Lives in Cricket No 42 - Frank and George Mann

7 Chapter One Mann, Crossman and Paulin: 1819 to 1914 Ale was brewed for private consumption throughout Britain before, during, and after the Roman occupation. It was the Norman Conquest that introduced brewing on a larger scale, first within the walls of each castle and then, following the growth of Christianity in Britain, the monasteries, abbeys and cathedrals became the principal brewers of ale using malted barley, water and yeast. The seeds of the barley plant would be malted and allowed to germinate and the yeast converted the sugars from the barley into alcohol. By using their own strain of yeast each brewer could produce their own distinctive product available for sale to alehouses and local inns. By the end of the thirteenth century, St. Paul’s Cathedral was producing nearly 70,000 gallons a year, but even that was not enough for the growing and thirsty population of London, so that independent brewers set themselves up to take advantage of the increase in demand and became popular members of the community: ‘Blessings of your heart, you brew good ale.’ 2 Eventually there were more than 300 commercial brewers in London alone and, following the introduction of hops from Europe in the fifteenth century and development of hop farms in Kent, a hop market was established at Little Eastcheap on the western side of the City of London. The addition of hops increased the traditional brewing process to grinding, mashing, boiling, cooling, fermenting and, after five or six days, racking into casks, creating a whole new range of original flavours exclusive to each skilled brewer. The new hopped version was called beer and with its distinctive flavour soon became a more popular choice than the ‘old’ ale. During the reign of Henry VIII the size of the casks used for transporting ale and beer were regulated and the 36-gallon barrel made its first appearance. By 1690 London brewers were producing two million barrels a year. At the start of the nineteenth century, three quarters of the city’s beer was made by a dozen brewers, with the other quarter coming from just over 100 independent brewers that continued to operate in a fiercely competitive but lucrative market. By the end of that century Queen Victoria was happy to support the industry by announcing: ‘Give my people plenty of beer, good beer and cheap beer, and you will have no revolution among them.’ James Mann was born in Lambeth in 1776 and already a very experienced brewer and a member of Philip Blake and Company, later known as Blake and Mann, when they took possession of the Standridge Brewery in Lambeth in 1815. Four years later the Albion Brewery in Whitechapel, next 2 William Shakespeare, ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’, Act III, Scene 1.