After the brewery had been inspected Mr. Whitbread entertained the King and Queen at a banquet.
For several sessions Mr. Whitbread sat in Parliament as the member for Bedford. He was a man of much benevolence, and it is said of him that his charity, which was as judicious as it was extensive, was felt in every parish where he had property. His private distributions annually exceeded 3,000. Among the records of the Brewers’ Company we came upon a conveyance from him to the Company of three freehold farms in Bedfordshire, the income arising from which was to be devoted to supporting “one or two Master brewers of the age of fifty years or upwards, who had carried on the trade of a brewer within the bills of mortality or two miles thereof for many years in a considerable and respectable manner with good characters but by losses in the brewing trade only shall have come to decay or been reduced in circumstances and want relief.” By another indenture of the same date three dwelling houses in Whitecross Street, London, are conveyed to the Company, the income to be devoted towards the “support and relief of poor freemen of the Coy. of Brewers being proper objects and their widows (particularly preferring such objects as shall be blind, lame {363} afflicted with palsy or very aged).” The date of the gift is 1794. Only two years later the donor died. His portrait, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is still to be seen in the Hall of the Brewers’ Company.
Mr. Samuel Whitbread, son of the founder, and remembered as Mr. Whitbread the politician, now became the head of the firm, and, having associated with himself partners, carried on the business as Whitbread & Co. He sat in Parliament for several years, and was a firm supporter of the Liberal party. It is related of him that being one evening at Brooks’s he talked loudly and largely against the Ministers for laying what was called the war-tax upon malt; every one present of course concurred with him in opinion; but Sheridan could not resist the gratification of displaying his ever ready wit. Taking out his pencil, he wrote upon the back of a letter the following lines, which he handed to Mr. Whitbread across the table:—
They’ve raised the price of table drink; What is the reason, do you think? The tax on malt’s the cause, I hear: But what has malt to do with beer?
Mr. Whitbread the politician is mentioned in Rejected Addresses, and it is worthy of note that he took a considerable part in the rebuilding of Drury Lane Theatre after it had been destroyed by fire.
Since 1760 the business had wonderfully increased. In 1806 we find Whitbread & Co. stand fourth among the London brewers, brewing 101,311 barrels. In the succeeding ten years the business more than doubled itself, the beer brewed in 1815 amounting to 261,018 barrels.
Mr. Whitbread, the son of the founder, died in 1820. A writer in the London Magazine of that date gives a careful study of his character as a politician. “He was an honest man, and a true Parliamentary speaker. He had no artifices, no tricks, no reserve about him. He spoke point-blank what he thought, and his heart was in his broad, honest, English face. . . . . If a falsehood was stated, he contradicted it instantly in a few brief words: if an act of injustice was palliated, it excited his contempt; if it was justified, it roused his indignation; he retorted a mean insinuation with manly spirit, and never shrank from a frank avowal of his sentiments.”
Mr. Whitbread the politician left two sons, the younger of whom represented Middlesex for several years, and died in 1879. Of the present member for Bedford, grandson of the politician, we need say but little. {364} He was born in 1830, was educated at Rugby and Cambridge, has sat for Bedford since 1852, and is one of the most respected members of the House of Commons.
There are, it need hardly be said, many other brewing firms of the first rank in the United Kingdom. The length to which this chapter has grown absolutely prohibits us from giving, as we had intended, a sketch of a large Edinburgh firm. There is, however, scattered through these pages continual reference to the good ale—“jolly good ale and old”—of Scotland. The old ales of Edinburgh are now giving way somewhat to the pale ales affected by the temperate drinkers of the period, but old Scotch ale is by no means a thing of the past, and has a world-wide reputation. Most of the Edinburgh breweries have been established a very long time, in some cases over a hundred years.
In the earlier portions of this book punning allusions to ale by old writers have been freely quoted; with them may be compared the following extract from a modern play, Little Jack Sheppard, written by Messrs. Stephens and Yardley, and which contains facetious references to some of the firms whose histories have just been related.