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| E-Mail [email protected] |
| ROTHERHAM1 Bentley's Brewery |
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| Timothy Bentley, who founded the Lockwood Brewery near Huddersfield, was the patriarch whose sons spread a brewing empire throuought Yorkshire and Lancashire. One of those sons, Robert, came to Rotherham in the early 1820's and, it is recorded, purchased land on the then undeveloped Canklow Road from a Thomas Badger of Rotherham in 1825. It is from this date that the Old Brewery takes it's foundation. Robert Bentley Began to look round at the available public houses that he might tie to his business. |
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| The above pictures show the Bentley's connection. On the left is The Alma Tavern in Westgate, that still has the Bentley sign as shown. The centre picture is a pub window, but not sure what pub. The right picture is of The Phoenix Hotel before it was painted over in green. Pictures by kind permission of John Ward at www-rotherhan-pubs.co.uk |
| It was around 1843 that Robert Bentley was joined by his son, Robert John Bentley who lived at Eastwood House, Rotherham. After this date robert was referred to as "gentleman" so we may assume the day-to-day running of the brewery fell to Robert John. In 1850 Robert Bentley died, and his son, who had been carrying responsibility for the brewery, was joined by Timothy Bentley, a namesake of the founder of the empire. In the early 1850's Robert John Bentley took a country house at Finningley Park near Doncaster. He seems also to have had a town house, West House, Rotherham, so the mid Victorian brewing trade was lucrative, at least in this instance. The acquisition of tied outlets, as ever, dominated the brewer's thinking, though the Bentley family also bought and sold other forms of property and pieces of land. In September 1875 R.J. Bentley was pronounced "a person of unsound mind" and some time later committed to an asylum, Moorcroft House, Hillingdon near London, consequently the business needed an executor, and it is surprising that one was not taken from the numerous Bentley & Shaw family members. Instead, Henry Sagar Hirst of the Low House Brewery, Clayton Heights near Bradford, undertook to carry on the business in R.J. Bentley's name. Robert John Bentley died on 5th September 1890. He may have recovered sanity, since he is listed at West House, although that may be solely courtesy. Thereafter and until 1910 a board of trustees carried oon the business of the company. Although the bulk of the tied house estate had been established, new acquisitions were made in and around Rotherham. After 1910 a board of trustees administered Robert Bentley & Company until 1949, when the company was registered as Bentley's Old Brewery (Rotherham) Ltd. This company was taken over in 1956 by the ever growing Hammond's United Brweries of Bradford. |
| All above information regards Bentley's, is from a book called "South Yorkshire Stingo" by David Lloyd Perry, ISBN 1-873966-05-9 Information and Logo by kind permission of Ken Smith, editor of Brewery History magazine. The Brewry History Society can be found at www.breweryhistory.com |
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