[66] Created (1886) Baron Burton of Rangemore and of Burton-on-Trent, in the county of Stafford.
Before attempting to give any idea of the enormous business transacted by Messrs. Bass & Co., a few words respecting the man by whose strict integrity, business qualifications, and persistent and successful efforts to produce the best possible article, and none other, the name of Bass has been rendered a familiar word throughout the whole civilised world. He was born in 1799, and entered the business immediately after leaving school. The trade then done was so limited that he had for a time to act as a traveller; but year by year the demand for Bass’s Ale became greater and greater, and for a considerable period before his death Mr. Bass was at the head of the greatest pale ale brewery in the world. He was a genial, kindly man, and had a genuine pride in the success of his great undertaking. Those who had the pleasure of being his guests will no doubt remember his translation of two lines from Martial, Book vi. Epigram 69:—
Non Miror quod potat aquam tua Bassa, Catulle! Miror quod Bassi filia potat aquam.
“I am not the least surprised, O Catullus, that your nymph Bassa drinks water; what I am surprised at is that Bass’s daughter drinks water.” The epigram has also been rendered into English verse:—
Not strange, my friend, I’m thinking, Thy Bassa water drinking, Most strange that Bass’s daughter Should think of drinking water.
Mr. M. T. Bass represented Derby in Parliament for thirty-five years, being eight times elected in succession, only resigning in 1883, having lived to be the oldest member in the House. He gave Derby a Free Library, a Museum, an Art Gallery, a Public Bath, and a Recreation Ground, at a cost of £50,000. Railway Companies’ servants have reason to be grateful to him, for through his endeavours their hours of labour, though still in some case left far too long, have on many lines been considerably shortened. For some years many of them worked sixteen, eighteen, and even twenty hours out of the twenty-four. He also strenuously exerted himself to obtain the abolition of imprisonment for debt. His benefactions to Burton are too numerous to mention. The chief of them were the gifts of St. Paul’s and St. Margaret’s {345} Churches, with a Parsonage House, Schools, and an endowment of £500 a year, and a Workman’s Club and Institute at a total cost of over £100,000. Mr. Bass was repeatedly offered a Peerage, and as often refused it. We cannot better conclude this short and very inadequate description than by quoting the words used by Sir William Harcourt when opening St. Paul’s Institute at Burton-on-Trent: “We are met here to-day to commemorate the munificent benefaction of Mr. Bass. He is a man advanced in years, in honour, and in wealth, which is the fruit of a life of intelligent industry. He was a Liberal in his youth; he is a Liberal in his age. Years and wealth have not brought to him selfish timidity. In his grey hairs he cherishes the generous sentiments which inspired his earlier days. He has received freely, and freely has he bestowed.”
The liberality of the firm was not confined to Mr. Michael Bass. The Messrs. Gretton have erected and endowed a Church in the suburbs of Burton at a cost of nearly £20,000, and Public Baths and Wash-houses, costing nearly £10,000, have been presented to the town by Messrs. Ratcliff.
The firm of Bass & Co. alone contribute to the National Revenue upwards of £780 per day, and its breweries at Burton-upon-Trent are the largest of their kind in the world, the business premises extending, as we have said, over 145 acres of land. Locomotives have to a large extent superseded brewers’ drays at Burton, and this firm has connection with the outer railway systems by twelve miles of rails on the premises, and use as many as 60,000 railway trucks in the course of six months. The casks required to carry on the business number 600,000, of which 46,901 are butts, and 159,608 are hogsheads. Some ingenious calculations have been made with regard to these casks. Piled one above another they would make 3,300 pillars, each reaching to the top of St. Paul’s. The great Egyptian Pyramid is 763 ft. square at the base; the butts, standing on end and placed bulge to bulge, would furnish bases for five such pyramids, and the other casks would be more than sufficient for the superstructure 460 ft. high.
Though labour-saving machinery is used as much as possible, Bass & Co. employ at Burton alone 2,250 men and boys. In 1821 only 867 men and 61 boys were engaged in all the Burton breweries. In the course of a season the firm now sends out over 800,000 barrels, and manufacture raw material weighing 85,000 tons. In the year ending June 30th, 1883, 250,000 quarters of malt were used and 31,000 cwt. of hops. The amount of business now done by the firm in one year cannot be less than £2,400,000, figures which will give some idea of the capital employed. {346}
A detailed description of the three brewhouses would fill the whole of the space devoted to this chapter; suffice it, therefore, to say that the racking rooms on the ground floor of the new brewery cover more than one and a half acre, the tunning rooms of the same area contain 2,548 tunning casks of 160 gallons each; and the copper house contains three water coppers that will boil 12,000 gallons each; and eleven wort coppers that will each boil 2,200 gallons of wort.