Salt's Brewery

Thomas Salt and Co. was a brewery that operated in Burton upon Trent for 150 years.

The brewery was founded in 1774 by Joseph Clay, a Derby maltster. When Clay died in 1800, his son Joseph took over and also acquired the Leeson brewery. When he opened one of the first banks in Burton, Joseph junior then delegated the management of his brewery to a maltster, Thomas Salt. Salt later worked it as part of his own brewery in High Street 119 High Street. After Thomas Salt's death in 1813, his brewery was managed chiefly by his son Thomas Fosbrooke Salt, under the name Salt and Co. In 1853 Henry Wardle joined Salt in the business and in due course Salt’s sons Edmund and William also became directors. Henry George Tomlinson, who had joined the company as its chemist also joined the board. When pale ale came into prominence, and Salts with other Burton firms saw the need to cater for the public’s changed tastes, Salt’s IPA became particularly well-known. The company’s workforce grew from 194 in 1861 to 400 in 1888 making it one of the major breweries in Burton behind Bass, Worthington, and Samuel Allsopp & Sons. [A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9: Burton-upon-Trent (2003)]

After Wardle died in 1892, the company became a public limited company. A process of expansion in the 1890s saw the company take over John Bell and the Anchor Brewery. By the end of the century the company had tied houses as far away as Cheltenham and Gloucester. In the difficult trading conditions in the first decade of the 20th century, Salts tried to effect a merger with Allsopps and the Burton Brewery Company. This was opposed by some of the debenture holders, and the company went into receivership in 1907. [Financial Times, 7th June 1907] The company was restructured financially by depriving the Directors of almost all the value of their holdings, but survived until 1927, when it was taken over by Bass. [A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 9: Burton-upon-Trent (2003)]

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