Following a request, members of the, now lapsed, Local History Group will, hopefully, furnish us with a local perspective on Daniell & Sons Brewery and its’ impact on village life. In the meantime, here are some links to articles mentioning them:
- A brief history on Brewery History website,
- The impact of the Daniell Family on West Bergholt’s development,
- The Brewery War Memorial,
- Another article referencing the war memorial,
- Introducing Osmond Orpen, marrying into the Daniell family,
There is also this extract from one of the Jon Lander articles:
A family which had a huge impact on the village were the Daniells who founded a brewery in the village in 1820 and rescued it from agricultural poverty. They created much needed jobs and their generosity provided the village with such things as the village hall and a playing field. It was a very large family and several members of it are buried in the churchyard in graves surrounded by wrought iron railings.
The most prominent memorial inside the church is the stained glass east window installed in 1928 in memory of Thomas Brett Daniel. The name of his sister, Sarah, who unveiled the window at its dedication, was added in 1932. Within the sanctuary are more memorials to the Daniel family – one to Louis Wilberforce Daniel, who died in 1987 and his wife, Mavis Pendlebury (1968) and the other to John G Daniel (1954) and his wife Edith (1968).
And this memory of the mid-1930’s from a village resident:
Most things revolved around the Brewery where many of the menfolk worked and also lived in the tied cottages. Nobody needed a clock as workers were summoned to their jobs by a hooter that sounded at various times during the day.
Joyce Lucking – December 2000