Mann, Crossman & Paulin interview recorded by Dr Denis Smith

Mann, Crossman & Paulin Ltd an interview with Frank Gibbins recorded and transcribed by Dr Denis Smith

The Albion Brewery was established by James Mann in Whitechapel, east London, in 1807, when the following advertisement appeared:-

"ALBION BREWERY At a meeting of select friends, it was decided to establish a Brewery, under the above title, with a view to amending the Public's Beverage and at the same time to reduce the price."

James Mann was succeeded by his son, also called James, who in 1846 took into partnership an experienced brewer Robert Crossman. They were joined a few years later by Thomas Paulin, who had worked with Crossman at the Isleworth Brewery. The company traded as Mann, Crossman and Paulin, and comprised the Albion Brewery and five beer-houses. In 1850 they expanded a little by acquiring six further beer-houses. In the mid-19th century London's breweries were significant companies. John Weale observed "The Breweries of the Metropolis may be considered as amongst its most important manufacturing establishments, whether in reference to the capital employed, to the extent of their premises, or to the age of the eight great establishments known as the London porter breweries". In the 1870s the company expanded further, and there was a change in the nature of the business. This was a period of economic prosperity in Britain. The company built a new brewery at Burton-on-Trent, and the Albion Brewery, which until then had brewed porter changed to mild ale. They introduced the first bottled brown ale in 1899. Mann, Crossman and Paulin merged with Watney Combe Reid & Co. in 1958 to form Watney Mann.

Frank Gibbins was born in 1906. He served his engineering apprenticeship with W H de Ritter & Co between 1921 and 1927, joining the Albion Brewery two years later. Frank Gibbins was appointed charge-hand fitter in 1937, and foreman engineer a year later.

Latterly he was Plant Superintendent, retiring in 1971. The interview was recorded in his office at the Brewery on 27 May 1971.

"I started in the brewery 1929, of course in those days the power was all steam...which provided the power throughout the brewery for the various drives - it was transmitted through heavy steel shafting and gearing -iron gears and mortise wheels in pairs, the mortise wheels of course were to reduce the noise on the gears, these were fitted with wooden teeth made of hornbeam and it provided the power for the mash tuns, the mills for grinding the malt, the hoists for taking the malt up to the malt stores, hop stores, in fact everything was really driven by steam."

"The wooden teeth in the gearing was fitted into slots on the periphery of the wheels and the shank of the tooth was fitted into these pockets and fixed by a pin underneath."

"The steam engines which were the main source of power was a beam engine by Kittoe & Brotherhood in 1867 and a horizontal engine - Robert Morton in 1872." The beam engine, built in London, had a cylinder of 28in diameter and developed about 90hp. The beam, 13ft 6in long, was supported by four Doric columns 10in diameter and 8ft 6in high. The engine was removed for preservation in 1978. The horizontal engine, built in Stockton-on-Tees, had a 24in diameter cylinder. "These at the time I arrived at the brewery were run for about six to twelve months each in turn. We used to do all our own maintenance on these engines. The speed of these engines was thirty revs per minute on the main crankshaft, and there were about fifty pairs of bevel wheels, or gear wheels, to transmit it to various sections. Another interesting steam engine we had was on our artesian well, which is approximately two hundred and fifty feet deep, and that was driven by a twin engine - condensing set, and there were three buckets down at the bottom of the well, we used to get approximately two hundred and fifty barrels an hour - we say barrels in the brewery whether we are talking about beer or liquor - which is what water is in a brewery."

"Some years after the war the engine was taken out and we bring the water, or liquor, up now by submersible pump."

"Of course we have always had a fairly extensive maintenance staff here of fitters, and mates, coppersmiths, blacksmiths, welders. In fact we were always able to do most of the repair work ourselves, not that the main engine ever entailed very much work, except on one occasion many years ago when the [15 ft diameter] flywheel on the beam engine came loose on the shaft - we had to make a repair job in the weekend by turning [i.e. milling] the boss [on] the flywheel down on either side and fitting a split steel coupling so that it gripped the boss of the flywheel and the shaft, and to this day this has never moved again. Its very rare of course we use it now, in fact ... we can't for work, but if we have visitors around they like to see the engine running and ... that is when we do run it. But for work of course all the old shafting and everything like that has been dismantled and now everything has got its own independent electric drive."

"... We had five boilers in those days on what we called the intermediate pressure of sixty pounds per square inch which these engines ran at. There were another three boilers in another house which used to run at a hundred - that was for air compressors - we had steam air compressors, and then another three boilers over in the barrel washing department, which was a very busy department washing the wooden kegs, these have now disappeared, beer is nowadays put in the steel [sic] kegs - aluminium kegs. Of course, in the days of the wooden barrel we had a very large cooperage staff here who were continually making barrels and repairing the old ones."

"When these mortise wheels required re-toothing wes used to get them done by a firm in Millwall, the name of Hunt, who I don't know whether they are still in existence, they had the necessary machinery for cutting these wooden teeth." E Hunt & Co, engineers, were based at Mellish Street, Millwall, until 1939.

"Of course, there have been some vast changes in my forty odd years in the brewing industry, particularly with this filtration, sterilisation and that sort of thing of beer today. I served my apprenticeship at W H de Ritter's in Limehouse, as a fitter and pattern-maker". W H de Ritter & Co Ltd, mechanical engineers, had premises at 41 Three Colt Street, until the early 1970s (5). "I came to the brewery as a fitter in the first place but after a few weeks the old pattern-maker was pensioned off and I was asked to do the job. We used of course, if we had any breakages or any maintenance required new castings, we used to make our own patterns, send (to) the foundry, get the castings and we'd do our own machining."

Although brewing no longer takes place at the Albion Brewery, it is used as offices by the Watney group, and the attractive exterior has been renovated.