Thrale history

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and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice'. Other executors were John Cator, M.P. for Ipswich whose family name is still associated with a valuable estate in Beckenham; Jeremiah Crutchley, who looked very much like Henry and malicious tongues gave the reason for it; and Henry Smith of St. Albans. To Mrs. Thrale's relief a 'rich knot of Quakers' came, and purchased the Anchor Brewery for £135,000. Although five in number, Cator, Crutchley, Johnson, Hester, and Mr. Smith, all with equal power, all according to Hester powerless without Perkins. Further than this, Cator, rich in ownership of timber, was afraid of implicating his own credit; Crutchley hated Perkins and was always on the verge of a quarrel daily: Smith, who had been appointed in Henry's will as chief acting manager of the brewery, cursed the whole business and resented the meagre legacy of £200 for his troubles. David Barclay, the rich Quaker banker, therefore took John Perkins into partnership, and thus the firm of Barclay Perkins & Co. was born. In 1760 'H. Thrale & Co.' had been seventh in England for production with 30,740 barrels. By 1815 Barclay Perkins & Co. were highest with 337,621 barrels. Perkins must have been a more than able manager.

St. Leonard's at Streatham is full of Thrale memorials, many in memory of Henry's daughters. The principal monument is that of Henry, and one immediately thinks of the monument to his kinsman John in St. Albans Abbey. The monument bears an epitaph in Latin written by Dr. Johnson which pays handsome tribute to his friend. It refers to Henry as one who 'managed all his concerns in the present world, public and private, in such a manner as to leave many wishing he had remained in it, and who, though engaged in very extensive business, found some time to apply to polite literature, and was ever ready to assist his friends labouring under difficulties with his advice, his influence, and his purse'. It should perhaps be recalled that Johnson did once state that 'in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath!' The good Doctor composed very few epitaphs, one other being on the monument of Goldsmith in Westminster Abbey, and another also in St. Leonard's to Hester's mother. Henry's epitaph also mentions his father and son, Johnson terminating thus 'a happy and opulent family raised by the grandfather and augmented by the father, became extinguished with the grandson. Go, Reader, and reflect upon the vicissitudes of all human affairs : meditate upon Eternity'. The monument was executed by Joseph Wilton R.A., state-coach carver to the King, and who made George III's coronation