For the first time in four years, the brewery was again
under Ward ownership; well equipped to meet a demanding
future. Now head of his own firm, David’s hectic business
life often melted into his equally demanding social life. For
some years he had been a leading light of the local Licensed
Victuallers Association (LVA) and at one of these meetings
he met a representative of the specialist beer and lager
brewers, the Hope & Anchor Brewery at Sheffield - part of
the vast Charrington United Breweries group.

 As well as being the depot manager, David was
rewarded with a directorship of the Dunmow Brewery and
was Other Brewers Director of Charrington's’s (East Anglia
Division). The  company  was in  no  hurry  to make
pronouncements and the deal was kept quiet until the
following May when the Suffolk Free Press splashed the
news:

The directors of Wards (Foxearth) Ltd, brewers and wine and
spirit merchants, announced last week that their company had

been sold by private treaty to Charrington United Breweries.
Wards managing  director Mr D.H. Ward, said  his  company

In July 1963, during a convivial meeting at Hunter’s
Lodge,  Charrington’s  chairman  E.P.  ‘Eddie’  Taylor,
formerly of Canadian Breweries and the man largely
responsible for introducing Carling Black Label into the
UK, talked to David about selling his business interests.
Taylor had not yet secured an unassailable lead for lager in
the UK market and his company still needed to reform
drinking tastes, which he could only do with the help of the
tied trade.

had no further comment to make on this.
In  London  last week, Galigzine  and  Partners, who  deal with

Charrington's    press    and    publicity    material,    said    that
Charrington's’s had  owned Wards  for some  little time.  They

had no statement to make apart from saying that there were no
definite plans for the Essex concern at the moment.

 Properties  belonging  to  the  Wards  include  the  Four  Swans
Hotel, Sudbury. Charrington United Breweries Ltd who came
into  being  in  1962,  brought  about  the  merger  of  two  large

David, hoping to avoid charges of precocity, said he
would give thought to the kind of offer which he felt he
should obtain; feeling confident that any new ideas for the
company should be auspicious to both his workforce and
the Ward name. Finally succumbing to his father’s views,
perhaps, and taking as vindication the fact that ending the
family’s ownership of the brewery was a blow to his
workforce‘s morale, he made sure that Charrington’s
committed themselves to employing all existing staff and
keep Ward’s (Foxearth) Limited as a nominal member of
the huge group - a significant and symbolic role. In a series
of moves begun that summer and finalised by that wintry
Christmas, the Ward family finally ended its latterly
fragmented devotion to brewing.  

brewery  groups  -  Charrington  &  Company  Ltd  and  United
Breweries Ltd.

 Charrington & Company Ltd has been brewing at the Anchor
Brewery, Mile End, London since 1757. It has expanded very

considerably in recent years and at the time of the merger with
United  Breweries  owned  over 2,400 licensed  premises in  the

South of England.
The  group  now  owns  altogether  4,900  on-licensed  premises

and 655 off-licences. It has 10,000 employees, excluding those
in the retail establishments.

Over the next decade Charrington merged with Bass, to
become Bass Charrington - Britain's biggest brewer. David
Ward continued with his new career until his retirement in
1981. In 1987, Harold died aged 89 on the very day in
March that the Foxearth depot closed for good.

The final deal saw the brewery run as a local depot
supplying London beers to public houses branded as Wards
but resigned as Charrington's, and as promised the trading
company was still titled Wards (Foxearth) Limited.