The ending of brewing at Foxearth so soon after the
principal’s death would have been a terrible blow to the
memory of a man that had striven to create an unbeatable,
unblemished range of products and equally it would not
have chimed in with the noticeable mood of optimism of
post-war Foxearth. It may have been a reasonable economy
at the time of hardship as rationing would continue for a
further four years, but in the end the Tollemache takeover
was repulsed and the Ipswich-based firm went back to their
Suffolk headquarters and began the takeover process of
smaller Essex and Suffolk breweries.

A few months after his grandfather’s death, David
Harvey Ward, became a director of the company following
his  successful  pupillage  in  Nottinghamshire.  After
qualifying he shared the duties of head brewer with Ned
Middleton, a highly experienced professional who had
trained at Walter Gray and Sons brewery in Chelmsford.

At the 1952 Brewers’ and Allied Traders’ Exhibition at
Olympia, the first since the war, the brewery found itself
against an enormous record entry of brewers from across
the country. In the stout class they were in competition
with 50 others from the South Coast to Scotland, including
some eight East Anglian rivals. David won the firm its first
major award in open competition since the death of his
grandfather when Wards Ltd was awarded first prize for
their bottled stout.

For all that, the brewery in 1952 was poles apart to the
one just a decade before. It was still winning medals but
sales of beer were fast declining. They needed to borrow
capital to sustain investment into promising new products
but though still prosperous the business had not expanded
along the same lines as others in the county such as the
Romford Brewery. A straight comparison is rather unfair