ABSTRACT
Burton-upon-Trent began its existence as an eleventh-century Saxon abbey. With local water of excellent quality and in plentiful supply, its staple industry, brewing, was long established by the seventeenth century. The success of Burton's ales was based on the use of local hard water from Keuper marl. I Location was also important. Situated on the River Trent, Burton was at the centre of a communications apex that linked the Midlands to the Humber and the port of Hull. By the early nineteenth century, Burton was a centre for the export of manufacture goods from the Midlands to the Baltic, and was an important market and commercial centre.2 In the Victorian ~ra the town's breweries and associated industries were dominant, and Burton became Britain's 'premier brewing centre after 1840,.3 As far back as 1777 William Bass had established the world's largest brewery in Burton. In 1860 the Burton Weekly News could say with pride, 'Look at our monster breweries, employing thousands of hands in the manufacture of our staple commodity, and sending it to almost every part of the habitable globe ... Thus Burton has attained an eminence which perhaps no other town in the Kingdom, of similar population, has done,.4 From 1870 onwards, with its twentysix breweries, 104 malthouses, seventy-six ale stores and twenty cooperages, Burton was almost a one-industry town.s By then the firm of Bass, Ratcliff and Gretton was by far the largest amongst the brewing concerns of the borough. In 1888, Bass employed 2,760 workers, while Allsopp and Sons (1,750 workers), Worthington (470), Mann, Crossman and Paulin (450), and T.F. Salt (400) were also significant.6 Based on the growth of brewing, the population of Burton grew from 8,000 in 1841 to 50,000 by 1901, but stagnated thereafter, being less than 50,000 in 1931. Burton was in fact the third-smallest county borough in England and Wales, and remained almost a one-industry town in the inter-war period.
