6 June 2013: More on malting, brewing and the workforce

Margaret Bird is giving an illustrated presentation to the Norfolk Industrial Archaeology Society (NIAS) entitled “Malting and brewing in Norfolk in the late 18th century.”

It is on Thursday 6 June at 7.30 pm in the heart of Norwich: the Charing Cross Centre, St John Maddermarket, Norwich NR2 1DN.

This is a society which has been closely involved with the Mary Hardy project since its inception. The diarists Mary Hardy and Henry Raven give a great deal of useful material for the industrial historian as well as the industrial archaeologist.

Visitors are most welcome, and can stay on for coffee and biscuits and a chance to talk. Admission is free. Details of the society’s programme are on the NIAS website.

The sale of the Letheringsett brewery by Mary Hardy’s descendants

In March 1896 Mary Hardy’s great-grandson Clement Cozens-Hardy sold the maltings, brewery and the tied estate to Morgans, the Norwich brewers. No official photograph was taken at this moment of farewell after more than a century in Hardy and Cozens-Hardy hands.

A poignant moment at Letheringsett. The men and boys of the maltings and brewery, seen in 1896 when ownership passed to Morgans of Norwich  [Cozens-Hardy Collection]

They are standing inside the brewery yard, against the brewhouse (left), with its timber louvres, and the flint-walled malt-mill house, close to the waterwheel. Many hold the tools of their trade: the bricklayer’s trowel, the maltster’s shovel, the paint can.

The three at the front, in the middle, wear all-weather clothing and drayman’s apron. The central figure seems to hold a tankard—possibly the last brew.

A workforce roll-call

Their names, where known, are (from the left):

front row

Esrom Boyce, carpenter; Buck Loades, painter; Charles ‘Podger’ Moore, maltster; William High, 1st drayman; Jeremiah Mortram, 3rd drayman; ‘Big’ Jack Lines, 2nd drayman; George High, maltster; Richard Cooper, carpenter; Ernest Loades, painter.

Others identified by Walter High and Basil Cozens-Hardy are:

middle row

Billy Eastaugh, carpenter and wheelwright; Alfred Moore; Walter Pratt, gardener; ‘Young’ Tom Lines

back row

Herbert Chapman, bricklayer; John Loynes, bricklayer; Alfred Boyce, driver; Herbert ‘Fiddler’ Lines.

Many of these surnames feature in the diaries of Mary Hardy and Henry Raven.

Teri Warsop holds a malting shovel at the Whissonsett exhibition in just the same way as her ancestor Charles ‘Podger’ Moore in the 1896 group photograph. Teri and her son Arnie are descended from three generations of highly skilled men who worked for Mary Hardy and her descendants. The shovel was lent for the exhibition by Crisp Malting Group [photograph Jean Hart 2013]

A postscript: the Moores’ descendants

The faded archive photograph on the Diary website brought two descendants of the Moores to Whissonsett in August 2013 for the Mary Hardy exhibition during Open Churches Week.

Teresa (Teri) Warsop, née Moore, with her son Arnold (Arnie), is seen here holding a malting shovel in the same pose as that of her great-great-grandfather Charles (Podger) Moore in 1896; Podger stands in the front row. She brought her family tree with her, and these details come from Teri.

Charles Moore (b.1852 at Thornage, near Letheringsett) worked for Mary Hardy’s grandson as a floor maltster. His younger brother Alfred is seen behind him in the group photograph.

Their grandfather, also Charles Moore (b.1810), worked locally as a maltster. This older Charles’s grandfather Jeremiah Moore (d.1818 aged 68) is recorded by Mary Hardy as working for the Hardys in the late 18th century as a river engineer. He dredged the Glaven, repaired its banks, and worked on the culvert to the waterwheel in the brewery yard. He was also a member of the Methodist cottage meeting which the diarist opened in the village in 1808.