Samuel Whitbread (30 August 1720 – 11 June 1796) was an English brewer and

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

. In 1742, he established a

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of be ...

that in 1799 became Whitbread & Co Ltd.

Early years

Samuel Whitbread was born on 20 August 1720 at Cardington in

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

, the seventh of eight children of Henry Whitbread. At 12, he received two years' education with a local clergyman, before being sent at age 14 to London to live with family (most likely, his uncle). At age 16, his family paid £300 for him to be taken as an apprentice at a brewery under John Wightman ( Master of the Brewers' Company from 1734 to 1735).

Brewing

After learning the brewery trade, Samuel Whitbread went into partnership with Godfrey and Thomas Shewell in 1742, investing £2,600 in two of the Shewell's small breweries, the Goat Brewhouse (where

porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian regional airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., ...

was produced) in Old Street and a brewery nearby in

Brick Lane Brick Lane (Bengali: ব্রিক লেন) is a street in the East End of London, in the borough of Tower Hamlets. It runs from Swanfield Street in Bethnal Green in the north, crosses the Bethnal Green Road before reaching the busiest ...

(used to produce pale and amber

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

s). Demand for the strong, black porter had begun to the grow and Whitbread identified the need for scale to ensure commercial success, moving the business to larger premises on the site of the derelict Kings Head Brewery in

Chiswell Street Chiswell Street is in Islington, London, England. Historic England have seven entries for listed buildings in Chiswell Street. Location The street, in St Luke's, Islington, runs east-west and forms part of the B100 road. At the west end it be ...

in 1750. Starting over, Whitbread invested in all the latest technology to industrialize production, storing the beer in large vats. The brewery was also one of the first to employ a

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

(purchasing a

sun and planet gear The sun and planet gear is a method of converting reciprocating motion to rotary motion and was used in the first rotative beam engines. It was invented by the Scottish engineer William Murdoch, an employee of Boulton and Watt, but was patente ...

engine, the

Whitbread Engine The Whitbread Engine preserved in the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia, built in 1785, is one of the first rotative steam engines ever built, and is the oldest surviving. A rotative engine is a type of beam engine where the reciprocating mo ...

, from

James Watt James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fun ...

's company in 1785). While not the first to discover Porter production, Whitbread became the first to exploit it commercially on a large scale and this coincided with an increase in beer consumption in the UK, following regulations to limit the sale of gin owing to the excesses of the

Gin Craze The Gin Craze was a period in the first half of the 18th century when the consumption of gin increased rapidly in Great Britain, especially in London. Daniel Defoe commented: "the Distillers have found out a way to hit the palate of the Poor, by ...

. By 1760, it had become the second largest brewery in London (producing almost 64,000 barrels annually). By 1770 Whitbread had bought out his partners for £30,000. By the end of the century, Whitbread's business was London's biggest producer of beer, producing 202,000 barrels in 1796. In May 1787 the brewery was visited by

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

and

Queen Charlotte Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was Queen of Great Britain and of Ireland as the wife of King George III from their marriage on 8 September 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms ...

. By 1793, Whitbread had become a Freeman of the Brewers' Company.

Member of Parliament

Whitbread was appointed

High Sheriff of Hertfordshire The High Sheriff of Hertfordshire was an ancient Sheriff title originating in the time of the Angles, not long after the foundation of the Kingdom of England, which was in existence for around a thousand years. On 1 April 1974, under the provisio ...

for 1767–68 and elected

for

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...

in 1768, and held the seat until 1790, and then represented

Steyning Steyning ( ) is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Horsham District, Horsham district of West Sussex, England. It is located at the north end of the River Adur gap in the South Downs, four miles (6.4 km) north of the ...

from 1792 to 1796. He was an early supporter for the

abolition of slavery Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

, took part in some of the anti-slavery debates of 1788 in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

Family

Whitbread married firstly Harriet Hayton, by whom he had two daughters, one of whom, Emma Maria Elizabeth Whitbread, married

Henry St John, 13th Baron St John of Bletso Henry Beauchamp St John, 13th Baron St John of Bletso (2 August 1758 - 18 December 1805) was a British peer. St John was born at Woodford, Northamptonshire, the eldest son of John St John, 12th Baron St John of Bletso, and his wife Susanna Simond ...

, and one son, the politician, Samuel Whitbread. The other daughter, Harriet, married James Gordon MP. Harriet died in 1769 and is buried in Cardington Parish Church. Her memorial is by Richard Hayward. He married secondly Lady Mary Cornwallis (1736–70), eldest daughter of

Charles Cornwallis, 1st Earl Cornwallis Charles Cornwallis, 1st Earl Cornwallis (29 March 170023 June 1762), styled The Honourable Charles Cornwallis until 1722 and known as The Lord Cornwallis between 1722 and 1753, was a British peer. Background Cornwallis was the son of Charles ...

, with whom he had one daughter, Mary Whitbread (1770–1858). Mary married

Sir George Grey, 1st Baronet Sir George Grey, 1st Baronet, (10 October 1767 – 3 October 1828) was a British Royal Navy officer and a scion of the noble House of Grey. He served with the Royal Navy from the age of 14 and was on active service from 1781 to 1804, during the l ...

, 3rd son of Charles Grey, Lord Howick. Whitbread became wealthy from the success of his brewery and bought several large estates: these included Lord Torrington's

Southill Park Southill Park contains the site of late medieval Gastlings or Gastlyns Manor House and is the name given to a country house in Southill, Bedfordshire and its adjoining privately owned gardens and separate public parkland; it includes a lake and wo ...

, Elstow Manor, and other substantial property in

and

High House, Purfleet High House is the collective name for a group of historic buildings in Purfleet, Thurrock, Essex, which was used as a farm for hundreds of years, with a Grade II listed house and barn, but with the addition of one of the best dovecotes (dove hous ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. His real estate purchases were worth in the region of £400,000—equal to over £8 million in 1992. Samuel Whitbread died on 11 June 1796 at Bedworth Park. ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' speculated that he was "worth over a million pounds" ().

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitbread, Samuel English brewers Brewing in London Whig (British political party) MPs Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1768–1774 British MPs 1774–1780 British MPs 1780–1784 British MPs 1784–1790 British MPs 1790–1796 1720 births 1796 deaths Whitbread people High Sheriffs of Hertfordshire 18th-century English businesspeople People from Cardington, Bedfordshire People from Southill, Bedfordshire