Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

10 Mann, Crossman and Paulin: 1819 to 1914 Trent and, to meet the growing demand for bottled beers, purchased the old Whitechapel workhouse building, not far from the Albion Brewery, to build a bottling plant. In 1880 James Hiscutt Crossman was elected Master of the Brewers’ Company, the first member of the firm to be honoured. But three years later his father died and there was another redistribution of shares, with the majority shareholding passing to Thomas Mann and his son Thomas James. Thomas had a great interest in the shire horses used to transport the large wagons containing the barrels of beer to licensed premises and he put his younger son Edward in charge of the new stables at Whitechapel. There were over a hundred horses under his care in accommodation which was eventually considered to be the best in any brewery in London. Thomas Mann died in 1886 and his shares were inherited by both sons with Edward becoming the latest partner, followed by Thomas Hugh Mann, the son of Thomas James, in 1895. After the retirement of James Hiscutt Crossman, replaced by his son James Hiscutt Crossman junior, and the death of Thomas James Mann at the early age of 49 at his estate at Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire in 1897, Douglas Crossman, the elder son of Alexander Crossman, was admitted as a partner. 3 Once again with a full team of six partners, the firm of Mann, Crossman and Paulin, brewers, could enter the twentieth century determined to consolidate its position as one of the leading brewers in London while always seeking new ways of expansion, including the use of local water to produce light sparkling ales after selling the brewery at Burton upon Trent. By the end of the nineteenth century, the beer production of the brewery had reached almost 500,000 casks a year and in 1901 the partnership was converted into a limited company. This new business entity had Alexander Crossman as chairman, and five directors, William Thomas Paulin, Edward Mann, Thomas Hugh Mann, James Hiscutt Crossman junior, and Douglas Crossman. The following year, Thomas Wells Thorpe, for many years the head brewer at the Albion Brewery, introduced the first of a new kind of beer, Mann’s Brown Ale, sweet with a low alcohol content, which in due course became enormously popular and was imitated by other breweries, including Whitbread’s and Newcastle. In 1900 Edward Mann had been elected the first mayor of Stepney, the borough in which the Albion Brewery stood, and four years later he became president of the Shire Horse Society. In December 1905 he was created a baronet, one of eleven created in the resignation honours list after A.J.Balfour resigned as the Conservative Prime Minister at the start of 3 Douglas Crossman (1870-1945) was himself a cricketer, appearing in the Charterhouse elevens of 1888 and 1889, in the latter season as captain. He played for Staffordshire in 1892 and 1893 in pre-Minor Counties championship days, when assisting in management of the company’s brewery at Burton upon Trent. He is best remembered for staging country-house cricket on a very pretty ground at his estate, Cokenach, near the village of Barkway in north Hertfordshire between the wars. Hertfordshire played Minor Counties matches there between 1925 and 1937.