EARLY BERKSHIRE GINGER BEER BOTTLES

King - Newbury

Ian Treacher has 3 'different' varieties of incised ginger beer bottle from "KING, NEWBURY" as pictured below.

From Pigot & Co.'s Directory of Berks, Bucks ... , 1844 there are a few entries relating to the surname "King":

As you would expect, we have the problem of identifying which "King" was that sold ginger beer.  There are 2 clear "King's" in the frame here.  Firstly Charles King who was a chemist, druggist and grocer in Bartholomew Street.  Secondly Thomas King who was a malster, brewer and who also ran the Globe Inn all in Bridge Street.  We can be fairly sure that it is not both of them that produced and sold ginger beer because the bottles simply say "KING" rather than "C. KING" or "T. KING" as would have been needed if they both sold it.  Being as there were only 2 "King's" in Newbury plus Mary Ann King (presumably a relation of one of these men) it is highly probable that they were all related.

So it might be logical that you would think that the brewer Thomas King also brewed ginger beer.  However, this is probably not the case.

If we note that Thomas King appears to do malstering, brewing and selling all from Bridge Street, Newbury, then it is likely to be at the same establishment.  Presumably it would have been brewing and malstering at the back of the Globe Inn from which he sold his products.

We have to remember that ginger beer used a different type of yeast to 'regular' beer brewing and cross-contamination was possible due to yeast's airborne nature.  Ginger beer nearly always had to be brewed on a different premises because of this.  So, unless a brewer was a massive outfit with different buildings (or had a large segregated premises), then it was unlikely that they had opportunity to produce both types of beer at the same time.  It is therefore much more likely that the chemist Charles King was the ginger beer brewer (although perhaps if related Thomas King helped him or had the additional knowledge of brewing to help him set this up!).

From Kelly's Berkshire Directory, 1848:

From Slater's Directory of Berkshire, 1852:

From Post Office Directory of Berks, Northants ... , 1854:

So although very little changes in the 1854 directory, there is no record of any "King" in Newbury as a Trader from 1876 onwards:

From Harrod & Co.'s Directory of Beds, Bucks ..., 1876:

From Kelly's Berkshire Directory, 1887:

As we cannot be sure what happened to Thomas and Charles King between 1854 and 1876 it is difficult to speculate about the date of the bottles.  We know that the date of the bottles must be before 1876 however, because for whatever reason, Thomas and Charles King were no longer in Newbury trading at that point in time.