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William Stones, Cannon Brewery


Guest farrtj

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I will have a read of my great uncle's notes and findings to see if i can maybe corroborate some of the information you have posted, Edmund. Much appreciated, you have also helped me with another post, about the Wilson family of Sheffield, who funnily enough also have a link to brewing!

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Guest Yggdrasil

Just a wee bit of trivia.

My Grandad, Fred Deakin, used to work for Stones as a driver's mate. After an accident at work he was compensated for a knee injury and was given the house at the Stones yard to live with his family, effectively being made caretaker of the yard.

The house was situated here, and can be seen in the background of this photo from the Picture Sheffield website.

Haunted, apparently.

(The Blackpool tower jobbie in the background is Rutland Picture Palace).

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Hi everybody sorry for the late post on this one but only just read the post. I was born at 10 Haddon st just of Burton Rd witch is now Turtons car park, a friend of mine was born on Rutland Place just behind the cinema. My great grandfather on my mothers side was head stable man for Stones the stables being the wedge shape at the junction of Neepsend Ln and Burton Rd which I think are syill there having been converted to units I have a Picture of him with the horses and dray which I will dig out and post later, as a kid growing up in the 1940s I used to stand at the fence and watch the coopers in the yard making barrels.

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Having worked with quite a lot of organosulphur compounds and realising that most of them have foul smells I don't really agree here, - unless the amounts are ridiculously small or it is one of the more acceptable organosulphurs (Onions and Garlic both owe there unique smell, taste and flavour to sulphur. The lacramatory effect of raw onion (it's ability to make the eyes sting and water) is also down to sulphur)

The sulphur equivalent of alcohol (ethanol) is a chemical called ethanethiol. In it the oxygen atom in alcohol has been replaced with sulphur which is in the same periodic group, Ethanethiol was once in the Guiness book of records as the Worlds strongest and worst smelling substance. It smells very strongly of (to me anyway) rotting cabbages, but must stronger, and you can't get rid of the smell which follows you around for weeks, even after multiple baths and showers and machine washing all your clothes. It is a horrible chemical to work with.

Strange that you should mention onions, a chap who worked at Stones once mentioned rice and onions being an ingredient in beer.

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Strange that you should mention onions, a chap who worked at Stones once mentioned rice and onions being an ingredient in beer.

Perhaps the use of onion in brewing could be the reason why some people have said that it has an unpleasant sulphurous taste / odour.

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Perhaps the use of onion in brewing could be the reason why some people have said that it has an unpleasant sulphurous taste / odour.

That was Wards I think they included sweaty wello's in theirs.

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Hi everybody sorry for the late post on this one but only just read the post. I was born at 10 Haddon st just of Burton Rd witch is now Turtons car park, a friend of mine was born on Rutland Place just behind the cinema. My great grandfather on my mothers side was head stable man for Stones the stables being the wedge shape at the junction of Neepsend Ln and Burton Rd which I think are syill there having been converted to units I have a Picture of him with the horses and dray which I will dig out and post later, as a kid growing up in the 1940s I used to stand at the fence and watch the coopers in the yard making barrels.

I take it that you will remember the Stones steam wagons, we would watch them chug out of that yard and follow them on Burton Rd. W/E.

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"Stones Beer...Brewed with a Difference" was their slogan...Many Sheffielders who drank it regularly reckoned the difference was the addition of...ether!

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Hi all this was my great grandad George Allen born 1870 in South Kirkby Lincolnshire, died 1937 and buried at City Road also a picture of him in his sixties I also have a picture of his Father mother and sister, I think the picture of him with the dray was taken around 1900.

On another subject I have a picture of my mother when she was May Queen at Apple Street mission.

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On the subject of the beer back in 1960 the then girlfriends auntie and uncle came over from Ireland and we took them for a drink in the Castle on Dykes Hall Rd after his first drink of the Stones he declared it tastes like dish water, after a few more and rather unsteady on his legs he said be Jasus that's the strongest dish water I ever did taste.

Hi W E I do indeed remember the steam wagons with there MASSIVE chain drives and didn't sheffield council have some for the bin wagons?.

Re Bass and Stones. As I remember Bass stopped brewing Stones and put there own beer into the Stones houses it didn't go down well at all and sales dropped so they started brewing Stones again to the original recipe but down in Burton on Trent I believe but it was never the same

it was darker and tasted different, I was told by a brewer that this was down to them letting the original yeast culture die.

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The Stock Exchange Official Year Book 1941.
STONES ( WILLIAM ) LIMITED
Office -Rutland Road, Sheffield 3. ( Telegrams Cannon Sheffield. Telephone,20292. )
Directors ( qualification £500 in ordinary shares )--F.B.Wigfull (Chairman & Managing )--
A.W.Macredie, Richard Wigfull, Henry Curwen (Secretary )
Auditor-G.R.Brown. -Solicitors-Broomhead, Wightman & Reed.
Bankers-National Provincial Bank Limited
Registered 31 July 1895. Brewers, maltsters, bottlers, wine and spirits merchants.
CAPITAL-Authorised and issued £375,000, in 300,000 ordinary shares of £1 and 7,500 preference shares of £10, all fully paid.
For alterations see Vol for 1940.
Preference shares are entitled to a cumalative 5% ( 1 Jan ; 1 July ) and to priority for capital and arrears of dividend but not to further participation. Both classes are quoted at Sheffield. Voting- 1 vote per ordinary share and six votes per preference share.
LOAN CAPITAL, 4% Mortgage Debentures ( Series A ). Authorised and issued £100,000. Outstanding at 30 June 1940 £94,500 , ( redeemed debentures can be reissued.) Issued in August 1895 at par.
Secured by trust deed of 2 Sept. 1895 ( now to F.B.Wigfull, H.C.Reed and A.W.MAcredie )as a 1st fixed charge on the freehold, leasehold and copyhold properties acquired on formation of company.
Redeemable at 105% at any time on six months notice from company; no final date fixed for redemption. Interest 1 Jan , 1 July. Registered bonds ( of £50 and multiples thereof ) Quoted at Sheffield.
4% Mortgage Debentures ( Series B ) Authorised £100,000 ( but see below ) Issued £100,000, Outstanding at 30 june 1940 £96,100. ( Redeemed debentures can be reissued ) Isued in 1897 at 102% Secured by trust deed of 24 Sept 1897 ( now to F.B.Wigfull, H.C.Reed and A.W.Macredie ) as (1 ) a 1st fixed charge on the properties aquired since formation of company ( except tenancies for less than 12 years ), (2 ) a fixed charge ( subject to A debentures ) on the other properties and (3 ) a floating charge on the tenancies held for less than 12 years, loose plant, rolling stock and other assets excluding uncalled capital.
A further £50,000 may be issued provided additional properties of an estimated value of not less than 15% in excess of such further issueare added to the security.Redeemable at105% at any time on a six months notice from company; no final date fixed for redemption. Interest 1 Jan ; 1 July. Registered bonds ( of £100 and multiples thereof )
Accounts & Dividends-- Accounts to 30 June submitted in Nov,; interim dividends paid. Recent ordinary dividends ( 0% )-for 1929-30, 19½ ; 1931-2, 20 ; 1932-3, 16 2/3 ; 1933-4 to 1935-6,20 ;1936-7, 20 5/6 ; 1937-8, 22½ and capitalised bonus of 100 ; 1938-9, 11 3/4 (3 3/4 in Jan., July & Sept 1940 ).
Carried forward at 30 June 1940 ( after placing £15,000 to properties rebuilding account and £15,000 to contingency reserve account ). Debentures redemption fund £186. General reserve £270,000. Reserve for insurance of licences £10,000. Goodwill has been written off general reserves.
Transfers,&c.--Common form for shares; special form for debentures. Registration fee : any document 2s. 6d. Seperate deed for each security. Spouse may not witness signature.
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On 10/10/2011 at 21:11, Guest farrtj said:

Hi, I am a first time poster to this site. I am responsible for the Wikipedia page on William Stones Ltd and the Cannon Brewery.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stones_Ltd

 

There seems to be a lot of knowledge on this site. I was hoping that people may be able to fill in some gaps in my article, correct mistakes etc. I'm not even local to Sheffield, so geography may be a starting point!

 

Cheers

 

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Hi Guest farrtj - I see your post was 10 years ago now, but are you still writing the Wikipedia page for Stones and Canon Brewery. My family were very involved (my Grandfather was Managing Director for part of the 50s & 60s and I can answer quite a few of your questions and have photographs and information I can share, but too much for me to be able to / or know how to put on this site. I’ve got information about Jubilee house at Bass (Claywheels Lane)  also got slides of the ‘new’ bottling plant when it was installed there and information about Carter, Milner and Bird brewers who also merged with Bass. I’ve been wondering if there was some Sheffield archive for this kind of thing and that’s how I came across this site. 

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Guest leksand
1 hour ago, LouiseN said:

Hi Guest farrtj - I see your post was 10 years ago now, but are you still writing the Wikipedia page for Stones and Canon Brewery. My family were very involved (my Grandfather was Managing Director for part of the 50s & 60s and I can answer quite a few of your questions and have photographs and information I can share, but too much for me to be able to / or know how to put on this site. I’ve got information about Jubilee house at Bass (Claywheels Lane)  also got slides of the ‘new’ bottling plant when it was installed there and information about Carter, Milner and Bird brewers who also merged with Bass. I’ve been wondering if there was some Sheffield archive for this kind of thing and that’s how I came across this site. 

I think Sheffield Archives would be the people to approach. By my understanding, they would, with your consent, go about processing the photos to make them digitally available through picture Sheffield. Documentary material assessed to be of broader interest would also be very carefully logged, indexed and archived and, if legally admissable, be made available to those requesting it once processing is complete (that would not be immediate by any means, but would ensure accessiblity at a future point).

The alternative would be the Bass Brewery Museum if they are still operating. However, I have received no response to enquiries made concerning Stones to them. As a researcher in the field I would rest easiest knowing records were at Sheffield Archives.

In respect of online sources Wikipedia tends to have very poor levels of scrutiny for a lot of it's "niche" matter, including this area, making much of its content essentially junk. Adding quality to it could act simply to legitimise accompanying rubbish.

The Brewery History Society wiki is rather better and though it is somewhat limited in what it presents (and may infer some listings are more complete than they genuinely are), is a far more useful resource. They are also a dedicated and interested group who will be able to advise on who to approach (particularly if Sheffield Archives should, for some reason, not be interested).

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Any photos and slides that you have in digital format can be uploaded to Wikicommons.  Wikicommons is heavily used for the pictures in Wikipedia, but is also available for anyone else to use.  The key thing you need to decide is whether you wish to relinquish copyright and any control over the images.  Wikicommons images have to be free whereas many collections stamp copyright messages over the photos or charge people for downloading copies.

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William Stones, I had a bit of a problem finding Williams house, it was named Ash Grove on Ashgrove but I couldn’t find Ashgrove on any street guide or even on Google Earth, it finally dawned on me that I’d been to his house just last week but didn’t realise, its part of the BHP Chartered Accountants complex that was George Spencer Waterfalls home,  the small street of Ashgrove doesn’t have Name plate but it does have a stone with Ashgrove hand painted on it. One picture shows the very ornate greenhouse chimney that William had built, he grew Peaches here besides flowers and vegetables, the greenhouse was built partly with bricks from the Brickworks of Joseph Cliff & Sons in Wortley, Leeds, you can still see these  bricks today with Cliff impressed on them.
William Stones was born in Sheffield on 29 December 1826. His parents were Eliza and Joseph, both cabinet case makers. By 1870 William was living in Sheffield's Lowfield area. William purchased a large terraced house in 1883, although he had been renting the property for several years prior to this. Stones died aged 68 on 14 November 1894, having devoted his whole life to brewing. He never married, and was one of the richest men in Sheffield, leaving over £150,000 in his will, £15,403,641 in today’s money, He left his wealth to his sister, friends and various charitable concerns.  William is said to have earned his success through clever marketing and a consistently good product. His Mother and Father had a business on Hartshead in 1825, making and selling the following goods, razor cases and strops, gentlemen and ladies' dressing cases, ladies' work boxes, portable writing desks, mahogany and oak table knife cases, pocket books, needle, knife, scissor, Spectacle and surgeons instrument cases, pattern cards and pouches for all sorts of cutlery.
In 1847, Joseph Watts of Dewsbury and William Stones of  began brewing together at the Cannon Brewery in Sheffield's Shalesmoor district near Kelham Island. The name may have come from the nearby foundry that cast gun barrels. In 1852 they acquired their first tied house, the Kelham Tavern. Watts died in May 1854 aged 46, and two years later Stones purchased his share of the business from his former partner's brother. By 1861 the brewery employed 23 men and two boys. In 1868, Stones took over the lease of the Shepherd, Green & Hatfield brewery in the Neepsend district, which had been founded as the Neepsend Brewery in 1838. He renamed it the Cannon Brewery after his original premises. In 1880 Stones built two malthouses in Worksop. When William died in 1894, and he left the brewery to his cashier, James Haynes, and Richard Wigfull, a corn miller, as tenants in common. William Stones became a limited company in 1895 with £275,000 of capital £28,647,072 in today’s money and had by this time grown to become one of the largest businesses in Sheffield, with a tied estate of 84 pubs primarily in its home city and Chesterfield. Distribution was extended to Huddersfield in 1896. William didn’t live to see the Bitter that carried his name and was loved by thousands of Sheffield drinkers, Stones Bitter was brewed at the Cannon Brewery from 1948 and was popular with Sheffield's steel workers. It was originally available across the south of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, with distribution extended to the rest of the north of England in 1977, and nationwide from 1979, accompanied by a considerable marketing push. Increasing demand saw it also brewed at other Bass breweries from the 1970s onwards. The beer's popularity reached its apex in 1992 when it was the country's highest selling bitter, selling over a million barrels. The beer has been lauded in certain quarters as "one of Sheffield's most famous exports". A famous major television campaign ran nationally from 1983 until 1991 with the tagline "Wherever you may wander there's no taste like Stones" and starred Tony Barton and Michael Angelis. By 1987 it had become the UK's longest running bitter campaign of all time. Stones also sponsored the Rugby Football League Championship from 1986 to 1995 and its successor the Rugby Super League from 1996–7.After the Cannon's closure production was continued elsewhere. Keg Stones Bitter is brewed by Molson Coors at their brewery in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, and the canned product at their Burton upon Trent brewery. Many a wife still curse the “Jungle Juice” as the bitter was fondly called, when their loving husbands came home worse for wear trying to sing like Mario Lanza, happy days. My two blunt blade pals, Mr Dawson and Mr Sorsby, did their best to drink Sheffield dry but never achieved success, Lovely Boys!. The company was taken over by Bass in 1968. In 2000, Bass sold its brewing operations to the Belgian brewer Interbrew who were ordered by the Competition Commission to sell the Stones brand. In 2002, the brand was purchased by the American Coors Brewing Company, who merged to become Molson Coors in 2005. Stones is still a name that’s synonymous with great beer, but today the taste has possible lost the spark that the great Sheffield workers loved and now its not easy to find in the pubs in town which are now full of expensive, impossible to pronounce, foreign beers, Im afraid the youth of today believe all the advertising hype. Stones, Tetley and Smiths never relied on silly adverts, their product adverts were just “Drink Beer” so we did. 
 

Home of William Stones Sheffield Brewer  Ashgrove.jpg

Bricks From William Stones Greenhouse Wall.jpg

Ornate Greenhouse Chimney For William Stones Greenhouse Ash Grove.jpg

William Stones Greehouse Fireplace.jpg

William Stones Canon Brewery Rutland Road.jpg

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To anyone reading this thread, I would take the 2011 comments about chemical and exotic or lesser ingredients ie salt...with a pinch of salt!!.

    I was fortunate enough to visit the brewery on Rutland Road on several occasions and no 'chemicals' were used in the brews, actually it was a very traditional, old fashioned brewery...still using proper hop flowers in the beer (many others having switched to pellets and in the worse case syrups)....the company's other brewery on Claywheels Lane was far more modern.  Going back to salt...adding salt to beer does not make it taste salty, in actual fact it makes it taste sweeter.

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Sadbrewer is correct. I used to work at Stones Brewery.

Where the notion of "chemical beer" came from I've no idea, but it's absolute rubbish. 

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Rustysphotography 在 2011 年 17 月 11 日 23:46 说道:

 

Dear Sir, Our Urban design group are trying to make a 3D model of Cannon brewery, however, we can't not go inside for the internal view of that, Would you please show me more detials about how the brewery inside seems like for me?

c3539aac239c64f49c944ed188f8633.png

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