The last brew of 62 barrels of Small Best Bitter Ale was
made by David Ward on 19 February 1958 at a gravity of
1031. The attrition of the beautiful and palpable past was
halted.

A farewell dinner for 56 employees took place in the July
with several long-serving staff, some with 50 years service,
picking up retirement presents from the board of directors.

Even so, not everybody was happy with the takeover.
The Suffolk Free Press lamented the Taylor Walker deal
and headlined their news story ‘Obituary of a fine old beer’
, it wrote:

Very shortly the last top will be removed from the last bottle of
beer bearing  a name that  has been  famous with  drinkers for

well  over 100 years. The  final consignment brewed has  been
delivered to the trade.

One  of  the  last of the small family breweries, Wards of  Fox-
earth   was   started   four   generations   ago   by   the   great-
grandfather  of  Director  Mr  D.H.  Ward  whose  father,  Mr

Harold Ward, was chairman and managing director when the
company was sold recently to Messrs Taylor Walker and Co
Ltd.

The late Mr David Ward took over the business when he was
21  years old, and it  expanded so rapidly that  a new brewery
had to be built next door to the original.

Twenty years ahead of his time in ideas and brewery plant and
machinery, young David ensured that the firm was one of the
first to bottle chilled and filtered beers, and that it always had

the latest and best equipment available.
Result - prizes collected in the best beer exhibitions, year after

year. The family  brewery was formed  into a limited  company
in  1919  and  30  public  houses  were  purchased  to  form  the

nucleus of a  guaranteed trade over an area  from Wisbech in
the north to Chelmsford and Maldon in the south.