ROMANCE OF BUSINESS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 November 1926, Page 11

ROMANCE OF BUSINESS

rpHE romances of modern business are -*■ as enthralling in their nature as these of the Elizabethan adventurers, as is amply proved by (Mr W. H. Rouble’s book “Romance of Great Businesses,’’ just published (says the Sunday Chronicle). In 182,7 a ship was ivreeked in the Irish Channel, with a cargo of Tndia Pale Ale aboard. Out of the wreckage the underwriters managed to salvage a number of hogsheads, which were sold iu Liverpool.

Ale of such quality, in the opinion of Liverpool, had never been drunk before. Some of the hogsheads travelled further inland, and again roused comment as the best ale ever drunk.

At that time India pale ale was unknown in England, this special brew having always been exported to India.

Thus, from the misfortune of a shipwreck came fortune to the great house of Bass, and nowadays thirsty souls do not ask for India Pale Ale. They ask Bass simply, but if it had not ibeen for those Fogsheads sold as salvage the majority of them would never have heard the name of the greatest brewing firm in the world.

A century and a half ago Burton-on-Trent was‘a small town, with half a dozen breweries carrying on a mainly local trade. A certain William. Bass was then engaged in a carrying business, but he was determined to give up carting beer, and make it instead. He sold out his old business to some people named Bickford.

STORY OP INDIA PALE ALE

Thus William Bass founded the great brewing industry which was to get its chief impetus from the misfortune of a shipwreck, and thus, too, “Pick ford’s’’ came into existence.

William ’s Michael Thomas Bass, took into partnership a Mr Ratcliff and a Mr Thomas Gretton, and it was under these three that the output of the firm increased so enormously. To-day the lineal descendants of the three partners are still on the .directorate of the company. This is probably the only business in existence that ca,n show three generations from the original partners still governing its interests.

At the end of the eighteenth centum, the yearly output of the Bass business was 2000 barrels, half of which was for export, including the India Pale Ale which was to make the fortunes of the firm.

To-day the business premises cover more than 75(1 acres, and in the course of a rear more than 100,000 railway waggons are used for transporting the products of the brewery.