ABSTRACT
England in the eighteenth century was a nation undergoing a transfor mation. Much of its agriculture continued to be changed from open-field farming to enclosures, major innovations altered manufacturing indus try especially in textiles and iron and steel, turnpike roads and canals improved the speed and quality of travel, technological inventions saw the application of steam power in industry, the growth of insurance companies and banks in the provinces enhanced the mobility of capital and the numbers of people in the country began to increase at an unprecedented rate in the second half of the century, from 5 million in 1700 to approximately 5.75 million in 1750 and nearly 9 million in 1800.1
Not surprisingly the brewing industry was not only affected by some of these changes but was also part of the transformation. In 1700 there were considered to be almost 40,000 brewing victuallers, publicans brewing their own ale. By 1750 this number had risen to 50,000 but by 1800 only about 24,000 are thought to have survived.2 This change in the second half of the eighteenth century was mainly owing to the emergence of large-scale porter brewers in London such as Thrale (later Barclay Perkins), Truman, Whitbread and Meux Reid, as well as the growth of common brewers serving a number of inns in the provinces. Even so, in the pre-railway age, the most dynamic brewer was governed by high transport costs, which effectively limited the market area for the brewery drays to within a radius of a few miles. Since much of the rural population lay thinly scattered through the countryside eighteenthcentury publicans generally brewed their own beer.
