THE FULFORD BREWERS

 

Old saying: 

“A church for every week of the year and a pub for every day”.

 

At the time of writing, the future of public houses in the United Kingdom has never looked more uncertain.

Pubs are closing down at a rate of one every 12 hours, new figures show in an article by the Daily Telegraph in 2021. 

 

But it was not always this way.

 

As far back as the Middle Ages, inns and public houses epitomized the place where ordinary working people met and socialized, over a beer !

 

Before cars, horse drawn carriages transported travellers to and from towns and cities. The carriage stops were often the public houses which had stables for the horses attached. There are tales of highwaymen pillaging and plundering the travellers in their horse drawn carriages on journeys between major cities. 

 

Public houses or ale houses. were the ‘glue’ of society, providing a regular place for social interaction and a feeling of community. A place to meet friends, share stories, plan projects or escape after a hard days work. 

 

Individual countries are often historically associated with a particular alcoholic beverage. In England arguably, this has always been beer.

 

Beer may be considered a part of our national heritage, the “amber nectar’, a treasure in its own right. A simply wonderful, affordable intoxicating liquor.

 

Although very popular as a beverage throughout the United Kingdom, the tradition of brewing beer was particularly prevalent in the industrial northern cities of Birmingham and Manchester. 

 

The Fulford Brewers were brewing through a period extending  before and after the Victorian era  in both Birmingham and Manchester. The latter period of this Birmingham history is depicted in the TV series Peaky Blinders.

 

This website is the story and history of the Fulford families involvement in the brewing industry, and the hundreds of pubs owned by the various generations.

 

A FORGOTTEN LEGACY !

 

The Fulford Brewers were seemingly forgotten by my Fulford family. Information about a family brewery was only passed to me via my grandmother’s stories about The Empress Brewery when I was a  child. 

According to family stories, the brewery had generated great wealth which was lost when the returnable beer bottles were broken by children to play with the marble from the top. Could this be the only reason for the breweries demise ? 

 

Many years later and long after my grandmother had  died, I began to explore whether there were any truths in the Fulford family brewing myths.

 

I  suspected that most past information had been lost, due to the reliance on word of mouth transmission, but I hoped, with modern technology and increased access to historical records that the Fulford brewing history may be rediscovered and recorded for future generations. 

 

The revealing of my direct lineage and brewing history was the equivalent of raising a metaphorical ‘Titanic’  A great body of information which had been lost, forgotten, lying at the bottom of the sea, needing to be rescued and brought back to life. A Phoenix from the ashes !

 

Initial discoveries fueled my passion to uncover the details of this history and ensure the information was never lost again. 

 

In researching, I became aware of other Fulford’s sharing this common interest and hoped to communicate and share ideas to resolve a multitude of seemingly never ending  mysteries.

 

What has emerged is a multitude of Fulfords involved as brewers, publicans, maltster’s  and victualler’s. There were numerous  breweries with hundreds of  associated public houses.

 

Fulford families were brewing  over a period of time spanning over 200 years and more than eight generations.