The Brewing Industry: Archive Report | PDF - English Heritage

website http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/ provides a limited amount of free access, while further access can
be paid for by individual subscriber and the whole site is available free of charge in some public and other
libraries.
Note that archives of a local brewery may not always be held locally, and even if there are holdings,
they may not yet have been catalogued. Contact local repositories directly to enquire about access to
specific archives. There may also be material located in repositories abroad. Of course, many business
records are still held by operating breweries. Conversely, former breweries may have virtually no archival
material at all. In this case the use of other sources such as local newspapers, obituaries, directories and
census returns may be necessary. The article by Peter Mathias, Brewing archives: their nature and use (1990),
provides an excellent introduction to the scope and potential pitfalls of research into the brewing industry.
See also Gutzke (2005) for guidelines on writing historical articles related to the brewing industry.
7 Dealing with archival problems resulting from brewery closures
Some brewery closures take place over a long period, and it should then be possible to plan ahead, in
conjunction with the relevant local depository (see section 8), if the company concerned wishes to deposit
archival material. If possible, build a relationship with the company over the long term, with the aim of
ensuring that as much archival material is safely deposited well before closure. In an emergency, when a
plant closure is imminent and archives are endangered, the first move is to attempt to establish relations
with the company, in order to assist them in dealing with what they may perceive only as a short-term
space problem. Try to obtain access to the archive material, and make an initial survey of what is
particularly important; it may be possible to obtain help from a local repository. Even at this late stage it
may be worth trying to encourage the company to gift or loan at least some of their material to a
depository, rather than simply get rid of it as waste. If the company will allow access and removal of
material, but nothing else by way of support for moving the archive, then the Brewery History Society or a
local repository may be able to offer assistance. As the rescue of the Allied Breweries Archive (see section 3)
showed, it is an extremely time-consuming and costly task to sort, pack and disperse a large amount of
material when a deadline is in sight.
8 Guidance on depositions
The Business Archives Council’s website www.businessarchivescouncil.org.uk is a useful source of
information for potential depositors of records. It advises that many businesses may not realise that their
historical records can be a valuable research resource; records can sometimes be seen simply as taking up
valuable office or warehouse space. Most archive repositories maintain policies of free public access. Any
deposit of records can be made either as a gift or as a long-term loan, although most repositories prefer the
records to be gifted, avoiding future ownership and copyright issues. The chances of a repository accepting
a collection are greater if it is comprehensive, that is it has not been ‘cherry-picked’ by the company for
items of obvious interest or value. A repository may have to be tempted to accept a collection by the offer
of exceptionally interesting or rare items. Most local repositories have websites that carry information for
depositors, setting out the kind of records in which they are interested, their geographical area of collection
and their terms of agreement for gifting or loans. They may also offer advice as to which items are of
historical importance. A searchable list of local repositories - the ARCHON Directory - may be found on the
National Archives website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/default.htm
9 Brewing artefacts
Although paper archives are well served by the various record offices, the situation is not as good for
artefacts; there is no national brewing museum. Little brewing equipment appears to currently be
preserved by the national museums, although many items from the Whitbread Archive were donated to
museums in 2001. Until its closure in June 2008, the Coors Visitor Centre (previously Bass Museum of
Brewing) at Burton upon Trent was in effect England’s only national brewing museum. The site is due to
reopen in April 2010 as the National Brewery Centre.
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