A HISTORY OF BERKSHIRE 



built as a concert or entertainment room, and 

 converted it into a printing establishment. 

 The old gallery, now extended round the 

 building, is devoted to the composing and 

 block - making departments. The ground 

 floor constitutes the machinery hall, and is 

 replete with equipments for colour printing, 

 letterpress and lithography, including three- 

 colour-process work, bookbinding, etc. Some 

 of the machinery is of the new American type, 

 and in the west gallery is a monotype plant 

 worked on the typewriter principle. About 

 300 hands are employed, and the managing 

 director is Mr. Benjamin Petty. The firm 

 has branch establishments at London, Bristol 

 and Southsea. Picture posters, fashion cata- 

 logues, commercial printing and the manu- 



facture of account books are some of the 

 specialities of the firm. 



Reading produces, in addition to the two 

 already mentioned, two other newspapers, 

 the Reading Observer and the Reading 

 Standard. The former is owned by Messrs. 

 Charles Slaughter & Son, who also undertake 

 some general printing, and publish the Berks, 

 Bucks and Oxon Archtzological Journal. The 

 Berkshire Printing Company, Messrs. Black- 

 well & Gutch, Messrs. Bradley & Son, electric 

 power printers, Messrs. Knill & Sons, printers 

 and bookbinders whose works were founded 

 in 1853, and numerous other printers have 

 established their presses in the town and made 

 Reading an important centre of this particular 

 industry. 



BREWING 



Brewing and malting have been for many 

 years the staple industries of the county. Parts 

 of the district are especially suitable for the 

 growing of good barley, and an abundant 

 supply of grain suitable for malting has 

 always been available. Facilities of transit 

 along the river Thames, assisted by the 

 numerous canals that intersect the county, 

 have also contributed largely to the encour- 

 agement of the trade. 



The English monasteries were remarkable 

 for the strength and purity of their ales, 

 brewed from malt prepared by the monks 

 with great care and skill, and the abbeys of 

 Abingdon and Reading were doubtless no 

 exception to this rule, as in the book De 

 Consuetudinibus Abbendonia we find numerous 

 references to the use of ale in the monastery : 

 ' Cervisia copiose per cellarium propinabitur ' 

 at and after dinner and after compline. The 

 cellarer had numerous duties with regard to 

 providing the monks with ale, and he might 

 have for his own use ' oblatam cervisiae,' a 

 jugful of ale. A similar amount is ordered to 

 be given to various persons for divers duties, 

 and abundant evidence is afforded of the use 

 of ale in the monastery, 1 brewed in the 

 monastic vats. Large sums were derived 

 from malt, but the greater part, 383 quarters, 

 was assigned to the cellarer ' to brew for the 

 convent,' its ale being evidently great in 

 quantity and good in quality. 2 ' Item de 

 debili cervisia vis viiid ' shows that weak ale 

 was brewed in the monastery, and is con- 

 trasted with ' bona cervisia.' 



Few industries appear more often in the 



records of municipal government than that of 

 brewing, except perhaps that of baking bread. 

 The Assize of Bread and Ale appears very 

 frequently in the statutes of England, the 

 earliest known example being the Assiza 

 Panis et Cerevisics of 51 Henry III. 3 Each 

 borough also enacted frequent orders for the 

 regulation of the trade, and the ale-taster 

 appears frequently as a responsible officer 

 in most of the corporations. So important 

 was the industry that Charles I. contemplated 

 the formation of an Incorporated Company 

 or Society of Maltsters for Berkshire, for the 

 reforming of abuses and the regulating of the 

 trade. The king issued to the authorities 

 of the county certain articles directing them 

 to read the same to the maltsters ; but doubt- 

 less the troubles of the Civil War prevented 

 the carrying out of the proposal. In the 

 Rawlinson MSS. preserved in the Bodleian 

 Library at Oxford these Maltsters' Articles 

 have been discovered and are as fol- 

 lows : * 



' Articles to be propounded to the maules- 

 ters in the county of Berks. 



' First that noe person after six munthes 

 next comming shall buy any corne to conuerte 

 to maulte butt in the open markitts to sell 

 agayne. 



' Seccondly that noe brewer or other person 

 useing any other traide mistery or occupacon 

 shall conuerte any graine to maulte to sell the 

 same either to theire use or with theire stock 

 by breweing of beere or ale. 



'Thirdly that noe maulster Whatsoeuer 

 shall conuerte any graine into Maulte in the 



1 Abingdon Chronicle, ii. 402, etc. 



a Accounts of the Obedientiars, Int. xiii. 



3 Gibbins, Industrial Hist, of England, p. 229. 

 Rawlinson MSS. D. 399, f. 153. 



404 



