A HISTORY OF SURREY 



his daughter Ann, the wife of Benjamin 

 Moore of Mitcham, ' calico print cutter.' In 

 1823 we find Mr. George Cliflford and 

 Messrs. Thrale & Appleby carrying on 

 business at Croydon as 'engravers to the 

 calico printers.' * They were at this date in 

 all probability copper-plate engravers. 



The supersession to some extent of the 

 wood blocks by copper-plates was perhaps the 

 chief advance made in their art by the Surrey 

 calico printers of the eighteenth century. 

 We have seen already how the perfection of 

 copper-plate calico printing was too extrava- 

 gantly claimed for Francis Nixon who died in 

 1765. With what success we know not, a 

 later attempt was shortly afterwards made to- 



wards this desired perfection by another 

 Surrey man, Thomas Long of Mitcham, 

 calico printer, who took out a patent on 25 

 February 1767, for his machine for the 

 blotching, printing, intermixing, and varie- 

 gating with copper plates, purple and red, and 

 red and black colours on calicoes, cottons, 

 lawns and all other kinds of whitstered linens 

 for furniture, garments and handkerchiefs.* 

 In 1777, Henry Hawkins, an engraver of 

 Tooting, was granted a patent for his 'method 

 of working an aquarello ground to be used on 

 copper plates engraved for printing of linens, 

 cottons, muslins and calicoes, which aquarello 

 ground produces various tints, and will be very 

 beneficial to the printing business.' ' 



BREWING 



The brewing of ale or beer is an industry 

 which must at all times have been very ex- 

 tensively practised in Surrey. At the present 

 day there is no other of the more important 

 industries which is more generally represented 

 throughout the length and breadth of the 

 county. Moreover we can still include as a 

 flourishing concern within the limits of the 

 ancient county and therefore within the scope 

 of our present inquiry, one of the oldest and 

 largest breweries in the world. The history 

 of brewing in Surrey is indeed of something 

 more than merely local interest. It is not 

 only that we have in it a very typical illus- 

 tration of the whole history of brewing in 

 England ; but further the brewers in the 

 more metropolitan districts of the county 

 have always been from a variety of causes, of 

 which perhaps their proximity to the capital 

 and the centre of the more advanced intel- 

 lectual life of the kingdom is the most potent, 

 among the pioneers in every movement that 

 tended to bring about, with the aid of science, 

 an improvement in the quality and a greater 

 facility in the production of what has been 

 from time immemorial the national beverage 

 of the English people. 



Brewing in its early beginnings was like 

 most of the industries that minister to the 

 first necessaries and comforts of life mainly, 

 at all events, carried on as a domestic industry. 

 To a far greater extent than most other in- 

 dustries it remained so even down to quite 

 recent times. Indeed at one time private 

 brewing was much encouraged owing to the 

 exorbitancy of the beer duty, which unlike 

 the malt tax aflFected only the beer brewed by 

 the public brewers or for sale. The outcry 



' Pigot & Co., Comm(rcial Directory (1823-4). 



against the injustice of this tax which fell 

 most heavily upon the poorer classes, owing 

 to the almost universal practice among the 

 rich of brewing their own ale, led to its ulti- 

 mate repeal in the year 1830.* Since this 

 date, partly on account of this abandonment 

 of the beer duty, chiefly perhaps because the 

 increased application of the principles of 

 chemistry and mechanical science to brewing, 

 only possible when it is carried on in large 

 breweries, have spoilt the general taste for 

 home brewed beer, private brewing has be- 

 come more and more a thing of the past. 



Of the early history of the industry in 

 Surrey it is not possible to treat here in any 

 detail. The general principles of the art, 

 which was a simple one, were such as ob- 

 tained everywhere and are pretty generally 

 known. The use of hops in this country 

 was unknown probably until about the 

 middle of the fifteenth century and then only 

 in the liquor brewed by aliens. The ordinance 

 enforcing the keeping of the assize of bread 

 and ale, which whatever its date was cer- 

 tainly not later than the end of the reign of 

 Henry III. and probably considerably earlier, 

 proves that ale was then brewed for sale. 

 The keepers of the ale-houses and inns 

 brewed the ale themselves which they sold to 

 their customers. Although it occurs quite at 

 the end of this first period in our history, the 

 classical instance of the actual brewing being 

 done by the ale-house keeper herself belongs 

 to Surrey. For of Elynour Rummynge, 



" Pat. of Invention!, No. 869. 



» Ibid. No. 1 137. 



* See as to the unjust incidence of these duties 

 McCuUoch's Dictionary of Commerce (1859), art. 

 ' Malt.' 



378 



