Thrale's brewery accounts
Hester Thrale's notes about income from the brewery in July 1779.
I examined our own Collections at the Brewhouse this Morning, & found the Difference between last Year and this Year in the Weekly Collections for one Month only—this present Month of July—to be irnmense—no less than seven hundred & forty five Pounds short of the Collections for the same Weeks in June & July last Year 1778. I will draw the Account out over Leaf as I receive it from the Clerk, but I wrote the Sum down in Letters to shew that no manual Mistake could have been made.
| A:D 1778. Town Trade only. |
A:D 1779. Town Trade only. |
||
| £————— | £————— | ||
| Four Weeks collection | 6340 : 12 : 4. | Four Weeks Collection | 5595 : 6 : 8. |
| Additional Houses gain'd 14 | 350 : 0 : 0 | ||
| ————— | |||
| 6690 :12 : 4 | |||
| 5595 : 6 : 8 | |||
| ————— | |||
| 1095 : 5 : 6 | |||
Now here is a real defalcation of £745 : 5s: 6d—to which the Clerk judiciously added the Collection from the fourteen new houses gained into the Trade; for if things had stood as they did last Year, that Money would have been added ys Year, to the Receipts made the last Year; whereas now—tho' these houses have been gained into the Trade, the Trade is still Loser seven hundred & forty five Pounds, which with the Money collected from the new houses beside—amounts to no less than one Thousand & ninety five Pounds Loss, and that in the Space of a Month, four Weeks Collection only.
This is a curious, tho' melancholy Speculation, we will push it a little farther; In this great Town we have six Capital Brew- houses; now suppose the Collections of each fall short as ours does [as no doubt they do; for our House is rather eminently prosperous; & besides some body must have Lost the Houses we have gained too], one Thousand Pounds pr Month: here is six Thousand Pounds worth of Beer less, sold in London ev'ry Month this Year than the last, I say in London, for I have not calculated the enormous Difference between either the Exportation or Country Trade; I believe the falling off in both those, but particularly the first, is more than could be dreamed of.—
Hester Thrale. July 1779Published in Thraliana entry dated June 1777
