Killick, Inkpen

Inkpen was and still is such a small place to have a ginger beer brewer.  However, in Kelly's Directory of Berkshire for 1887, W. Killick was a grocer on Great Common, Inkpen and according to evidence of a stone bottle, he must have sold ginger beer.  There are so few details of commercial interests in Kelly's for Inkpen in 1887 to do with anything that could involve ginger beer that I list them all here:

Buckeridge Sarah (Mrs.), potter

Culley Stephen, beer retailer

Habgood Elizabeth (Miss), shopkeeper

Hercomb Charles, Swan P. H., Lower green

Killick William, shopkeeper

Rogers Charles Joseph, beer retailer

Rolfe Henry, shopkeeper, Lower green

Skinner Henry, Craven Arms P. H.

Normally a village this size would have no such ginger beer bottle.  It was common for villages, even small ones, to have beer brewers or beer retailers but not ginger beer sold in their own bottles.  According to Kelly's Directory of Berkshire the population in 1887 was 692 and by 1899 this had dropped to 667 but by 1915 the population had risen again to 693.

The unusual entry above though is that of Sarah Buckeridge who was a potter.  It suggests that she probably made the bottles for William Killick who sold the ginger beer and it was likely that the ginger beer that was in them was produced by a local brewer possibly William Killick himself.

Interestingly when you look back further in Kelly's directories, you see that in 1849, the Buckeridge's were actually quite an outift.  The following entries for them are:

Buckeridge Charles, potter

Buckeridge James, maltster & shopkeeper

Buckeridge Miss Jane, shopkeeper

This suggests to me quite strongly that they were brewing their own beer as a family and selling it in their shop, probably in their own ginger beer bottles.  The potter tradition continued in the family through Mrs. Sarah Buckeridge as detailed in 1887 and then David Buckeridge in 1899 and 1915.

William Killick himself was described as a shopkeeper in the 1887 Kelly's directory but by 1899 was described as a grocer and draper.  By 1915 the only grocer/shopkeeper in the village was the Ward brothers.  At this stage almost all ginger beer bottles were transfer printed and so it would be unlikely that a local potter would have made the ginger beer bottle for them as an incised one would have been very "old fashioned".

So William Killick had a ginger beer bottle.  The question remains whether any of the Buckeridge's also had a separate ginger beer bottle which has not yet been discovered.

So I would like to find the stone ginger beer bottle for Killick of Inkpen and if one exists, the one for the Buckeridge's.  Please help me find them !!!