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Mitchell's & Butler's Ltd.

  • Thread starter Thread starter clareharvey800
  • Start date Start date
William Butler was initially a hairdresser apprenticed to his uncle the relationship was not good so he moved to Birmingham. He went to work fo a Mr Stllitoe in his shop on the corner of St Martins place. The shop was three doors down from the Old Crown Inn on Broad Street. When the pub was busy he would go and help out in the bar. At the age of 22 he married the sister in law of the owner after meeting at the pub. The pub owner Mr Owen and his wife provided the means to purchase the London Works Tavern in Smethwick on his wedding day. After nine years he purchased the Old Crown Inn on the retirement of George Owen. Later he joined forces with Henry Mitchell and the rest is history.:)
 
thanks for that info wend...not a lot of people know that...well i didnt anyway:D

lyn:)
 
Hi Clare, have you researched your Grandad, William Arnold?My nephew Nick Harding has a really good job on my Mothers side of our family but I seem to know very little about the Arnolds! Some months ago I was promised some info by Dave but it is still forthcoming Cheers Bernard
 
I think I read it somewhere but typically can't remember where. The Stockland also became a Chinese a couple of years ago but I think the Travellers has been knocked down recently so it won't make the trio!
Bob
 
Yes,the old Stockland Inn is a Chinese restaurant called Modern China. I found out about it from our own Sylvia Sayers on this very web site. On my last visit i went with a friend for lunch. I was very impressed with the place and the food was very good. I took my brother for an evening meal and he liked it very much. He lived in Hong Kong for 15 years and I was confident he would like it. It was a sorry looking place over the last few years but I can remember it when it was in it's hey day with the bowling greens and was more of a local pub.

I also found out from a book that was written about Slade Road School, which a friend loaned to me whilst I was in Brum, that one of the teachers who taught at the school in the early years of the school, used to
reward her students who had done well with tea at her parents farm which was on the site of the Stockland Inn.
 
Hello Wendy
I am William Butler's great great grandson and recently saw your message re the hairdresser in Broad Street where he worked prior to going full time at The Crown. You mentioned a Mr Sillitoe??? Any more info and anything to do re the Butlers, M & B much appreciated. I am visiting Broad Street at the end of April and may go over to Cape Hill which I have been to several times now. Please see my message re Butlers etc.
Very best wishes

Mark Young
 
Hello Mark The info I have is gleaned from books and the web. This I did to collate information on those buried at Key Hill Cemetery. Sorry I don't have any info on Mr Stllitoe the hairdresser but I bet if you ask on the census thread someone will find something. Will you be visiting Williams grave as well?
 
I wonder if back in the 1950s anyone would have predicted that both M&B and Ansells would be but just memories well before the millenium?
 
Hi Bill, Same with Bass, who has ever heard of Coors?? Its all part of big business, and Global
enterprise, names count for nothing,remember BSA, Austin/Rover, even Dunlop, they conquerd the
Fort. I have always said, Its Accountants who rule the world, Bernard
 
I experienced a pint of M&B brew X1 recently for the first time in 30 years. Its as awful now as it was then and I have no idea how the company survived selling such pap as that. Thank goodness for micro breweries where real beer is brewed.
 
Hi Bernard, yup all very true, Incidently John, where did you get this brew XI from?, the Cape Hill Brewery has long gone. I dont consider myself to be any expert on beer I just know what I like and dislike, Im even going to admit to drinking Double Diamond and if that upsets the real ale fans than tuff.
Tast is an odd thing, I can remember when Banks,s was considered to be a lousy drink not just by me but now I consider their "original" ie their mild to be a very pleasant drink............anyway Cheers all !!
 
I remember when I first joined the army, and went to Pirbright near Aldershot the local brew was a thing called "Friary Meaux" absolutly revolting, and as a true Brummie I was a mild drinker, or somtimes mild and bitter, never heard of it down there then. Taste is a very personal thing at the NAAFI club at the the Guards Depot the main drink was "Newcastle brown Ale" mainly as most of the senior ranks seemed to be Geordies, I loved the stuff and still do, but most of my brummie friends could not stand it.
paul
 
I don't know when you were in Pirbright , Paul, but you could certainly get mild (and mild & bitter) down south up to the late 60s. I remember serving it in qite a posh pub in chichester . It might have been the army that didn't like it
Mike
 
I don't suppose anyone told the barmen in Aldershot and district mike , most of the pubs you went into just looked blank when you asked for mild
paul
 
Bill Parker said:
Hi Bernard, yup all very true, Incidently John, where did you get this brew XI from?, the Cape Hill Brewery has long gone. I dont consider myself to be any expert on beer I just know what I like and dislike, Im even going to admit to drinking Double Diamond and if that upsets the real ale fans than tuff.
Tast is an odd thing, I can remember when Banks,s was considered to be a lousy drink not just by me but now I consider their "original" ie their mild to be a very pleasant drink............anyway Cheers all !!
Click to expand...

Hi Bill
I had this pint at the Jewellers Arms in Hockley St .Food was excellent, cheap and plentiful but the beers....deary me were all pasteurised, main brand brands, not a single real ale. Its a very interesting pub to visit as it is largely unchanged catering for those working in the area.
 
Hi Mike, I was down Pirbright way in 1948, most of the pubs in that area seem to be Courages, of
Reading, can see where they got the name from! you needed courage to drink it, mind you on 28 bob
a week, less ten bob for Mother, there was not a great deal left for drink after you had got your
Bluebell and blanco(No;3) from the NAFFI, OH! Happy Days !!! Bernard
 
On the subject of brewing, we lived in Burton when Ansells merged with Ind Coope, and Tetley
Walker to become Allied Brewerys, they used to take Burton water by the Tanker load over to Aston, I always found Marstons in Burton a really good drink Bernard
 
Bernard
I am in complete agreement with you about Courage ordinary bitters. Just about drinkable in a shandy if it was 2/3rds lemonade. Their Directors bitter was once not bad provided you drank it within about 40 miles of the brewery . (That's what I was told many years ago , and it certainly fitted with what i found). but that's brewed in some central refinery now and always seems to be pretty awful.
Mike
 
hi guys
you are quiteight courage beers is complete hogg was its only good for washing your car and that would not surprize me if it fetch the paint work off
and for the directors bitter do not mention it its is discusting i am a brandy and bitter man myself and i really appreciate a good bitter or a real ales
some one on a previous thread at the beginning about ansdells and they never said a true word , ansells was the king of making beers in there days gone bye
they was the clear leaders in the field it was a pity that they went broke theday they folded was the end of a true empire of brewers
and as you all know all the old hands of ansells set up a cooperative and formed aston mannor breweries in thimill lane aston
the next generation they kept on had not got a clue
when ansells was thrivbing m,b was complete rubbish beer good for washing cars only so we had to convert to them
that left you with dear old daven ports bath row then the good old banks came along and took over ansells wghere they left off and they done a good beera bitter brillient
and later on we have now the weather spoons rubbish wich is doctoerd for ten days fresh life before its awful taste especialy there dirctors bitter
and now people drink it not knowing the facts courage and dares was like drinking vinagar when i was in the naffie red barral was the worse vinagar tasting i had
but at the end of the day dear old ansells was the birmingham best brewers and the pint of the midlands but i have to admitt after working in
the brewery game for yearts for mb they got there act together and inproved it which makes them the top of the tree astonion
 
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Who remembers M&B Allbright ale..............mmmmm, lovely! Plus must disagree about "proper" Brew XI - for a keg beer it was great! The stuff you get these days isn't a patch on it. I wonder if somewhere in Brum, forgotten in the corner of a cellar is a lost crate of Allbright.....oh well, you can only hope!

PS. who remembers the old M&B Public Bars with the red-tiled floors and basic wooden furniture? My favorite old local pubs were the Valley and the Haven (and the Bagnall - I remember it being built and being knocked down. It used to be just a giant Public bar with black and white chequered lino before they "poshified" it and put a Lounge Bar in....the only thing left now is the old signpost, in front of the new Maccy D's). And the beautiful bowls greens that most of them used to have! Progress? i think not.
 
Hi Speedy,

Yes I do remember Allbright, and do you remember Family Ale,
I was very partial to that when I was in my teens!
I wouldn't thank you for keg Brew X1, I was a cellarman many years ago,
and draught Brew X1 used to taste great straight from the hogshead,
but if you connected it to the electric pump, and then drew the beer
from the bar, it tasted completely different. Many people were confused
as to which beers in our pub were draught and which were keg, as all were
served through identical taps.

Kind regards

Dave
 
M & B MEMORIES.
As a Smerrick boy, Cape Hill brewery could be seen and smelt from our house in Raglan Avenue. My mom and dad used to say if you could smell the hops it was going to rain! Hmm....

My parents were regulars at the Beehive pub, possibly the nearest drop from M&B's brewery. There it was at the corner of Raglan Road and Cape Hill, cosy and friendly - and always busy. Dad was fond of his pint of mild. Jokingly, I used to say that if he'd bought shares in the brewery he'd be a rich man!

In the late 60s I remember the Beehive being ripped apart, ready for "re-development" of the area. Stained glass, hardwood bars and furniture, and a beautiful etched mirror with "The Beehive" and "The Deer's Leap" on it, were all destroyed, as far as I remember, unless someone liberated a few souvenirs! Its demise must have brought a tear to the eye of the loyal regulars. As a youngster, in the early 50s, I clearly remember the draymen with their leather aprons, using horsepower to deliver the wooden barrels.

Another recollection: the glimpse through the M & B brewery main gates to a busy working world intrigued me as a lad: there was a railway line terminating a few yards short of Cape Hill. A rail wagon within seemed to have come to its final resting place. Like a beached whale, there it stayed for a decade or two. Where did the railway tracks lead to? In my imagination everything was possible.

With such memories, the demolition of M & B's high walls and the entire site a couple (?) of years ago to build bland, you-could-be-anywhere houses was very sad.

In my head, the scenes of the past can be re-created by simply closing my eyes..........
 
Hello and welcome Smethwick Striver.You can open your eyes now and look at this picture.I hope it brings back some good memories.

Moss
 

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I find some people consider many beers brewed during the 60's and 70's to have been pretty awful stuff. This is the period I started drinking. Yes I do remember beers that were awful. Greenalls was my main dislike. Double Diamond, Red Barrel, Whitbread Trophy and Worthington E seem to have been my main intake. If they were that bad why did we drink so much of it on a Friday and Saturday night ?
 
Pete had one of the best jobs going when he was on the brewing at Ansells. He was one of the samplers. Eat your heart out fella's. It broke his heart when it all went down the drain but there were quite a few drunk rats I guess?. He likes a pint of M and B too. Jean.
 
Remember the Cape of Good Hope on the corner of Grove Lane and Cape Hill, right next to M&B?

It certainly was a classy looking pub - a gem. Unique - the architect knew what he was doing. The bowling green in the summer was a little oasis for local people. Now it's all gone. Progress? Take a look at what replaces it.
 
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