Note 69 — Chapter IV

In a Parliamentary Report for the year 1800 it is stated that the price of wheat was only kept down to £5 a quarter by the system of bounties on imported wheat, the same applying to the prices of other grain. The present proprietor of “The Oundle Brewery” kindly extracted from the Books of the Firm particulars as to the beer supplied to the Regiments quartered at Norman Cross in the year 1799. The total amount was 4,449 barrels of 36 gallons each. This gentleman adds, the beer could not be very good, the price being about 6d. a gallon. His father said that he had often been told by his father, that the great expansion of the business was due to the contract with the Barracks. Buckles Brewery, a Peterborough business, also flourished on a large contract to supply the prisoners with “Small Beer.” Mr. George Gaunt, who was formerly in a large business as a butcher, informed me that, taking the figures which I gave him as a basis, and the average weight of a bullock at about 850 lb., he considered that from five to six would be required every day, if beef alone and no other meat were supplied. These figures give some idea of the advantages derived by the neighbouring traders from this great Government Establishment.