Worthington Brewery - History

History

William Worthington (1723 – 1800) was born at Orton on the Hill in Leicestershire, the fourth child of William Worthington (1687–1742), yeoman farmer, and his wife, Elizabeth. In 1744 he moved to Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire where he worked as a cooper at Joseph Smith's brewery. In 1760, Worthington purchased the brewery from Smith's successor, Richard Commings, for £320 (£50,000 as of 2013) By the 1780s, the brewery probably had an annual output of around 1,500 barrels, similar to the rival breweries of Benjamin Wilson and Michael Bass. Throughout the eighteenth century, Worthington sales were mostly of porter, directed towards the Baltic market, shipped up the Trent by narrowboat to the Port of Hull. By the time of Worthington's death in 1800, Worthington & Co. ranked among the largest of the provincial breweries. Worthington's eldest son, also named William (1764 – 1825), took over the company following his father's death. On the death of Worthington in 1825 he was succeeded by his son, also named William (1799 – 1871). A combination of factors conspired to make the Baltic trade infeasible; the Napoleonic Wars disrupted trade in the region and the Russian government increased import tariffs in 1822. Combined with a decrease on malt duty in 1823, this led to an oversupply of beer in Burton. As a result, the brewers instead looked towards the expatriate community in India as an increasingly important export market.

The railway network joined Burton in August 1839, which made it much more economical to distribute beer throughout the country. In 1842 William Worthington went into partnership with Thomas Robinson, and the business traded as "Worthington & Robinson". By 1861 Worthington employed 191 men and boys. The brewery's blood red heart shield and dagger logo was introduced in 1863. Worthington dissolved the Robinson partnership in 1864, in order for his sons to acquire the business. The company became known as Worthington and Company, the co-partners being: William (1799-1871), with two of his sons, William Henry (1826-1894) and Calvert (1830-1871), who were joined two years later by his youngest son, Albert Octavius (1844-1918). After the introduction of agencies in British conurbations from the mid-1860s, the company began to rapidly expand. In 1866 the Prince of Wales awarded the company the Royal Warrant. Worthington pioneered brewing science from 1866 by employing a chemist, Horace Tabberer Brown, who led the world in separation and cultivation of pure yeast strains, and from 1872 the Worthington brewery was the first in the world to systematically utilise a laboratory in the brewing process. The company had previously resisted employing a laboratory, for fear that the public would perceive the scientific apparatus as a means of doctoring the beer. In order to differentiate themselves from other brewers, Worthington labelled their beers with alphabetical letters: their Burton Ales were called G, F and D, their light dinner ale was labelled M. Worthington E was an India Pale Ale, and the brewery's equivalent to draught Bass, and in bottled form, Bass Pale Ale. By 1880, Worthington's IPA was challenging Bass' product in popularity and sales in the home market.

From 1886, Worthington began to vigorously acquire public houses, which would provide a captive market for its product. In order to raise capital for this expansion, the firm became a public company in 1889 with an annual output of around 200,000 barrels, by which time it employed around 470 men and boys. By 1890, the company's bottling operations equalled those of Bass, Guinness, Allsopp and Whitbread. When William Henry Worthington (1826 – 1894) died he left no direct heirs and was the fourth and final generation of the family to manage Worthington & Co. By 1900, 73 per cent of the company's equity was in the hands of William Posnette Manners (1846 – 1915), who had joined the company in 1862 as an office boy, and under his astute leadership Worthington acquired a reputation for the quality of its bottled pale ales. The company acquired the Burton Brewery in 1915. On Manners' death in 1915, control of the company passed to two of his sons, Arthur (1879 – 1968) and Ernest. Arthur was the architect of the merger with arch rival Bass in 1927, and proved to be more than a match for John Gretton, 1st Baron Gretton, the chairman of the much larger Bass. Despite Bass's superior capitalization, the terms of the merger were such that Manners became chairman and joint managing director of Worthington, and deputy chairman and joint managing director of Bass. The amalgamation, described as ‘the biggest non-merger in the history of the brewing industry’, failed to realize its objectives. Apart from greater co-operation in bottled beer production and distribution, there were few economies and the two companies continued to operate as separate entities. Both boards were increasingly dominated by Manners and his family.

By the 1920s, in bottled form, Worthington was one of only three nationally distributed beer brands, alongside Bass and Guinness. Product rationalisation began after the Second World War and although Worthington occasionally overtook Bass in sales, the decision was taken to prioritise Bass products. Arthur Manners took the chairmanship of Bass in 1947, and was instrumental in driving the company forward. Brewing industry mergers from the late 1950s onwards damaged Worthington sales, as tied house ownership became increasingly concentrated with brewers intent on promoting their own products. At the same time, bottled beer sales suffered as drinkers in search of consistency opted for the new keg beers instead. In 1965 the original Worthington brewery was closed, although production of Worthington beers continued. Worthington E became the main keg bitter offered by Bass from 1967, and it had become a leading bitter brand by the 1970s, boosted by the company's network of 11,000 public houses. Worthington E was replaced as Bass' leading keg bitter by Worthington Best Bitter in the 1980s, and by Worthington Smoothflow from the mid-1990s. In 2000 Bass was bought by the Belgian brewer Interbrew. The Competition Commission ordered InterBrew to divest itself of a number of its recently acquired brands, and Worthington was bought by the American brewer Coors, who later became Molson Coors in 2005.

The name was changed to Worthington's in 2002 and the 140 year old shield and dagger logo was dropped in favour of a return to the original heart and dagger. In 2004 Coors announced that they would no longer advertise Worthington on a large scale. The shield logo was restored in 2011, and the brand's design was modified to resemble its 1920s appearance.