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Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Historic Beer Birthday: Matthew Nunan

January 7, 2023 By Jay Brooks

hibernia
Today is actually the day that Matthew Nunan passed away, January 7, 1916, and was born in 1834, or possibly 1836, or maybe even 1828, but the exact date or even month is unknown. There are even some sources that give his date of death as January 13. He was born in Limerick, Ireland, and emigrated to the U.S. when he was fourteen, settling in California in 1855. Lured there by dreams of striking it rich in the goldmines, he soon tried of mining, and first opened a grocery store in San Francisco, but eventually bought the Mission Street Brewery. When they moved the brewery and built a larger one, they renamed it the Hibernia Brewery. Matthew Nunan also served two terms as Sheriff of San Francisco, 1876-1877 and 1878-1879.

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Gary Flynn has a more thorough Biography of Matthew J. Numan at his Brewery Gems website. He also has a lengthy history of the Mission Street Brewery (1860-1867) and [its] successor The Hibernia Brewery (1867-1920).

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Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: California, History, Ireland, San Francisco

Historic Beer Birthday: James W. Kenney

January 2, 2023 By Jay Brooks

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Today is the birthday of James W. Kenney (January 2, 1845-?). He was born in Ireland, but followed his older brother to Boston when he was eighteen, in 1863. He was involved in starting and running several different breweries in Boston over the span of his life, starting with the Armory Brewery in 1877. Then he opened the Park Brewery, the Union Brewing Co. and finally was involved in the American Brewing Co., plus he bought the Rockland Brewery at one point. It also seems like he was involved in the Kenney & Ballou Brewery, but I wasn’t able to confirm that one. Suffice it to say, he was a busy, industrious person, involved in a lot of Boston breweries.

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Here’s a short biography from “Important Men of 1913”

Kenney, James W., born near Derry, Ireland, Jan. 2, 1845, and educated in the national schools of his native land. Came to Boston, 1863, and was placed in charge of a large grocery conducted by his brother. Became master brewer in a large brewery. In 1877 started Amory Brewery; 1881 Park Brewery; 1893 organized Union Brewing Co. Was mainly instrumental in organizing the American Brewing Co.; member of directors’ board two years. Large owner and operator in real estate, with interests in railroads, gas companies, banks, newspapers, etc. President, director and vice-president of Federal Trust Co.; director Mass. Bonding and Insurance Co. and Fauntleroy Hall Association of Roxbury; member of American Irish Historical Society and of numerous social and benevolent organizations. Married, April 24, 1876, Ellen Frances Rorke, of Roxbury. Residence: 234 Seaver St., Roxbury, Mass.

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Norman Miller’s “Boston Beer: A History of Brewing in the Hub,” has a few paragraphs on several of Kenney’s businesses.

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Here’s a rundown of his breweries:

Armory Brewing Co., 71 Amory Street: 1877-1902

This was his first brewery, but it was only known by that name until 1880, and I think he may have then sold it to a Mr. Robinson, who called it the Robinson Brewing Co., although some accounts indicate it was called the Rockland Brewery, which was his nickname. Their flagship was Elmo Ale, named for Robinson’s son, and not for the beloved Sesame Street Muppet. Other sources seem to suggest it was then bought back by Kenney at some point.

Park Brewery, 94 Terrace Street: 1881-1918

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Four years later he opened the Park Brewery, which apparently produced only Irish Ales.

American Brewing Co., 249-249A Heath Street: 1891-1918

This was a larger brewery than his other ventures, and he was merely one of the investors in the business, and was on the Board of Directors, though he did hired all Jamaica Plain brewmasters. Apparently it survived the dry years by operating a “laundry” (wink, wink). After repeal, the Haffenreffer family bought it and used it briefly as a second brewery, before closing for good in 1934.

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The Jamaica Plain Gazette described their neighborhood American Brewing Co.:

The most “handsome” of all the remaining Boston breweries, the American Brewing Company was active from 1891 to 1918, and then again from 1933-34. Owned by James W. Kenney, who also owned the nearby Park and Union breweries, the Queen Anne style building stands out architecturally with beautiful granite arches and a distinctive rounded corner, topped by a turret.

Historically, one of the most unique features of this brewery was the “customer” room in the basement. Customers were entertained here in a room with walls, ceiling and floor painted with German drinking slogans, flowers and other reminders of the source of the Lager recipes.

The Jamaica Plain Historical Society has even more information on it in their piece about Boston’s Lost Breweries:

The brewmasters were Gottlieb, Gustav and Gottlieb F. Rothfuss, all of Jamaica Plain.

This is undoubtedly the most handsome of all the remaining breweries in Boston and once can see at a glance the pride the owners had in the place, the process and the product. The architect was Frederick Footman of Cambridge. It was built in three phases, with the oldest part on the left, the second one with the American Brewing Company name came next and then the third wing with the beautiful granite arches and terra cotta heads which was the office complex emblazoned with the initials ABC. The granite was probably either Chelmsford or the slightly grayer Quincy.

Still visible in the main, or brewing, building is the large overhead access shaft where the malted barley and water were lifted to the top floor with hoists and pumps. The barley was stored in cedar-lined rooms in the top two stories of the main building to prevent insect infestation. The brewing process was started there as the grain was cooked. The cooked mash then flowed to the floor below where the grain was removed as waste and hops and other ingredients were added to the residual brew, along with the yeast that triggered the fermentation that produced the alcohol. The final product was then stored in temperature-controlled areas at the lowest level. Also still visible in the lower level is the capped wellhead that had delivered countless thousands of gallons of pure Mission Hill spring water to the process.

A wonderful touch of the spirit of the times is the “customer” room in the basement. Customers were entertained here in a room with walls, ceiling and floor painted with German drinking slogans, flowers and other reminders of the source of the Lager recipes. The offices had beautiful arched, semi-circular windows with stained glass. The tower is rounded and has a clock fixed at seven and five, the workers’ starting and quitting times. It also has granite carriage blocks to protect carriage wheels from breaking if too tight a turn were attempted when entering or exiting.

During Prohibition it was used as a laundry. After 1934, Mr. Haffenreffer used it for a time as a second brewery. Most recently it was used by a fine arts crating and shipping company, the Fine Arts Express Co. It is presently being converted to housing units.

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The American Brewing Co.

Union Brewery, 103 Terrace Street: 1893-1911

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Next was the Union Brewery, this time to brew German Lager beer exclusively. Here’s a brief description of the Union Brewery from the Jamaica Plain Historical Society, detailing it in Boston’s Lost Breweries:

The Stony Brook culvert sits very close to the surface of Terrace Street, the home of two very productive breweries. The Union Brewery, active from 1893 to 1911, was located at 103 Terrace Street. It produced only German Lager beer. It had a large six story, arched, main building and two smaller buildings housing a stable and a powerhouse. The two smaller buildings and the mural-decorated smokestack, which now also does duty as a cell phone tower remain. The former stable is now Mississippi’s Restaurant.

While for those breweries, it’s certain they were owned by James Kenney, I’m less sure about a couple of others. From either 1878-1880 or 1898-1903 (sources differ) there was a Kenney & Ballou Brewery. It’s seems at least like that James Kenney may have been the Kenney in the name, although it could have been his older brother Neil Kenney, who James worked for when he first arrive in America. That seems even more plausible when you look another brewery founded in 1874, the Shawmont Brewery. In 1877, it became known as the Neil Kenney Brewery, but in 1884 it changed names again, this time to the James W. Kenney Brewery. It apparently closed in 1888, but it appears pretty clear that he and his brother worked together on one, if not both of these breweries. Unfortunately, except for listings in Breweriana databases, I couldn’t find any information whatsoever about either brewery, and they’re not mentioned in any accounts I found of Kenney, either.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Boston, History, Ireland, Massachusetts

Historic Beer Birthday: Michael Edward Ash

December 17, 2022 By Jay Brooks

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Today is the birthday of Michael Edward Ash (December 17, 1927–April 30, 2016). He “was a British mathematician and brewer. Ash led a team that invented a nitrogenated dispense system for Guinness stout, which evolved to become the beer now sold globally as Draught Guinness. As the manager in charge of the Easy Serve project, Ash is credited as the inventor of nitrogenated beer (sometimes known as “nitro beer” colloquially).”

Michael E. Ash
Michael Ash in the 1950s.

“Following graduation from Cambridge, Ash lectured in mathematics at The Bedford College for women for three years before joining Guinness & Co. at their London Brewery in Park Royal in January 1951.

After training as a brewer by 1954 Ash also had experience of running two departments (Brewing and Forwarding) and in 1955 he was given his own department the ‘Sample Room’, which had facilities for experimentation. The ‘Draught problem’ was given to Ash as part of his briefing from the managing Director, Hugh Beaver. At the time, Guinness used a convoluted draught system in which highly conditioned beer was blended with aged, nearly still beer. It was a slow, arduous process that limited the ability of draught dispense to reach a more global market.

Guinness had for years been looking for a system in which a barman with no special training could pour a glass of draught in a matter of seconds to settle quickly with a head (3/8″ in a normal ½ pint glass).

Ash realized the solution lay in the use of a blend of nitrogen and carbon dioxide (beer typically just uses the latter), but it took years to figure out a mechanism to dispense nitrogenated beer. Inside Guinness, Ash’s quest was regarded as quixotic, and other brewers chided it as “daft Guinness” and the “Ash Can.” Eventually, working with a keg designer, Ash hit on a revolutionary, self-contained two-part keg, with one chamber full of beer and the other full of mixed gas under pressure, and the introduction of nitrogen.[5] Nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. The high pressure of dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic ‘surge’.

Ultimately called the “easy serve system,” it began to replace the old “high and low” taps used in Ireland and spread to Great Britain and beyond beginning in the 1960s. The invention, which made for a smoother, less characterful beer, was not without controversy, and for years a minority of Irish drinkers complained about the change. Eventually, nitrogrenated stout became a standard, not just at Guinness but among all Irish makers of stout.

Ash left the brewing side of Guinness in 1962 to become managing director of Crooks Laboratories in Park Royal (owned by Guinness). Crooks moved to Basingstoke in 1965. At Crooks Ash was responsible for acquiring the licence for the anti-depressant Prothiaden (Dosulepin) in 1967. From 1970 onwards Ash followed various interests including business education and was a founding governor of Templeton College Oxford.”

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Ash with Pete Brown.
Pete Brown, who’d met Ash recently, wrote his obituary for the Morning Advertiser after he passed away in April of this year at 88 years old, entitled The man who created the nitro stout.

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A photograph of Ash taken by Jeff Alworth during his visit to Guinness in early 2016.

Similarly, Jeff Alworth wrote a piece for All About Beer Magazine, The Man Who Invented Nitro the month after he passed away.

Alworth’s article online includes an audio clip of Michael Ash describing the process he used to create Draught Guinness using nitrogen.
http://allaboutbeer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Michael-Ash.mp3

And this biography of Ash was prepared by Guinness’ marketing department:

Michael read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge and was awarded a triple first in his studies – top scholar that year in Cambridge. Between 1948 – 1950, Michael was allowed to reduce his national service conscription by teaching Maths at a University (other than Oxbridge). He taught at Bedford College. Up to the end of World War Two, the Guinness Company had a policy of recruiting only first class honours science graduates from Oxford or Cambridge. Michael was the first non-brewer to be recruited into Guinness.

It was in this role, he led a team of over 20, and their primary role was to seek to improve the shelf life of bottled Guinness. However, Michael felt that the real prize was in developing a proper system for Draught Guinness and began dedicating his time to the ‘Draught Problem’.

The rise of lagers available on draught, especially in the UK in the 1940s and 1950s, was encroaching on traditional Guinness sales, and Michael felt that there was a great opportunity for Guinness, should the stout be available in Draught format. However, the essential problem was with the gas. Carbon dioxide was used to pressurise kegs of bitter and lager, and it was easy and effective for everyone concerned. Guinness, though was too lively to be draughted with carbon dioxide alone.

Of the 20 plus men on his Sample Room team, he could only afford to assign 2 people to work part-time with him on ‘Daft Guinness’ as it became known with the Park Royal Brewery. Michael talks about working weekends and late nights over a long period of time to eventually come up with a nitrogen gas solution.

He worked hand in hand with Eric Lewis, of Alumasc, who supplied Michael with prototype after protoype of metal kegs with different experimental gas chambers. The fact that nitrogen is an inert gas meant that they bubbles lasted longer and were smaller. The right amount of nitrogen, created the ‘surge’ and allowed for a controlled, creamy head that lasts for the whole pint.

The eventual solution was a ‘mixed gas dispense’ system. Known initially as ‘The Ash Can’, The Easy Serve Cask was a self-contained, two-part keg, with one chamber full of beer and the other full of mixed gas under pressure.

Having seen the possibilities, [the company] was in a hurry to get Draught Guinness out into the market place, and he demanded that it should be launched in 1959 – the year of the Guinness bicentenary. At a board meeting of 9 December 1959 – Viscount Elveden (later 3rd Lord Iveagh) reported that about half the draught Guinness outlets had now been changed to the Easy Serve system, and the changeover of the remainder should take place by mid-January 1960.

Here’s a short video that Guinness made about Michael Ash:

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Guinness, History, Ireland, Science, Science of Brewing

Beer Birthday: Susan Boyle

December 1, 2022 By Jay Brooks

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Today is the birthday of Susan Boyle, who describes herself as a “Beverage Consultant and Researcher. Performer, Playwright, freelance Arts Facilitator and maker of Brigid’s Ale.” She makes the Braggot with her sister Judith at Two Sisters Brewing in Kildare, Ireland. We met a couple of years ago judging at the Brussels Beer Challenge and discovered we’re kindred spirits, especially when it comes to frites. Please join me in wishing Susan a very happy birthday.

Having dinner at Boelekewis in Belgium this August.

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Susan, Carl Kins, Stephen Beaumont and Chris Swersey in Mechelen.

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On a fry crawl in Belgium.

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Susan, me, Chris Swersey and Cark Kins at Cantillon.

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Outstanding in her field.

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As a Viking with her sister Judith at the Kildare Medieval Festival.

Note: Last two photos purloined from Facebook.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Food & Beer, Just For Fun Tagged With: Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: Edward Cecil Guinness

November 10, 2022 By Jay Brooks

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Today is the birthday of Edward Cecil Guinness a.k.a. Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (November 10, 1847–October 7, 1927). He was one of three sons of Benjamin Guinness, 1st Baronet, and younger brother of Arthur Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun. He ran the Guinness brewery beginning in 1868 when his father died. He later became the chairman of the board for life, a position he held until his death in 1927.

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He was born in Clontarf, Dublin, and educated at Trinity College Dublin, graduating with BA in 1870, he served as Sheriff of Dublin in 1876, and nine years later became the city’s High Sheriff. That same year, he was created a baronet of Castleknock, County Dublin, for helping with the visit of the then Prince of Wales to Ireland. In 1891, Guinness was created Baron Iveagh, of Iveagh in County Down. He was appointed a Knight of St Patrick in 1895, and ten years later was advanced in the Peerage of the United Kingdom to Viscount Iveagh. Elected to the Royal Society in 1906, he was two years later elected nineteenth Chancellor of Dublin University in 1908–27, he served as a vice-president of the Royal Dublin Society from 1906–27. In 1910 he was appointed GCVO. In 1919, he was created Earl of Iveagh and Viscount Elveden, of Elveden in the County of Suffolk.

Lord Iveagh was chief executive of the Guinness partnership and company, from his father’s death in 1868 until 1889. He subsequently became the chairman of the board for life, running the largest brewery in the world on 64 acres (26 ha). By the age of 29 he had taken over sole ownership of the Dublin brewery after buying out the half-share of his older brother Lord Ardilaun for £600,000 in 1876.

Over the next 10 years, Edward Cecil brought unprecedented success to St James’s Gate, multiplying the value of his brewery enormously. By 1879 he was brewing 565,000 hogsheads of stout. 7 years later, in 1886, he was selling 635,000 hogsheads in Ireland, 212,000 in Britain, and 60,000 elsewhere, a total of 907,000 hogsheads.

He then become the richest man in Ireland after floating two-thirds of the company in 1886 on the London Stock Exchange for £6,000,000 before retiring a multi-millionaire at the age of 40. He remained chairman of the new public company Guinness, and was its largest shareholder, retaining about 35% of the stock. The amount can be compared to the 1886 GDP of the UK, which was £116m.

By 1914 the brewery’s output had doubled again from the 1886 level, to 1,877,000 hogsheads

Edward Cecil Guinness (1847-1927), 1st Earl of IveaghA portrait of Edward Cecil Guinness, painted by Henry Marriott Paget (1856–1936).
Like his father and brother, Lord Iveagh was a generous philanthropist and contributed almost £1 million to slum clearance and housing projects, among other causes. In London this was the ‘Guinness Trust’, founded in 1890. Most of his aesthetic and philanthropic legacy to Dublin is still intact. The Dublin branch of the Guinness Trust became the Iveagh Trust in 1903, by a private Act of Parliament, which funded the largest area of urban renewal in Edwardian Dublin, and still provides over 10% of the social housing in central Dublin. In 1908 he gave the large back garden of his house at 80 Stephens Green in central Dublin, known as the “Iveagh Gardens”, to the new University College Dublin, which is now a public park. Previously he had bought and cleared some slums on the north side of St Patrick’s Cathedral and in 1901 he created the public gardens known as “St. Patrick’s Park”. In nearby Francis Street he built the Iveagh Market to enable street traders to sell produce out of the rain.

Iveagh also donated £250,000 to the Lister Institute in 1898, the first medical research charity in the United Kingdom (to be modelled on the Pasteur Institute, studying infectious diseases). In 1908, he co-funded the Radium Institute in London. He also sponsored new physics and botany buildings at Dublin University in 1903, and part-funded the students’ residence at Trinity Hall, Dartry, in 1908.

Iveagh helped finance the British Antarctic Expedition (1907–09) and Mount Iveagh, a mountain in the Supporters Range in Antarctica, is named for him.

Interested in fine art all his life, from the 1870s Edward Cecil amassed a distinguished collection of Old Master paintings, antique furniture and historic textiles. In the late 1880s he was a client of Joe Duveen buying screens and furniture; Duveen realised that he was spending much more on fine art at Agnews, and refocused his own business on art sales. He later recalled Edward Cecil as a: “stocky gentleman with a marked Irish brogue”.

While he was furnishing his London home at Hyde Park Corner, after he had retired, he began building his art collection in earnest. Much of his collection of paintings was donated to the nation after his death in 1927 and is housed at the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood, Hampstead, north London. While this lays claim to much of his collection of paintings, it is Farmleigh that best displays his taste in architecture as well as his tastes in antique furniture and textiles. Iveagh was also a patron of, then current artists such as the English school portrait painter Henry Keyworth Raine.

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Portrait of Guinness, by Walter Stoneman, 1926.
Here’s his obituary from The Times, October 8, 1927:

Guinness, Edward Cecil, first Earl of Iveagh 1847-1927, philanthropist, was born at St. Anne’s, Clontarf, county Dublin, 10 November 1847, the youngest of the three sons of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness [qv.], brewer, of Dublin, by his wife, Elizabeth, third daughter of Edward Guinness, of Dublin. His eldest brother, Arthur, was raised to the peerage as Baron Ardilaun in 1880. Edward Cecil Guinness was not sent to any public school, but was prepared by a tutor for entrance to Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree in 1870. His father died in 1868, leaving him a share in the Guinness brewery at St. James’s Gate, Dublin. The brewery had been bought by his great-grandfather, Arthur Guinness, in 1759 from Mark Rainsford, and in 1855 Sir Benjamin Guinness had become the sole proprietor. A large export trade was developed, and the business became famous all over the world. After leaving the university Edward Guinness took up his part in the management of this great concern, and showed administrative and financial ability of a very high order. He also interested himself in public affairs, and from early manhood was a prominent figure in Dublin municipal life. He was high sheriff of the city in 1876, and of the county in 1885.

In 1886 the Guinness brewery was incorporated as Arthur Guinness, Son, & Co., Ltd. When the public company was formed the capital required by the vendors was subscribed many times over. Indeed the applications received amounted to more than a hundred million pounds, so anxious was the public to acquire shares. Edward Guinness became chairman.

Three years later Guinness retired from active management of the company, though he retained the chairmanship. In November of that year (1889), in order to mark his retirement, he placed in trust the sum of £250,000, to be expended in the erection of dwellings which could be let at such rents as would place them within reach of the poorest of the labouring population. £200,000 was to be spent in London, and the remainder in Dublin. Guinness followed up this gift by presenting another quarter of a million pounds to Dublin for the purpose of pulling down slum property in the Bull Alley district. As a result seven acres which had been covered with squalid dwellings were cleared. This was one of the greatest benefits that Guinness ever conferred upon his native city. Among later instances of his munificence was a contribution of £250,000 to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London for the endowment of bacteriological research.
In 1885 Guinness was created a baronet, and in 1891 he was raised to the peerage of the United Kingdom as Baron Iveagh, of Iveagh, county Down. During the South African War he equipped and maintained an Irish field hospital. In 1903, when King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visited Ireland for the first time after their coronation, Lord Iveagh gave £5,000 to the Dublin hospitals, and he repeated this act of liberality on the occasion of the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911.

In 1905 Lord Iveagh was raised to a viscounty. By this time he lived chiefly in England, where he had bought Elveden Hall, in Suffolk, a well-known sporting estate. Here he entertained both King Edward and King George for pheasant and partridge shooting. But his interest in Ireland did not diminish. The Iveagh markets, which were opened in Dublin in 1907, were due chiefly to his generosity. In 1908 he was elected chancellor of Dublin University in succession to the fourth Earl of Rosse—an appropriate honour, for his services to his old university had been both liberal and judicious. In September 1909 he received a striking compliment, when the nationalist corporation of the city of Dublin presented him with an address of thanks for his many and lavish gifts to Dublin, gifts which, in the words of the address, constitute the noblest monuments of your generosity and civic patriotism. About the same time there was a movement among the nationalists to offer him, notwithstanding his strong and openly expressed unionist views, the lord mayoralty of Dublin; but, with a tact which was characteristic and which left behind no ill feeling, he declined to allow his name to be put forward.

The disturbances in Ireland during and immediately after the European War caused much distress to Lord Iveagh. He took no active part in the settlement of 1922, but he maintained his connexion with the Irish Free State, and continued his many charities under the new régime. In 1919 he was advanced to the dignity of an earldom, becoming Earl of Iveagh and Viscount Elveden. In March 1925, when the Ken Wood preservation committee had come to the end of its resources, he purchased the remainder of the Ken Wood estate to the north of Hampstead Heath, about seventy-six acres, and arranged that this area should become public property in ten years’ time, or at his death should it occur before that term. The estate was thus saved from being sold for building purposes.

Iveagh was a man of quiet and unassuming manner, impressing all who came into contact with him by his courtesy and genuine kindness no less than by his high sense of public duty and undoubted ability. He certainly took the utmost care that his great benefactions should be used to the best advantage of those whom they were intended to benefit. In addition to his other honours he was created a knight of St. Patrick in 1896 and received the G.C.V.O. in 1910. He was elected F.R.S. in 1906 and was granted honorary doctorates by the universities of Dublin and Aberdeen. He married in 1873 his cousin Adelaide Maud (died 1916), daughter of Richard Samuel Guinness, M.P., of Deepwell, co. Dublin, and had three sons. He died at his London house in Grosvenor Place, 7 October 1927, and was succeeded as second earl by his eldest son, Rupert Edward Cecil Lee (born 1874).

Lord Iveagh’s estate at his death was valued provisionally at £11,000,000. He bequeathed to the nation a valuable collection of pictures, including twenty-four examples by Reynolds and Romney. It was his intention that these should form the nucleus of an art gallery at the house at Ken Wood which he endowed with the sum of £5,000 for this purpose.

NPG D44550; Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh ('Men of the Day. No. 511.')
Men of the Day, No. 511, published in Vanity Fair, 1891.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: Guinness, History, Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: Arthur Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun

November 1, 2022 By Jay Brooks

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Today is the birthday of Arthur Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun (November 1, 1840–January 20, 1915). He was the great-grandson of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803), and the “eldest son of Benjamin Lee Guinness, 1st Baronet, and elder brother of Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College Dublin, and in 1868 succeeded his father as second Baronet.”

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In 1868 Guinness was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for the City of Dublin, a seat he held for only a year. His election was voided because of his election agent’s unlawful efforts, which the court found were unknown to him. He was re-elected at the next election in 1874.

A supporter of Disraeli’s “one nation” conservatism, his politics were typical of “constructive unionism”, the belief that the union between Ireland and Britain should be more beneficial to the people of Ireland after centuries of difficulties. In 1872 he was a sponsor of the “Irish Exhibition” at Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin, which was arranged to promote Irish trade. Correcting a mistake about the exhibition in the Freeman’s Journal led to a death threat from a religious extremist, which he did not report to the police. In the 1890s he supported the Irish Unionist Alliance.

After withdrawing from the Guinness company in 1876, when he sold his half-share to his brother Edward for £600,000, he was in 1880 raised to the peerage as Baron Ardilaun, of Ashford in the County of Galway. His home there was at Ashford Castle on Lough Corrib, and his title derived from the Gaelic Ard Oileáin, a ‘high island’ on the lake.

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Owning 33,000 acres recently bought by his father or himself in Counties Galway and Mayo, Ardilaun was placed in a difficult and unusual position during the Land War of the 1880s. Tenant farmers had started a rent strike against absentee landlords who cared little about their estates. In contrast, Ardilaun lived at Ashford for much of the year, and invested heavily in his lands, but was forced to sell land from the 1880s and saw two of his bailiffs killed in what became known as the Lough Mask Murders. His attempt to preserve the landscape at Muckross, Killarney from 1899 for aesthetic reasons was under challenge as soon as 1905. With the Digby family he was a joint owner of the Aran Islands that were compulsorily purchased by the Congested Districts Board in 1916.

Ardilaun was, like many in the Guinness family, a generous philanthropist, devoting himself to a number of public causes, including the restoration of Marsh’s Library in Dublin and the extension of the city’s Coombe Women’s Hospital. In buying and keeping intact the estate around Muckross House in 1899, he assisted the movement to preserve the lake and mountain landscape around Killarney, now a major tourist destination. From 1875 he was a sponsor of the “Dublin Artizan’s Dwellings Company”, which built cottages for poor Dubliners at reasonable rents, and was the forerunner of the Iveagh Trust later set up by his brother Edward.

In his best-known achievement, he also bought, landscaped, and gave to the capital, the central public park of St Stephen’s Green, where his statue commissioned by the city can be seen opposite the Royal College of Surgeons. To do so he sponsored a Private bill that was passed as the Saint Stephen’s Green (Dublin) Act 1877, and after the landscaping it was formally opened to the public on 27 July 1880. It has been maintained since then by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland (now the Office of Public Works)

An intermission in Ardilaun’s philanthropy provoked Yeats’s powerful poem “To a Wealthy Man….”

He was also President of the Royal Dublin Society from 1892 to 1913.

Ulysses by James Joyce includes several references to Ardilaun, as Joyce considered him to be a prime Irish example of Victorian conventional respectability. The porter brewed by the “cunning brothers” – he and his brother Lord Iveagh – was: “a crystal cup full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.” “Bung” referred to the stopper in a wooden barrel of beer. In the “Nighttown” section, the breasts of a girl who is undressing are “Two ardilauns”, meaning “two high islands”, a play on the Gaelic meaning of the word.

In 1871 Lord Ardilaun married Olivia Hedges-White, daughter of the Earl of Bantry whose family home is Bantry House in County Cork; this was a happy but childless marriage. He died on January 20, 1915 at his home at St Anne’s, Raheny, and was buried at All Saints Church, Raheny, whose construction he had sponsored. Those present at the funeral included representatives of the Royal Dublin Society, of which Lord Ardilaun was president for many years, the Royal Horticultural Society of Ireland, the Irish Unionist Alliance, and the Primrose League. His barony became extinct at his death, but the baronetcy devolved upon his nephew Algernon. On his widow’s death St. Anne’s passed to Algernon’s cousin Rev. Benjamin Plunket former Bishop of Meath, who sold most of the estate to Dublin Corporation in the 1937, keeping Sybil Hill as his residence. The corporation has preserved much of the estate as one of Dublin’s most important public parks, though the house itself burnt down in 1943, with the remaining lands used for housing.

Arthur_Edward_Guinness_Vanity_Fair_1880-05-08
From Vanity Fair, May 8, 1880.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: Guinness, History, Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: Benjamin Lee Guinness, 1st Baronet

November 1, 2022 By Jay Brooks

guinness-new
Today is the birthday of Benjamin Lee Guinness, 1st Baronet (November 1, 1798–May 19, 1868). He was the grandson of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803), “who had bought the St. James’s Gate Brewery in 1759. He joined his father in the business in his late teens, without attending university, and from 1839 he took sole control within the family. From 1855, when his father died, Guinness had become the richest man in Ireland, having built up a huge export trade and by continually enlarging his brewery.”

1850-ben-guinness

In 1851 he was elected the first Lord Mayor of Dublin under the reformed corporation.

In 1863 he was made an honorary LL.D. (Doctor of Laws) by Trinity College Dublin, and on 15 April 1867 was created a baronet by patent, in addition to which, on 18 May 1867, by royal licence, he had a grant of supporters to his family arms.

Guinness was elected to the House of Commons in 1865 as a Conservative representative for Dublin City, serving until his death. His party’s leader was Lord Derby. Previously he had supported the Liberal Lord Palmerston, but in the 1860s the Liberals proposed higher taxation on drinks such as beer. Before 1865 the Irish Conservative Party did not entirely support British conservative policy, but did so after the Irish Church Act 1869. The government’s most notable reform was the Reform Act 1867 that expanded the franchise.

From 1860 to 1865, he undertook at his own expense, and without hiring an architect, the restoration of the city’s St Patrick’s Cathedral, an enterprise that cost him over £150,000. In 1865 the building was restored to the dean and chapter, and reopened for services on 24 February. The citizens of Dublin and the dean and chapter of St. Patrick’s presented him with addresses on 31 December 1865, expressive of their gratitude for what he had done for the city. The addresses were in two volumes, which were afterwards exhibited at the Paris Exhibition.

In recognition of his generosity, he was made a baronet in 1867. He was one of the ecclesiastical commissioners for Ireland, a governor of Simpson’s Hospital, and vice-chairman of the Dublin Exhibition Palace. He died the following year at his Park Lane London home. At the time of his death he was engaged in the restoration of Archbishop Marsh’s public library, a building which adjoins St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which was finished by his son Arthur.

He showed his practical interest in Irish archæology by carefully preserving the antiquarian remains existing on his large estates around Ashford Castle in County Galway, which he bought in 1855. Nearby Cong Abbey was well-known, and the famous Cross of Cong had been moved to a Dublin museum in 1839.

Benjamin_Guinness_ILN

On 24 February 1837 he married his first cousin Elizabeth Guinness, third daughter of Edward Guinness of Dublin, and they had three sons and a daughter, living at Beaumont House, Beaumont, in north County Dublin. In 1856 he bought what is now Iveagh House at 80 St Stephen’s Green. Ashford Castle was described in William Wilde’s book on Lough Corrib in the 1860s.

He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his eldest son, Arthur, who took over the brewery with his brother, the third son, Edward. His second son Benjamin (1842–1900) married Henrietta, daughter of the 3rd Earl of Howth; they moved to England where he was a Captain in the Royal Horse Guards. His daughter Anne (1839–1889) married William, Lord Plunket in 1863. The present-day Guinness Baronets descend from his second son Benjamin.

He was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, in the family vault, on 27 May. His personalty was sworn under £1,100,000 on 8 August 1868. A bronze statue of him by John Foley was erected by the Cathedral Chapter in St. Patrick’s churchyard, on the south side of the cathedral, in September 1875, which was restored in 2006.

benjamin-guinness-statue

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Guinness, History, Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: Patrick Perkins

October 10, 2022 By Jay Brooks

castlemaine-perkins
Today is the birthday of Patrick Perkins (October 10, 1838—May 17, 1901). He was born in Ireland, but emigrated as a child to Queensland, Australia, with his parents in 1854, when he was sixteen. “With his brother Thomas, he started breweries in Victoria and Queensland. In 1866, Patrick Perkins started the Perkins Brewery in Toowoomba. In 1872, he later extended his operations to Brisbane with the purchase of the City Brewery in 1872. In 1876, Patrick Perkins moved to Queensland in order to manage the Brisbane and Toowoomba breweries.” He was also heavily involved in local politics. After his death, “in 1928, the Perkins brewing company was bought by their rivals Castlemaine Brewery with new company being known as Castlemaine Perkins.”

Patrick_Perkins

This is his biography from his Wikipedia page:

Patrick Perkins, nicknamed Paddy Perkins, was a brewer and politician in colonial Queensland. He was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and, later, a Member of the Queensland Legislative Council.

Patrick Perkins was born in a humble cottage on a small farm in the village of Clonoulty near Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland. He was the second son of Thomas Perkins, a farmer, and his wife Ellen (née Gooley). He attended the local National School.

Thomas and Ellen Perkins and their eight children (including Patrick) immigrated on the Persian, departing Southampton and arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 9 April 1854.

Toowoomba
Toowoomba circa 1865.

In 1861, he married Mary Ellen Hickey in Victoria. They had three children born in Victoria: Thomas Hector (born 1864), Edgar Colin Francis (born 1868) and Lilly Eleanor Perkins (born 1875). They had two children born in Queensland: Patrick Harold (born 1878) and Helene Cicilia (born 1880).

Patrick Perkins was a miner and storekeeper on the diggings in Victoria in districts including Ballarat, Bendigo, Woods Point and Jamieson.

With his brother Thomas, he started breweries in Victoria and Queensland. In 1866, Patrick Perkins started the Perkins Brewery in Toowoomba. In 1872, he later extended his operations to Brisbane with the purchase of the City Brewery in 1872.

Perkins_Brewery

In 1876, Patrick Perkins moved to Queensland in order to manage the Brisbane and Toowoomba breweries.

Perkins also had interests in property and mining, including the Mount Morgan Mine and coal mining in the West Moreton area. He was considered a shrewd and successful businessman.

On 9 April 1877, Edward Wilmot Pechey, the member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly in the seat of Aubigny, resigned. On 1 May 1877, in a by-election, Perkins was elected in Aubigny, defeating Angus Mackay (the then editor of The Queenslander) by a large majority. He was elected again in Aubigny in the 1878 election and was appointed as Minister of Lands in the First McIlwraith Ministry from 21 January 1879 to 13 November 1883.

Perkins was elected again in Aubigny in the 1883 election, However, allegations about electoral fraud (including intimidation, bribery, and ballot stuffing) in the Aubigny election started to surface, resulting in a petition to the Governor of Queensland detailing numerous kind of electoral fraud and asking to declare that the Aubigny election was void and that Patrick Perkins was guilty of bribery and corruption. On 21 February 1884, the Committee of Elections and Qualifications ruled the Aubigny election was null and void and called for a by-election. Perkins had denied any involvement in the alleged electoral fraud and the Committee of Elections and Qualifications did not disqualify him from re-contesting the seat, which provoked outrage in some quarters. However, Patrick Perkins announced he would not re-contest the seat as he would be taking a trip to England. James Campbell was elected unopposed at the resulting by-election on 4 March 1884.

At the 1888 election, Perkins was elected in the seat of Cambooya on 10 May 1888, which he held until 6 May 1893.

On 23 May 1893, Perkins was appointed to Queensland Legislative Council from 23 May 1893. Being a lifetime appointment, he served until his death on 17 May 1901.

city-brewery-australia

Late in life, Perkins was in poor health and moved to Hawthorn, Melbourne. He attended the opening of the first Federal Parliament at the Royal Exhibition Building on 9 May 1901 and caught a chill which developed into bronchial pneumonia, from which he died on Friday 17 May 1901 at “Ingleborough”, Berkeley Street, Hawthorn. On Saturday 18 May 1901, his funeral was conducted at the Roman Catholic church at Glenferrie, after which he was buried in the Boroondara General Cemetery in Kew, Melbourne.

In 1928, the Perkins brewing company was bought by their rivals Castlemaine Brewery with new company being known as Castlemaine Perkins Limited.

castlemaine-perkins

The Castlemaine Perkins brewery in Brisbane (pictured above early last century) has strong links to the history of Toowoomba. Don Talbot and John Larkin outlined the story In their book Strange and Unusual Tales. Queensland’s first brewery was built in Toowoomba in 1867. By 1869, it was one of the largest breweries in the southern hemisphere. The brewery’s original and official name was the Downs Brewery, but came to be known as Perkins Brewery. Paddy Perkins was born in Tipperary, Ireland, in 1838 migrating to Australia in 1855 with his father Thomas, and brothers James and Thomas. Paddy and his family travelled the Ballarat and Bendigo goldfields. Paddy and his brother Thomas set up a merchandising store in Castlemaine, Victoria, and later held an interest in the Castlemaine Brewery in Victoria. After testing water quality in Brisbane and Ipswich, the Perkins brothers located a reliable spring in West Swamp, Toowoomba. In 1867, the brothers purchased land in Margaret St (where Grand Central is today). In December, 1869, Perkins Brewery brewed its first commercial hogshead of light ale in Queensland. At this time, the brewery was one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with the capacity to produce 400 hogshead (113,650 litres) of XXX (Extra Exhilarating Extract) beer per week. Paddy Perkins later purchased the City Brewery, Mary Street, Brisbane in 1872. In August, 1876, tragedy stuck the Perkins family when Thomas was killed aged 35 while riding his horse in Grandchester. Paddy continued running the breweries in Toowoomba and Brisbane which prospered and expanded up until the 1920s. Profits began to decline due to competition from the new and extremely popular XXXX Bitter Ale, a stronger beer which was bought out by Perkins’ competitor Castlemaine Brewery Brisbane. The Perkins and Co. Ltd Downs Brewery in Toowoomba and the City Brewery in Brisbane were sold to the Castlemaine Brewery in August, 1928. The company was then restructured as Castlemaine Perkins Ltd. The Downs Brewery ceased brewing in 1958 after it had operated continuously for 89 years.

Perkins_and_Company_Brewery_Toowoomba_1871
The Perkins Brewery in Toowoomba around 1871.

And this history of the Perkins Brewery is from a site focusing on the Toowoomba Region:

Queensland’s first brewery was built in Toowoomba in 1867. By 1869, it was one of the largest breweries in the southern hemisphere. The brewery’s original and official name was the Downs Brewery but came to be known as Perkins Brewery. Read about its history and how it eventually became part of Castlemaine Perkins.

Perkins BreweryPaddy Perkins was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1838 migrating to Australia in 1855 with his father Thomas, and brothers James and Thomas. Arriving in Victoria Paddy and his family traveled the Ballarat and Bendigo goldfields.

Paddy and his brother Thomas set up a merchandising store in Castlemaine, Victoria and later held an interest in the Castlemaine Brewery in Victoria.

After testing water quality in Brisbane and Ipswich, the Perkins brothers located a reliable spring providing the quality they required in West Swamp Toowoomba. In 1867 the brothers purchased land in Margaret Street (where Grand Central is today) and contracted Mr. John Garget to construct Queensland’s first brewery.

In December 1869 Perkins Brewery brewed its first commercial hogshead of light ale in Queensland. At this time, the brewery was one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere with the capacity to produce 400 hogshead (113,650 litres) of XXX (Extra Exhilarating Extract) beer per week.

Another product from the Perkins Brewery was Carbine Invalid Stout that was promoted for fortifying the blood and as a tonic for nursing mothers.

The Perkins brothers also founded the malting industry in Toowoomba, building a malt house in addition to their Dent Street brewery. In 1871 maltster J. G. Sims processed 14,000 bushels of barley on the floor of the Perkins’ malt house (1 bushel = 0.363 litres).

The opening of the brewery in Toowoomba saw an increase of barley growing on the Downs which led to experiments in the cultivation of hops, all of which were unsuccessful. The malting process was discontinued in the 1880s and 1890s until a duty was imposed on imported malt and processing of local barley was again encouraged.

Perkins and Co described their beer as “A good, light, drinkable and nutritious ale, having been a long-felt want in Queensland, the proprietors beg to announce that they are now prepared to supply unlimited demand with a sound and nutritious ale, such as they trust will command general favour and support.”

Paddy Perkins later purchased the City Brewery, Mary Street Brisbane in 1872.

In August 1876 tragedy stuck the Perkins family when Thomas was killed aged 35, whilst riding his horse in Grandchester. Thomas Perkins is buried at the Toowoomba & Drayton Cemetery.

Paddy continued running the breweries in Toowoomba and Brisbane which prospered and expanded up until the 1920s. Profits began to decline due to competition from the new and extremely popular XXXX Bitter Ale, a stronger beer which was bought out by Perkins’ competitor Castlemaine Brewery Brisbane. The Perkins and Co. Ltd Downs Brewery in Toowoomba and the City Brewery in Brisbane were sold to the Castlemaine Brewery in August 1928. The company was then restructured as Castlemaine Perkins Ltd.

Catlemaine_Perkins_128860

Filed Under: Birthdays, Breweries, Just For Fun Tagged With: Australia, History, Ireland

Historic Beer Birthday: William W. Sloan

July 6, 2022 By Jay Brooks

hydraulic
Today is the birthday of William Wilson Sloan (July 6, 1831-May 7, 1901). He was born in Ireland, and moved to Buffalo, New York. Originally a malster, he bought into Buffalo’s fifth brewery, the McCulloch Brewery around 1857. There’s very little I could find about Sloan, and even less in the way of images or photographs.

hydraulic-letterhead

Here’s some information about Sloan’s brewery, from John & Dave’s Buffalo Brewing History:

Buffalo’s Fifth Brewers: 1830? 1832 McCulloch Brewery

Alexander McCulloch and his son John were listed as brewers, Seneca Street in the 1832 Buffalo Directory. Charles C. Relay of Buffalo’s second brewery is also listed as a brewer, Seneca Street. Could Relay and McCulloch have brewed together for a short time?

The “Hydraulics” was an area near present day Seneca and Hydraulic Streets where a canal was dug in 1828 from Buffalo Creek to produce hydraulic power for an industrial zone. The 1832 Buffalo Directory lists this area as having a grist mill, hat body shop, pail factory, last factory, woolen factory and one brewery believed to be McCulloch’s. Around 1836 the Hydraulics name was changed to “Clintonville” with a population of 500. It was later incorporated into the city of Buffalo.

Alexander had three sons with his wife Elizabeth: Alexander Jr. the eldest, John H. and James. Alexander Sr., who turned the brewery over to his eldest son around 1836, continued to live in Clintonville with his wife until his death around 1846. The McCulloch’s became an important family in what was then called the “Hydraulics” or “Clintonville”. Alexander Jr. and his brothers operated their brewery located on Mill Street near the Hydraulic canal (later Hydraulic St.) until 1843 when they relocated to Steuben Street (later becoming part of Carroll Street) also near the Hydraulic canal. The Attica Railroad laid tracks into Buffalo down Mill Street in the early 1840’s. This is probably what caused McCulloch to relocate his brewery to Steuben Street.

In 1847 the McCulloch’s sold their brewery to James H. Barton and Matthew J. Gilman. The Barton and Gilman Brewery operated until 1857 when it was sold to William W. Sloan. Sloan named his brewery the Hydraulic Brewery. The location remained the same but the address changed to 686 – 702 Carroll Street. Sloan continued brewing and malting at the Hydraulic Brewery until 1876.

And Buffalo Beer: The History of Brewing in the Nickel City, by Michael F. Rizzo and Ethan Cox has some more:

Sloan-bio-1

Sloan-bio-2

And the web page History of Buffalo has a little more about the Hydraulic Brewery.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun Tagged With: History, Ireland, New York

Historic Beer Birthday: William S. Gossett

June 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks

guinness-new
Today is the birthday of William Sealy Gosset (June 13, 1876–October 16, 1937). He “was an English statistician. He published under the pen name Student, and developed the Student’s t-distribution.” He also worked his entire career for Guinness Brewing, and was trained as a chemist, but it was his pioneering work in statstics, in which he was self-taught, that he is remembered today.

William_Sealy_Gosset

Here’s his biography, from Wikipedia:

Born in Canterbury, England to Agnes Sealy Vidal and Colonel Frederic Gosset, Gosset attended Winchester College before studying chemistry and mathematics at New College, Oxford. Upon graduating in 1899, he joined the brewery of Arthur Guinness & Son in Dublin, Ireland.

As an employee of Guinness, a progressive agro-chemical business, Gosset applied his statistical knowledge – both in the brewery and on the farm – to the selection of the best yielding varieties of barley. Gosset acquired that knowledge by study, by trial and error, and by spending two terms in 1906–1907 in the biometrical laboratory of Karl Pearson. Gosset and Pearson had a good relationship. Pearson helped Gosset with the mathematics of his papers, including the 1908 papers, but had little appreciation of their importance. The papers addressed the brewer’s concern with small samples; biometricians like Pearson, on the other hand, typically had hundreds of observations and saw no urgency in developing small-sample methods.

Another researcher at Guinness had previously published a paper containing trade secrets of the Guinness brewery. To prevent further disclosure of confidential information, Guinness prohibited its employees from publishing any papers regardless of the contained information. However, after pleading with the brewery and explaining that his mathematical and philosophical conclusions were of no possible practical use to competing brewers, he was allowed to publish them, but under a pseudonym (“Student”), to avoid difficulties with the rest of the staff. Thus his most noteworthy achievement is now called Student’s, rather than Gosset’s, t-distribution.

Gosset had almost all his papers including The probable error of a mean published in Pearson’s journal Biometrika under the pseudonym Student. It was, however, not Pearson but Ronald A. Fisher who appreciated the importance of Gosset’s small-sample work, after Gosset had written to him to say I am sending you a copy of Student’s Tables as you are the only man that’s ever likely to use them!. Fisher believed that Gosset had effected a “logical revolution”. Fisher introduced a new form of Student’s statistic, denoted t, in terms of which Gosset’s statistic was {\displaystyle z={\frac {t}{\sqrt {n-1}}}} z=\frac{t}{\sqrt{n-1}}. The t-form was adopted because it fit in with Fisher’s theory of degrees of freedom. Fisher was also responsible for applications of the t-distribution to regression analysis.

Although introduced by others, Studentized residuals are named in Student’s honour because, like the problem that led to Student’s t-distribution, the idea of adjusting for estimated standard deviations is central to that concept.

Gosset’s interest in the cultivation of barley led him to speculate that the design of experiments should aim not only at improving the average yield but also at breeding varieties whose yield was insensitive to variation in soil and climate, i.e. robust. This principle only appeared in the later thought of Ronald Fisher, and then in the work of Genichi Taguchi during the 1950s.

In 1935, Gosset left Dublin to take up the position of Head Brewer, in charge of the scientific side of production, at a new Guinness brewery at Park Royal in northwestern London. He died two years later in Beaconsfield, England, of a heart attack.

Gosset was a friend of both Pearson and Fisher, a noteworthy achievement, for each had a massive ego and a loathing for the other. He was a modest man who once cut short an admirer with the comment that “Fisher would have discovered it all anyway.”

t-test-slide

And this biography is from the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive:

William Sealey Gosset was born on June 13, 1876 in Canterbury, England where he was the oldest of five children. He died at the age of 61 in Beaconsfield, England on October 16, 1937. He attended the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich to b ecome an engineer before he was rejected because of poor eyesight. William Gosset was never employed as a statistician. In a world of quarrelsome statistics, but he got along with everyone. He was a very helpful, quiet, patient and loyal person.

He went to school at Winchester and was well educated before entering the New College in Oxford. Here he won a first degree in chemistry in 1899. After getting his degree as a chemist, he got a job at Guinness brewery in Dublin in 1899, where he did important work on statistics, but her was never hired at a statistician. It was his environment at Guinness’ that made him a statistician. The brewery was interested in how they could make the best beer.

In 1900, the Guinness Research Laboratory was opened, which was head by the most distinguished brewing chemist, Horace Brown. Horace Brown along with the other brews were wondering how to get the raw materials for brewing beer at the cheapest but getting the best. There were many factors that they had to take into account such as varieties of barley and hops, what conditions of dying, cultivation and maturing factors.

After a few years of research, given that they were given a free hand to explore the conditions of brewing. This gave Gosset a chance to work as a statistician. He was able to take the data from the different examples of brewing to help find out which way was the best. As the young brewers work together, it seemed natural for them to take the data to Gosset to solve the numerical problems.

Gosset, in 1903, could calculate standard errors. In 1904 he wrote on the brewing of beer. This report lead to Karl Pearson consulting Gosset. Gosset met Pearson in July of 1905 when they had long talk together. Pearson, in an hour and a half, m ade Gosset understand the theory of standard errors. Gosset went back to the brewery and practiced those method for the next year. The meeting was also successful in which Pearson got Gosset to take up the study of the law of error.

Gosset wrote paper in his spare time under the name “Student.” His paper were on the probability of error of the mean and of the correlation coefficient for publication. Gosset even managed to run cooperative experiments with Hunter a nd Bennett at Ballinacurra, Buffin at Cambridge, and Beaven at Warminster in the testing of seeds against other seeds. Gosset also work with R.A. Fisher. The funny part is that Fisher did not get along Pearson, but Gosset studied under Pearson and also got along with Fisher.

To quickly recap William Gosset, he was born in 1876 and died in 1937. He did mathematical research for beer brewing, but had the problem working with only a small sample size. He work on the concept of probable errror of a mean. He also analysi sed an extended and broad range of problems such as the counting with a haemacytometer, probable error of a correlation coefficient, cereals, agronomy and the Lanarkshire milk experiment.

A very personal friend, McMullen, said this about Gosset, “he was a very kindly and tolerant and absolutely devoid malice. He rarely spoke about personal matters but when his opinion was well worth listening to and not in the least superficia l.”

Pricenomics has a good overview of Gossett’s contributions to mathematics and statistics, entitled The Guinness Brewer Who Revolutionized Statistics.

Filed Under: Birthdays, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: England, Guinness, History, Ireland, Math, Science, Science of Brewing

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