Mitchells & Butlers Ltd Rectangular Tin

Mitchells & Butlers Ltd tin tray dating from the 1950s.

Henry Mitchell

Henry Mitchell started brewing before 1851 in West Bromwich. He acquired the Crown Inn and the Crown Brewery on Oldbury Road, Smethwick, in 1854.
After his retirement in 1866 his son, also named Henry Mitchell, rebuilt the Oldbury Road Crown Brewery.
This was then replaced when Henry built the Cape Hill Brewery in 1878.
In 1888 Henry Mitchell was joined by Herbert G.Bainbridge as a partner in the firm.
The Company was registered as Henry Mitchell & Co. Ltd in 1888.
In 1889 Mitchell's won a Gold Medal at the Brewers' Exhibition in Paris for the quality of its ales and stouts.

William Butler

Butler's Crown Brewery Ltd was built in the 1880s by William Butler at the rear of the Crown public house on Broad Street, Birmingham.
The business was registered in 1895 as Butler's Crown Brewery Ltd.

Mitchells & Butler Ltd Registration

Henry Mitchell & Co. Ltd merged with Butler's Crown Brewery Ltd in 1898 to form Mitchells & Butlers Ltd and all brewing was transferred to the seven acre site at Cape Hill. The estate of the newly merged business totalled over 200 public houses, mostly based in the Birmingham area.
Mitchells & Butlers Ltd expanded when it acquired Alfred Homer Ltd's Vulcan Brewery of Aston with 39 pubs in 1899.
From 1907 the Cape Hill Brewery was connected to the national railway network.
After the turn of the 20th century the Company continued to acquire local breweries.
Cheshire's Brewery Ltd Windmill Brewery of Smethwick with 50 public houses, and George Jones Kingston Brewery of Bordesley with 14 public houses and off-licences, were both purchased in 1913 and significantly, a major rival Holder's Brewery Ltd of Birmingham, was acquired with over 200 public houses in 1919.
John Jordan & Co. of Oldbury,  with its British Queen Brewery and 12 premises, was purchased in 1920
A brewery that was purchased by the Company but remained open under its control was the Highgate & Walsall Brewery Co. Ltd which was acquired in 1939 with 30 tied houses.

Expansion Through Further Acquisitions

During and after the Second World War, Mitchells & Butlers Ltd acquired a further eight breweries.
After the takeover of five small breweries in the 1940s; Joseph Henry Davies of Netherton with 11 public houses in 1942, A.H.Clarke of Wellington and Thompson's Brewery Ltd of Studley with 5 public houses in 1945, James Pritchard & Son Darlaston Brewery in 1946, and Thatcher's Brewery Ltd of Newport with 20 public houses in 1949, the Company acquired three more significant rivals.
Darby's Brewery Ltd Dunkirk Brewery of West Bromwich with over 100 public houses was purchased in 1951, although it remained open until 1968, followed by Atkinsons Brewery Ltd with 200 pubs in 1959, and finally, the largest of them all, William Butler & Co. Ltd of Wolverhampton with 830 public houses, in 1960.
Brewing continued at William Butler & Co. Ltd's Springfield Brewery until 1991.

Bass, Mitchells & Butlers Ltd

With its sizeable, mainly West Midlands based estate totalling over 4,000 public houses, Mitchells & Butlers Ltd became a 'perfect fit' for a merger with Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton Ltd of Burton-on-Trent.
Bass required more pubs to supply its beers, resulting in the formation of a new Company, Bass, Mitchells & Butlers Ltd, in 1961.
Bass, Mitchells & Butler Ltd acquired Hunt, Edmunds & Co. Ltd of Banbury with 187 public houses in 1965.
A futher merger with Charrington United Breweries Ltd created Bass Charrington Ltd in 1967, later renamed Bass PLC.
Whilst under the ownership of Coors, which had purchased the Company from Interbrew in 2001, the Cape Hill Brewery in Smethwick was closed in 2002.
Boasting the country's largest portfolio of managed pubs, a new completely restructured Mitchells & Butlers PLC, was launched on the London Stock Exchange in 2003. Sadly brewing is not part of the Company's future.

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