly to be built very high, and the old 

 buildings are rendered obsolete. The industry 

 in short, has become one requiring the applica- 

 tion of fixed capital, and the greater part of it 

 has therefore passed into the hands of a com- 

 paratively small number of firms, the chief of 

 these being Messrs. R. and M. Paul, Messrs. 

 E. Fison & Co., Messrs. T. Mortimer & Co., 

 and the Ipswich Malting Co., at Ipswich ; and 

 Messrs. Garrett, Newson & Son, at Snape. 

 Along with malting other allied industries are 

 carried on by these firms, such as corn-milling, 

 the preparation of feeding stuffs from oats, peas, 

 and beans, and the flaking of malt. In relation 

 to the amount of capital thus turned over, the 

 quantity of labour employed is not very large. 5 



PRINTING 



The pleasant but quiet and secluded country 

 town of Bungay is not the place in which one 

 would expect to find a busy printing Press which 

 turns out some of the leading periodical literature 

 of the day. Yet the Press of Bungay is 1 10 years 

 old, and its past has been a distinguished one. 

 In the eighteenth century Bungay assumed some 

 of the airs of a small provincial capital. It 

 advertised itself as a spa, possessed a theatre, and 

 was crowded with fashionable assemblies of local 

 gentry during the season. 1 Some of these glories 

 had faded when Mr. Charles Brightly set up 

 business as a printer in 1795 ; but for Suffolk as 

 a whole this was a period of industrial revival, 

 nearly all the large manufacturing concerns of 

 the present day having been established within 

 ten years of that date. Mr. Brightly was a man 

 of initiative. He was one of the pioneers of the 



1 Suckling, Hist. o/Suf. i. 



stereotyping process, and in 1809 he published a 

 small book explaining his methods. He was 

 joined in his business in 1 805 by Mr. J. R. 

 Childs, and the firm became one of the largest 

 printers and publishers of periodical literature in 

 the kingdom. Messrs. Childs & Son were 

 among the first to introduce the practice of 

 bringing out large works in sixpenny parts, one 

 of the books so published being Barclay's 

 Dictionary. A picturesque tradition survives 

 at Bungay of how Mr. Childs traversed the 

 country in a chaise to solicit orders for his 

 publications, armed for self-defence with a pair 

 of pistols. In 1855, when the firm had come 

 to be mainly occupied in printing for London 

 and other publishers, their stock of stereotype 

 plates was said to weigh above 300 tons. 3 In 



* Ex inf. Messrs. R. & M. Paul. 

 ■ White, Direct, of Suff. 



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