in living memory there was regard for workers whereas in
the past they may have been hired for the summer and
turned into the workhouse for the winter, with as little
thought as someone today putting their lawnmower away
for a season; now workers were needed to power the new
economy and new industries such as the railway,
engineering (Whitlock’s at Great Yeldham), flax mills (at
Liston) brick works (at Bulmer), textile factories (Sudbury),
feed mills (Long Melford) and a host of different industries,
unfamiliar just a decade before.
emotions and events. It was the birthplace of David Ward;
there his father had gambled his livelihood and made a
successful business; it had been the substantial comfort for
Charlotte Ward and supported her fragile life after George
had died; but in this forward-looking age there was no room
for sentimentality and it was demolished to make way for
offices, a house and an off-licence. 27 At the west side of the
brewery (in what is now The Chase) better-equipped cask-
cleaning sheds and a long shed for storage were added
which enabled the wooden casks to be steam cleaned rather
than scrubbed by hand; the engine house was extended and
a new boiler room housed a coal-fired boiler that had been
fitted in 1904. Measuring 32ft 6in by 8ft 6in and weighing
26 tonnes it was nicknamed ‘Big Win’ By the middle of the
year the brewery was a rambling conglomeration and took
up nearly two acres of land.
dream - employees receiving a regular wage with clean
housing and running water; a self-contained world in which
nobody was idle; few people in absolute want, in which
there was no squalor nor hunger - Arcadia realised.
lost her battle with cancer, David sought refuge in one of
her closest friends, Mabel Constance Andrewes,26 a loving
former companion and nurse to his late wife and niece to
Elizabeth Foster. By the spring of 1905 David had proposed
and when the couple married in style at Church of St Mary
Abbots, Kensington on October 3 later that year, it brought
the alliance of two distinguished families together.
Maymee’s adoptive family grew to adore her, the older
children welcoming her more as a stepsister than surrogate
mother.
necessary. In 1908 at the Brewers Exhibition in London,
Ward and Son won their first gold medal for their Imperial
Pale Ale which in a few years would become their flag-ship
beer.
congratulated on achieving the distinction of being awarded
first prize and a silver medal with a diploma for their pale ale
distinction in the bottled beer competition, which is open to all
in the United Kingdom.
Foxearth beer (there were agencies all over the Eastern
Counties including Ipswich, Felixstowe, Dovercourt and
one in Finsbury Park, north London) the June of 1907
witnessed further construction at the brewery and a sad
Hunters Lodge. She was a member of a well-known village family.
was bought with a £100 mortgage arranged through David Ward
Ken was later to become a good friend and bat-man to David’s son
Harold. South View was demolished in the 1950s.