A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



early example of the baker's dozen), and of the 

 second ale three for a penny ' well sodde and 

 skommed.' The best grain was to be sold at 

 three bushels a penny. ' No comon bruear ' 

 was to ' tappe non ale within ther owne houses.' 

 ' No typler shall alter any ale which he or they 

 shall receive and buy of any brewer, with barme, 

 worte or any wyse ' (I522). 1 A penny a gallon 

 is the price often reiterated. In regulations for 

 the ' bruars,' 1520, they are ordered to 'sylle 

 xiii gallons of ale for the dozen, stonding mesure, 

 with a cowle 3 sealed by the Meyre.' ' The 

 typlar or sellar of ale shall lett sett at there 

 howses a stone upright levelled, so that the bruar's 

 men shall always sett there cowles sealed to trye 

 truly there mesures.' 3 By 1620 the brewers of 

 Gloucester had become a company.* 



At the present day Gloucestershire enjoys a 



considerable industry in brewing and in the 

 manufacture of ginger-beer and mineral waters. 

 These industries are carried on at Gloucester, 

 Stroud, Cheltenham, Tewkesbury, Wotton 

 under Edge, Wickwar, Brimscombe, Nailsworth, 

 Mitcheldean and Bristol (which had distilleries in 

 1794). Cider and perry are made by Daniel 

 Phelps at Tibberton ; J. Harper & Sons at Ebley, 

 Stroud ; by several Bristol manufacturers ; and 

 for local consumption by half the farmers in 

 the Vale. 



There is also a manufacture of patent foods in 

 Gloucestershire, especially by the Cheltine 

 Food Co. in Cheltenham. At Stroud is a 

 bacon-curing company that dates from 1819, 

 and at Gloucester an ice-factory, very recently 

 established, with a capacity of fifty tons of ice 

 per week. 



SUGAR AND CHOCOLATE 



But the chief food products of Gloucestershire 

 have been and are the sugar, sweets, and chocolate 

 industries. Sugar refining, like the tobacco in- 

 dustry (which is still a large one), 5 grew up at 

 Bristol in the ijth century in consequence 

 of the West Indian Trade. Pepys describes the 

 sugar refineries as one of the chief glories of 

 Bristol (1698), and mentions that owing to the 

 vaults beneath the streets for the storage of sugar, 

 as well as wine, &c., only sleighs and small carts 

 drawn by dogs were allowed. By 1795 Bristol 

 sugar was the most esteemed in England, says 

 Andrew Hooke in his ' Dissertations,' and there 

 were twenty large sugar houses. The Bristol 

 sugar refiners had bought up the sugar house at 

 Gloucester, which had been flourishing about 

 1 760. Throughout the igth century, how- 

 ever, the refining industry has declined. In 

 1828 there were only seven sugar houses; in 

 1863, three. 



The cause of this decline was, of course, the 

 foreign sugar bounty system, which did enor- 

 mous injury to the refineries of this kingdom. 

 In Bristol only one held on till the Sugar Con- 

 vention relieved the situation, and this is not 

 always at work. But if refiners have suffered, 

 the country as a whole has profited by the greater 

 cheapness of sugar, which has practically founded 

 two large British industries. In Bristol many 

 more hands are now employed in the manufacture 

 of sweets and chocolates than ever lost employ- 



1 Hist. AfSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. ix, 442. 

 ' Word connected with ' cooling-vat.' 

 s Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xii, App. ix, 472. 

 4 S.P. Dom. Jas. I, cxx, No. 140. 

 6 One-eighth of the tobacco consumed in Great 

 Britain is said to be manufactured at Bristol. 

 6 J. J. Powell, Ghucestriana. 



ment through the stopping of refineries. The 

 output, too, has enormously developed both in 

 bulk and in variety. Whereas under the old 

 system of hand-manufacture, only 40 or 50 Ib. 

 of mint or rose lozenges would have been cut 

 by hand in a day, an up-to-date modern firm, 

 such as that of Champion, Davies & Co., turns 

 out a ton or two per day from each of its 

 machines. Almond comfits and other sweets 

 covered with hard sugar were at first made in 

 small quantities in hand-pans swung over an 

 open fire, but are now made in batches of some 

 cwt. in large revolving pans, steam-heated. 

 Other articles of confectionery, now turned out 

 in huge quantities, such as creams, gum goods, 

 and gelatine work, were quite unknown to 

 the trade in its early days. Many firms, such 

 as that of Messrs. Richards & Co., are also 

 employed in sugar importing and manufac- 

 turing, by which latter term is implied the 

 making of icing and castor sugars from refined 

 sugar, and the colouring of sugar known as 

 ' yellow crystals,' made in imitation of yellow 

 Demerara or cane crystals. While the Sugar 

 Convention has assisted the refiners, it has injured 

 the whole sugar manufacture, occasioning the 

 close of many sweet factories at Bristol during 

 the last three years. 



Of the two great Bristol chocolate manufac- 

 turers, Packer and Fry, the latter is by far the 

 more famous. The industry was founded about 

 1 80 years ago by Dr. Joseph Fry, a Quaker 

 doctor of Bristol, great-grandfather of the chair- 

 man of the present company. His Quaker views 

 probably increased his interest in this temperance 

 drink, first introduced into England in 1656. He 

 died in 1787, leaving the business to his wife, 

 Anna Fry. In 1798 steam power was intro- 



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