A HISTORY OF SURREY 



complainant, together with the advantage to 

 him of the termination of the defendant s 

 joint occupancy, amounted to quite a thou- 

 sand marks. To this Wessell makes his 

 replication which is met by the defendant s 

 rejoinder. But it is needless here to mquire 

 more closely into the quarrel. 



Whatever may have been Wessell Web- 

 ling's inexperience at this time in his busi- 

 ness, it is evident that it did not long prevent 

 him from becoming a successful brewer. As 

 we have seen he appears as a brewer in St. 

 Olave's in the two lists of 1 571. In 1582-3 

 he is again returned as a beer brewer in the 

 ward of Bridge Without, this time with 

 seven servants, and is noted as being of the 

 English Church.' But by 1586 he seems to 

 have removed to the neighbourhood of the 

 Steelyard on the other side of the river,'' and 

 in 1590 he was enjoying an appointment in 

 the buttery of the queen's household, when 

 he was assessed at ^^ 10 on ;C 1 00 valuation of 

 his goods.' However this may be his interest 

 in Southwark continued to his death, at the 

 rime of which he seems to have been settled 

 at Barking in Essex. For he died seized of 

 one hundred and three messuages and two 

 wharves in the parish of St. Olave. His pro- 

 perty was called Fastall Place, and no doubt 

 occupied the site of Sir John Fastolf s former 

 possessions in the Borough. He left j^4 a 

 year to St. Olave's school.* 



Another foreign brewer and benefactor 

 to the parish of St. Olave's, Southwark, was 

 John Pauwels or Powell, the father-in-law of 

 Wessell Webling. He appears first in South- 

 wark in 1582-3 a beer brewer with four 

 servants." From 1589 to 1594 his property 

 in St. Olave's is valued at ;^20 in the subsidy 

 assessments." In his will dated 4 June 1599, 

 proved 22 June i6oi, he bequeathed to the 

 masters of St. Olave's parish 40^. towards a 

 dinner or drinking and loj. to the scholars of 

 the Free School to be bestowed upon them in 

 paper. There are legacies also to the poor 

 of the parish and to the poor children of 

 Christ's Hospital, London. Wessell Webling 

 was appointed one of the testator's over- 

 seers.'' 



It was doubtless the improved methods of 

 brewing introduced by the foreign brewers, 

 and the greater strength of the beer produced 



^ Kirk op. cit. ii. 291. 



2 Ibid. ii. 40Z. 3 Ibid. ii. 428. 



• Mrs. Boger, Bygone Southwark, 230, 231. 

 5 Kirk, op. cit. ii. 292. 



• Ibid. ii. passim. 



' P.C.C. Woodhall, 43 ; see Zurr. Arch. Coll. x. 

 296. 



386 



that brought about in the main that increased 

 consumption of malt in London and its 

 suburbs, which was viewed with so much 

 concern by the Privy Council in the famine 

 years of 1596 and 1597. On 9 December 

 of the former year letters were directed from 

 the Council to the justices in Middlesex and 

 Surrey,* in which letters the Lords stated that 

 having received information that beer was 

 being sold in the ale-houses and tippling- 

 houses in and about London at from lOs. to 

 1 5x. worth the barrel, they had instructed the 

 Lord Mayor to consider with the justices of 

 the two counties of a reasonable rate to be 

 set down for the brewers for beer and ale. 

 Upon the recommendation of the Mayor 

 that there should be but two sorts of beer 

 brewed, of $s. and is. the barrel respectively, 

 the justices were directed to take order to this 

 effect. They were further desired to sup- 

 press the excessive numbers of ale-houses, as, 

 it is added, they had often been required. On 

 16 March following this order we hear that 

 many brewers were still selling beer at from 

 lOs. to i6x. the barrel, and that proceedings 

 against several of them were pending in the 

 Star Chamber.* The order like most others 

 of its kind was evidently nugatory, the 

 brewers finding it more profitable to suffer the 

 consequences of infringement than to accept 

 the low standard of prices set up by the 

 Council, for the Council had thought it good 

 to yield in some sort to their representations 

 and to raise the rates fixed to 51. the barrel 

 for small beer and lOf. for strong beer. 

 Stronger beer than this latter was to be 

 brewed for sea provision only. The Lord 

 Mayor and the justices of the two previously 

 mentioned counties are directed to this effect. 

 The order was to be observed most stringently 

 in the case of those brewers who lived nearest 

 to the out-liberties of the city, and was to 

 hold good during the continuance of the 

 dearth. The action of the Privy Council 

 was afterwards confirmed by the Act of 

 1597-8 * to restrain the excessive making of 

 malt ' when this policy was extended to the 

 whole country." The duration of this Act 

 was limited to the end of the next session of 

 the next Parliament, The Act however was 

 not formally repealed until 1696 when the 

 creation of the excise duty on malt made its 

 operation no longer desirable." 



It is probable that foreign brewers were 

 established in the sixteenth century at other 



B Jets of the P. C. xxvi. 357, 358. 



» Ibid. 542-5. 



»o Stat. 39 (and 40), Eliz. cap. 16. 



n Stat. 9 Will. III. cap. 22. 



