William Bass (1717 – 2 March 1787) was a British entrepreneur who founded

Bass Brewery The Bass Brewery () was founded in 1777 by William Bass in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England. The main brand was Bass Pale Ale, once the highest-selling beer in the UK. By 1877, Bass had become the largest brewery in the world, with ...

Career

The exact origins of William Bass, the founder of the brewery are not clear, but a scholarly account of the history of the Bass brewery shows that in the 1720s he was living with his parents, John and Ann Bass, and his two brothers, John and Thomas, in

Hinckley Hinckley is a market town in south-west Leicestershire, England. It is administered by Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council. Hinckley is the third largest settlement in the administrative county of Leicestershire, after Leicester and Loughbor ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire t ...

. His father, a plumber and glazier, died when William was 15, after which he carried on a carrier business with his older brother John in Hinckley. In 1756 William married Mary Gibbons, daughter of a London publican who ran the Red Lion Inn close to the London depot. They chose Burton-upon-Trent as their home because it was midway between

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and London, was a growing industrial-commercial centre, and was ideally positioned on the new Trunk canal, continuing his business there as a carrier of

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 ...

, his chief client being Benjamin Printon. By 1777, aged 60, he had saved some money, and, seeing the growing demand for Burton beer, he entered the brewing business. He bought a town house in the High Street, which contained a brewery and malthouse on adjoining land. Burton was already a thriving brewing town with several breweries exploiting the growing export beer trade via the Trent Navigation and Hull to the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages * Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originati ...

ports in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, mainly

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. He established the

and catered mainly for the domestic market, but in 1784 he started to export ale directly to Russia.''Burton-upon-Trent: Economic history'', A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9: Burton-upon-Trent (2003), pp. 53-84 Date accessed: 30 May 2009
/ref> Bass is buried in Burton.Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003.

Family

Bass married Mary Gibbons and the son was Michael Thomas Bass.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bass, William 1717 births 1787 deaths English brewers People from Burton upon Trent

Career

Family

See also

References