From Trainee Chemist to Master Brewer: Walter Showell's Crosswells Brewery
From Trainee Chemist to Master Brewer: Walter Showell's Crosswells Brewery
By Steve James
Walter Showell was born in Birmingham in 1832, where he spent his formative years with his aunt at Ashted Row. He started his career as a trainee chemist and moved to Oldbury, where he joined Charles Tonge as an apprentice at his chemist's shop in Birmingham Street. In 1854, he met and married Sarah Harthill, the daughter of a master miller, which led to a career change. With his background as a chemist, he began collaborating with his father-in-law, Joseph Harthill, in his malting business. With his financial backing, he soon established the small Victoria Brewery in Simpson Street, Oldbury, not far from the Dog & Pheasant. Walter's beer recipes were popular with local drinkers and the business expanded.
During this period, he bought a large piece of land next to the Great Western Railway line in Crosswells Street, Langley Green, including Crosswells Springs, which early monks had called the 'Wells of the Cross'. In 1874, he constructed his new Crosswells Brewery here, which was such a success that in 1881 he built a new maltings at Langley, next to the Titford Canal and railway. A second 90-quarter brewery was added in 1884 with further extensions a year later. The brewery had its own company band, fire brigade and fire engine. In 1884, the company was formally registered and in 1887, Walter handed over control to his son, Charles.
The beers from Crosswells Brewery were advertised as "ales brewed from the choicest malt and hops, and the purest water in existence, have so won their way into popular favour that the Crosswells has become a household word". There was a good range of "palatable, wholesome and invigorating beers", including fine and superior dinner ales, table beer, mild, bitter and pale ales, brown stout and porter, best and strong old ale. The nearest tied house to the brewery was the Crosswells Inn in Station Road, Langley, previously kept by local agent, William Smith, and acquired in 1890.
The company expanded its outlets to supply beer to the Black Country and Birmingham, and in 1889 acquired Taylor's Hockley Brewery, adding another 40 tied houses in Birmingham. A year later, they acquired Sarah Marsland's Brookfield Brewery in Stockport, but this exposed the company to some risk in supplying beers to more remote locations.
In 1894, Showell's acquired the Brewers Investment Corporation, which doubled the number of pubs owned in Birmingham and moved the head offices to Great Charles Street in Birmingham. The canal between Langley and Birmingham provided an efficient transport link between the brewery and a new distribution warehouse based at Crescent Wharf, off Broad Street, where 6,000 casks of ale could be stored. By 1896, they also had a brewery at Ely in Cardiff, but had to sell the Stockport Brewery for £250,000 due to a financial crisis.
Further acquisitions in London and the South-West proved to be rather ambitious, which along with the downturn in the country's economy, led to the decline of the company.
In 1898, their London pubs were bought by Reffell's Bexley Brewery, with a series of financial difficulties and prosecution. By 1900, Showell's were widening their markets again, supplying beer and stout to the Egyptian army of the Khedive, delivering 15,000 barrels of beer a year. At the shareholders' AGM in the same year, it was reported that the company was in good health, paying 15% dividends over the last four years and with annual net profits of over £92,000 (equivalent to over £12.1m in today's money). Around this time, Harry Twyford was one of the main directors of the company. By the end of the Victorian Age, Showell's had developed into a large regional brewery with a tied estate of almost 200 pubs.
In 1901, Walter Showell passed away at Stourton Hall, the family home near Kinver, aged 68, leaving a wife and daughter. At that time, he was a household name in Oldbury, as one who did much for the people among whom he lived and worked. He had taken a prominent part in public life, becoming chairman of the Local Public Health Board and Board of Guardians. He had built a small church in Rounds Green, contributed to the cost of the new parish church at Langley and the repair of the chancel at Kinver church. He also helped to establish the Hospital Saturday Movement in Oldbury. He also travelled widely, and was one of the first to ascend Mount Blanc. In 1885, he had stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for parliament and, at the time of his death, was an Alderman on Worcestershire County Council.
By 1912, the company was feeling the pinch, with declining profits of barely £9,500, mostly associated with the high cost of brewing materials. In 1914, his sons sold the company to Samuel Allsopp & Sons (Burton-upon-Trent), along with its 194 pubs and 30 off-licences. At the final shareholders' meeting the accounts showed an apparent turn-round in profits, recorded as £65,224.
The brewing plant was put up for sale in 1918, and the Crosswells Brewery closed shortly afterwards. Samuel Allsopp leased all the pubs to Ind Coope & Allsopp, who used the brewery as a depot, and by 1961, had become part of Allied Breweries and later part of Carlsberg-Tetley.
Although most of the brewery buildings were demolished, some remain as part of Alcohols Ltd, a distilling company making Langley gin! In 1944, Langley Maltings was sold to Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries and until 2006 was one of the few remaining traditional floor maltings. Listed as an historic building (Grade II), it remains a prominent canalside feature, but was seriously damaged by fire in 2009 and is on the top of the Victorian Society's list of endangered buildings. Incidentally the Titford Canal is the highest point on the UK system at 511 feet above sea level.
So, although Showell's Crosswells Brewery has long gone, many of the company's pubs remain, often with some original features of the brewery and still serving an excellent pint of beer.
From Brewery History Society Newsletter 104, March 2024