Mr. Ind, the founder of the Romford Brewery, died in 1848, his place being taken by his son, the present Mr. Ind. Mr. E. V. Ind, another son of the founder, was also made a partner, as was Mr. Charles Peter Matthews, to whose skill as a brewer Romford Ales owe much of their reputation. In 1858, Mr. Thomas Helme (who has recently assumed the name of Mashiter) joined the firm, which consisted in 1886 of Messrs. O. E. Coope; Edward Ind; C. P. Matthews (the general managing partner); T. Mashiter; together with their four sons, and Major F. J. N. Ind, son of the late Mr. E. V. Ind.
In 1853 Messrs. Ind, Coope & Co. purchased a brewery at Burton, which, having been enlarged from time to time, now rivals in size the old brewhouse at Romford. It is under the direction of Mr. E. J. Bird, the Burton managing partner.
The mash tuns, vats, coppers, &c., of the Romford brewery differ but little from those used by other firms of the first rank. In the brewhouse are thirty-two malt bins, the eight largest of which hold 900 quarters, and are each about as large as a small dwelling-house. {353} Altogether 10,000 quarters of malt can be stored. Extensive hop rooms, one of which is 110 feet long by 80 feet wide, afford storage for 5,000 pockets of hops. There are six coppers, the largest of which holds 32,400 gallons. In the fermenting room are twenty-four squares with capacities ranging up to 500 barrels. The stores are in seventeen buildings connected by tramways, and the tram lines on which the casks are rolled are about eight miles in length. About 600,000 full casks of various sizes are sent out from the store every year. In the stores are twenty-three huge vats used for storing old ale.
The cooperage is one of the largest departments in the brewery, giving employment to thirty-two coopers and fifty-six assistants. In the stables are some forty or fifty horses, and the more thoroughly to dispel the popular delusion that brewers’ horses are fed on grains, it may be worth while stating that these have each an allowance of 42 lbs. per day of oats, beans, clover, meadow-hay, oat-straw and bran, all either cut or bruised and mixed together.
On the brewery are kept three fire-engines (a steamer and two manuals) and a well organised fire-brigade of ten men, which is ever ready to render its services at fires in the neighbourhood. A laudable feature in connection with the brewery is a Friendly Society, to which all the employés belong, and which ensures their receiving, among other benefits, a substantial allowance during sickness.
At Romford the firm give employment to three hundred men and boys, exclusive of officials, collectors, &c., and are large employers of labour at their London stores (where eighty horses are in use); at their Burton brewery, and at their twenty-five country depôts. The firm is a great supporter of the Volunteer movement. For many years Mr. Coope was Major of the Essex Volunteers, and one company of the battalion to which he was attached is entirely made up of brewery employés, “doughty sons of malt and hops.”
Messrs. Ind, Coope & Co. stick to the old-fashioned materials for their beer, and the large extent of what may be termed their private family trade is an indication not to be lightly disregarded that we English still adhere to our ancient friendship for Sir John Barleycorn.
One other Burton Brewery yet remains to be mentioned, that of Messrs. Thomas Salt & Company, at the head of which firm is Mr. Henry Wardle, the present (1886) member for South Derbyshire, the other partners being Messrs. Edward Dawson Salt, William Cecil Salt, and Henry George Tomlinson.
To trace the origin of the firm, it is necessary to go back as far as {354} the year 1774, when Messrs. Salt & Co.’s maltings were worked in conjunction with the brewery of Messrs. Clay & Sons. It was about this time that the great-grandfather of two present members of the firm added a brewery to the malting business, and thus, in the list of brewers, then few in number, given in the records of the town for 1789, we find the name of Thomas Salt. In 1822 the only Burton Brewers mentioned in Pigott’s Commercial Directory were S. Allsopp & Co.; Bass and Ratcliffe; Thomas Salt & Co.; John Sherrard; and William Worthington.
When in 1823 the Burton brewers determined to brew an ale which could compete with Hodgson’s then well-known India pale ale, Salt & Co. were among the first to bring the idea to a practical issue. There must indeed have been no lack of energy on the part of the firm, for in 1884 they came off with flying colours at the International Health Exhibition, gaining a gold medal for the excellence of their ale.