INDUSTRIES 



potentiality of growing rich beyond the 

 dreams of avarice.' 



The brewery was purchased by Mr. David 

 Barclay, a grandson of Robert Barclay of Ury, 

 the * apologist of the Quakers,' for the large 

 sum of ;^I35,000. He was the head of the 

 banking firm of Barclay, Bevan & Co. The 

 purchase was effected on behalf of his nephew 

 Robert Barclay, then recently returned from 

 America, and John Perkins the former man- 

 ager. Two other partners, Sylvanus Bevan 

 and Richard Gurney, found the greater part 

 of the capital required. Thus was founded 

 the firm of Barclay, Perkins & Co. 



The business has always remained entirely 

 a femily one and the partners at the present 

 day still represent the descendants of the 

 original founders. Among the former partners 

 have been men who have been distinguished 

 for their literary tastes and thus have helped 

 to maintain the earlier traditions of the 

 Anchor brewery. Of such was notably Mr. 

 Henry Perkins of Hanworth Park, great- 

 grandfather of Mr. John Temple Scriven, 

 one of the present partners. He devoted 

 himself to the collection of a library which 

 included amongst other treasures, choice speci- 

 mens of early typography, the four folio 

 editions of Shakespeare, and a most remark- 

 able collection of bibles. This library realized 

 by auction, after his death in 1873, the sum 

 of ;f 26,242 i6s. Robert Barclay, the first 

 partner, seems to have interested himself in a 

 method of printing he had seen in America 

 for impressing marks on dies which could not 

 be counterfeited, and took out a patent for it 

 in 1790.' 



Two events of importance occurred in the 

 history of the brewery during the last cen- 

 tury. The first of these was the disastrous 

 fire in May 1832 which destroyed almost the 

 whole of the buildings, the malt stores and a 

 few of the walls alone escaping. Quick work 

 however was made with repairing the damage, 

 and the present buildings were erected by the 

 following November. The second event 

 which occasioned much public excitement at 

 the time was the treatment meted out by the 

 employ^ in 1 849 on the occasion of the visit 

 to the brewery of the Austrian Marshal Hay- 

 man, whose cruelties perpetrated on Hun- 

 garian women during the Magyar War had 

 made his name notorious throughout Europe. 

 As soon as his name was known he was 

 surrounded by an infuriated mob and severely 

 thrashed with horsewhips. The Marshal 

 at last succeeded in breaking away and taking 

 refuge in a dustbin behind the George Tavern 



Close R. 30 Geo. III. pt. 6, No. 7. 



on Bankside, from which he was rescued by 

 the police. The incident gave rise to much 

 discussion between the two governments. 



At the present time the partners of the 

 firm are Messrs. Robert Barclay, Alfred 

 Henry Bevan, Augustus F. Perkins, F. Lin- 

 coln Bevan, Granville Bevan, Hubert Barclay, 

 Edwyn F. Barclay, and John Temple Scriven. 

 Before considering the present extent of the 

 business and the special appliances in use 

 which help to keep this long celebrated firm 

 still in the first rank of the breweries of the 

 kingdom, it will for the sake of comparison 

 and to show the steady increase of the amount 

 of output be advisable to note the salient 

 points which are to be found at various periods 

 in contemporary accounts of the brewery. 



It was formerly the practice for the great 

 porter breweries to be devoted entirely to the 

 production of that class of beer. Messrs. 

 Barclay, Perkins & Co. remained for many 

 years the largest porter brewing establishment 

 in London, and it seems to have been only a 

 little while before 1850 that the Company 

 began to turn its attention to the production 

 of ale ^ as well. The account of this brewery 

 in Manning and Bray's History of Surrey 

 brings its history down to the year i8i2.' 

 The writers show the great increase that had 

 taken place in its annual output since the year 

 1752. In that year only 34,000 barrels of 

 porter were brewed. In 1794 the number 

 had risen to 134,000 and in 1812 to 270,000. 

 The establishment is then described as the 

 largest of its sort in the world. The porter 

 was sent to all parts of the world and had 

 been, we are told, in great request with the 

 Empress Catherine of Russia until Mr. Stein, 

 member of Parliament for the Surrey borough 

 of Blechingley in 1796, 'entirely devoted to 

 the service of his country wherever it did not 

 interfere with his own interest,' established a 

 brewery of his own at St. Petersburg and ob- 

 tained a monopoly for it to the exclusion of 

 the London beer. 



The pre-eminent position in the trade for 

 so long enjoyed by Messrs. Barclay, Perkins 

 & Co. is no doubt to be attributed in great 

 measure to the readiness with which the firm 

 has always adopted any invention that will 

 tend to greater economy of production or the 

 better certainty of successful results being 

 attained. As early at least as the year 1787 

 the firm had been attracted by the rapid ad- 

 vance which was then being made in the 



2 It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that the 

 term is not used here in its special fifteenth and 

 sixteenth century sense. 



3 Manning and Bray, Hist. ofSmr. iii. 589. 



389 



