Guinness by Bill Yenne

Author:Bill Yenne
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Published: 2010-05-10T20:00:00+00:00

14

The Postwar Years

In 1945, with Ben Newbold reaching retirement age after his many decades of service, Sir Rupert Guinness asked Sir Hugh Beaver, late of Gibb & Partners, to come aboard as Newbold’s assistant and heir apparent. Beaver had remained as a partner at Gibb until 1942, when he joined the British government as Director General and Controller General of the Ministry of Works, a job for which he was knighted in 1943. Sir Hugh accepted the Guinness offer, and in 1946, when Newbold died suddenly, Beaver became managing director, a post he retained until he retired in 1960.

Among the management steps taken by Beaver was the reorganization of St. James’s Gate and Park Royal into separate and freestanding corporate entities within Arthur Guinness, Son & Company Limited. He also proceeded to invest a great deal in converting both breweries for the type of continuous sterilization that Alan McMullen had advocated before Park Royal was built.

Another decision made immediately after the war as to supply the two breweries with barley entirely from the nations in which they were situated. By this time, total Irish barley production had quadrupled, so Guinness was now buying only a fifth of total Irish production instead of dominating the market with four fifths as it once had.

By the late 1940s, it was also time to start upgrading the fleet of steam locomotives that had been running on Samuel Geoghegan’s remarkable Guinness railway since the late nineteenth century. The first of these, an enclosed cab “Planet” diesel built by F. C. Hibberd of London, entered service in 1947. An additional 11 Hibberd engines joined the Guinness railway through 1950, and they operated until 1975, when railway operations were discontinued. One of the Hibberd diesels is still on display at St. James’s Gate.

As promoters of the Guinness brand, John Gilroy and his jolly menagerie returned in force after World War II. This time, they were seen not only in the familiar bus and tube posters, but also as promotional items that ranged from ceramic knickknacks to table lamps.

In 1953, Gilroy brought the whole menagerie together for the first time for an advertising campaign that celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Two years later, Guinness and Gilroy’s creations starred in the first night of commercial television in the United Kingdom on September 22, 1955. This first-ever British beer commercial featured a live sea lion pirating the zookeeper’s cap. Later commercials, featured in both movie theaters and on television, used puppets and animated characters as well as live animals.

One of the most memorable appearances by the animals was as part of the Guinness Festival Clocks. The first of these was constructed as the Guinness contribution to the Festival of Britain in 1951. The Festival was a national trade fair and science fair held in London and other cities, as well as including touring exhibitions. The idea was to promote postwar recovery and boost postwar morale using the centennial of London’s Great Exhibition of 1851. As part of the Festival, a FunFair and Pleasure Garden were installed at London’s Battersea Park.

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