Raise a glass to popular old brewery
STEVE JAMES looks back at a West Bromwich family of beer-makers
MANY people may recall that Darby’s Brewery in West Bromwich was once the town’s largest and most successful brewery.
The Darby family’s association with beer and brewing goes back to 1864, when Charles Darby was landlord of the Dog and Duck in Braybrook Street, West Bromwich. However, in 1870, the Dudley Herald reported that he’d been fined 20s for serving intoxicating liquor during prohibited hours, but he continued to keep the pub until 1881.
After working at Chance’s glassworks, Charles’s son, George, married Elizabeth Brown in 1860, whose family owned Bowen’s Brewery in Greets
Green. George was keen to enter the licensed trade and took his first pub, the George in Spon Lane, near the glassworks and a few doors away from the Champion of England, kept by William Perry (the “Tipton Slasher”).
By 1871, he’d moved on to the Bush, on the corner of Wood Lane at Greets Green, in an industrial area with four large ironworks, coal mines and brickworks. By 1891, George and his wife had raised four sons, George, Charles, Harry and Samuel, and five daughters, Alice, Mary, Elizabeth, Eleanor and Elsie. George started brewing his own beer at the pub and by 1894 had established Darby’s
Brewery here. The pub became one of the best inns in the town and George became a well-known local personality and a popular host, before being elected to the Town Council. He retired and died in 1910, aged 76.
In 1895, George’s son, Charles and his wife, Ada, took over the Bush and in 1900, purchased nearby Dunkirk Hall from the late Alderman Reuben Farley (recalled at the clock at Carter’s Green). This building had a somewhat chequered history, being one of the oldest halls in West Bromwich, dating back to Tudor times. Its name may recall the time when Oliver Cromwell captured the French port of Dunkirk from the Spanish in 1658. Charles made some changes to the building and used most of it as a pub, named the Dunkirk Inn.
In 1902, Charles began to build a brewery behind the Dunkirk Inn, off Claypit Lane (now Whitgreave Street), which he named the Dunkirk Brewery. At the same time, his family moved out of the Bush to a house in Roebuck Lane and later to Handsworth Wood. The brewery was particularly remembered by children attending Greets Green School for its strong smell of beer brewing!
Charles bought his second pub, the Shakespeare Inn at Toll End, Tipton. In 1915, Charles’s son, George, joined the company, starting at the brewery at 4am each morning, and two years later, his son, also Charles, joined the brewery. George was called up to serve in the Great War and his son learnt the brewing trade from the foreman, along with many women who had come to work in the brewery.
At the end of the First World War, George returned to the brewery, and by this time, Darby’s had an estate of around 30 pubs. George looked after the brewery, with Charles doing the book-keeping. By 1923, Darby’s had become a limited company and changed its name to Darby’s Brewery Ltd in 1927. A year later, they acquired the Sponwell Brewery in Spon Lane from Arnold and Bates Ltd, adding another 17 pubs.
In the 1920s, Darby’s continued to expand their estate of pubs, acquiring the Golden Cup in Cross Street, the Stone Cross (Stone Cross) and Victoria in Lyng Lane, and by 1939, they had around 100 pubs. They adopted a rather innovative approach to the licensed trade, employing managers for their pubs, rather than tenants. They were paid 10% of the weekly takings and were trusted to do their own stock-taking, encouraging them to generate more trade. This approach resulted in Darby’s pubs increasing their trade from two barrels to 7-10 barrels of beer a week.
Charles introduced lounge bars into Darby’s pubs, with ladies toilets, to attract a wider clientele. He would regularly visit his pubs in his pony and trap, after which the horse would find its own way back to the brewery with Charles asleep in the trap! The brewery workers were well looked after, with a subsidised canteen. There was also a busy bottling plant, where they bottled not only their own beers, but also Guinness.
In the 1930s, Charles decided to rebuild some of his most popular pubs, employing a local Walsall architect with a passion for art-deco designs and green tiled roofs. In 1932, the tax on beer was doubled, and
Charles thought seriously about giving up brewing. Darby’s only sold their own beers (with the exception of Guinness) and he’d always charged a penny less than Mitchells and Butlers for his beers. Nevertheless, he carried on brewing and, in 1937, Darby’s acquired John Jackson’s Diamond Brewery (Dudley), expanding the business further.
The original Bush Inn had been added to the Darby’s estate in 1929, and was rebuilt as a flagship pub in 1937, with its trade-mark green-tiled roof. Coming back full circle, former West Bromwich Albion player, James Stanton, who’d brewed Stanton’s Ales, sold the Dog and Duck to Darby’s brewery in 1932, but it closed in 1959.
By 1947, Charles had even bought a Rolls-royce for the brewery, but he died in November 1949 at the age of 78. His estate was valued at over £235,000, equivalent to over £8.8 million today. He was buried at All Saints Churchyard, West Bromwich, with his wife, Ada, but a huge sum of money had to be paid in death duties. In 1951, after much soul-searching, sons George and Charles had no alternative but to sell the company, along with over 100 pubs, to Mitchells and Butlers, who had some family links with the Darby family and the brewery. Although they hoped that Dunkirk Brewery would continue brewing, M&B closed it within a year. M&B continued to brew Darby’s Pale Ale, one of their most popular beers, at their Cape Hill brewery, but it was not a best seller. Later, Charles Darby CBE, the great-grandson of George Darby, became Chairman and Chief Executive of Bass M&B.
After the sale, some of the brewing equipment from the Dunkirk Brewery went to the Simpkiss Brewery in Brierley Hill. They were also joined by former Darby’s office manager, Ken Hamilton. Most of Darby’s pubs continued to trade, including the Dunkirk Inn, but sadly this was closed and demolished in 1977. The brewery was also demolished and replaced by flats and houses.
The Bush prospered as a popular community pub until the 1980s, when it was renamed “Darby’s”. But it closed in 2000 and was converted into a community centre with flats in 2002. In August 2018, the Friends of Dartmouth Park erected a “blue plaque” on the site of the original Bush Inn, outlining the history and significance of George and Charles Darby and the Dunkirk Brewery. They also saved and restored a sign advertising Darby’s Ales painted on the brickwork of a former Darby’s pub in Lombard Street, West Bromwich, which is now on the perimeter wall of Dartmouth Park.
Darby’s were the largest, most successful and last brewers in West Bromwich,
and memorabilia, such as jugs, bottles and beer mats, have become very collectable. Many of their pubs survive and still contain memories of this popular brewery. Long may they prosper!
If you wish to know more about the history of breweries in West Bromwich, The History of Brewing in West Bromwich and the most successful brewer Darby’s by Carol Harthill and Mark Bennett comes highly recommended.
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