Harveys is a family business spanning eight generations, with the a member of the eighth generation currently working there. The brewery has been a landmark in Lewes, the county town of East Sussex, for over 200 years.
Our prize winning traditional ales are sold throughout the South East. The company is also a Fine Wine merchant selling a selection of carefully sourced wines from around the world. Harveys owns 48 public houses in London and the South East operated under tenancy.
The ales, wines and a wide selection of premium and unusual spirits are sold in our shop in Lewes and online.
We wholesale factored drinks brands to the licensed trade.
Harveys is a privately owned limited company with no shares marketed for external investment. The company’s trading area does not normally exceed 60 miles from the brewery in Sussex.
John Harvey – background
The name of Harvey has long been associated with the supply of beers, wines and spirits in Sussex. The family originated from London, but records of the 1790’s recall the delivery of Old Red Port, Sherry and Claret in Lewes and its surrounding villages.
The first possible clue we have of the life of John Harvey is the discovery in 1751 of a silver wine label linked to the business of a John Harvey in London. He is known to have had three sons between 1738 and 1745. Could he have been the grandfather of our wine merchant?
The early known facts in Lewes are:
- Records of 1794 detail the supply of wine and port to customers in the Lewes area.
- By 1811 John Harvey’s wine and brandy shipping business is well established “at the foot of Cliffe Bridge” in Lewes.
- He had started brewing as a seasonal sideline activity in Bear yard, opposite the current brewery, by about 1820.
- He shared the Bear Yard brewing plant with another brewer called Thomas Wood but they ran separate businesses alongside each other for two decades.
- John Harvey married Eliza Button and had several children including the three sons. With his sons, John Harvey acquired the current Bridge Wharf Site in 1838 for the price of £3,100. It consisted of a coal wharf, timber yard and private dwellings. He added coal merchant to business activities and built an eight quarter brewhouse on the site.
Harvey and Sons
John Harvey’s sons, Henry, Edwin and William developed “Harvey & Son” at the Bridge Wharf Site (acquired in 1838). By 1859 Henry Harvey was brewing Porters, Stouts and strong Mild Ales for distribution among 17 family owned public houses mostly located in the Eastbourne and Hailsham areas of Sussex. These were prosperous days for enterprising brewers.
The Original Harvey Houses:
The Alma Arms, Uckfield
The Arlington Arms, Eastbourne
The Blackboys, nr Heathfield
The Cricketers Arms, Berwick
The Foresters Arms, East Hoathly
The Golden Cross, Nr Hailsham
The Grenadier, Hailsham
The Halfway House, Isfield
The Hurst Arms, Eastbourne
The Lamb, Eastbourne
The Polegate Arms (Dinkum)
The Red Lion, Turners Hill
The Red Lion, Stone Cross
The Terminus, Eastbourne
The Victoria, Eastbourne
The White Hart, Crawley
Tragedy Strikes the Harveys in the 1860s
Shortly after John Harvey’s death, Henry and Edwin died within days of each other leaving William alone to run the business. He was no brewer, so he hired Henry Titlow-Barrett from Wethereds Brewrey in Marlow to take over the company’s beer production and also went into business with John Maxfield-Smith, the husband of his daughter (Alice Harvey). William too died unexpectedly in 1868.
The transition to the third and fourth generations of the family (the Harveys-Smiths) proved to be far from ideal for the company’s prosperity. The next 60 years witnessed a gradual decline into an effective recession at Harveys. However prior to this slump the present Gothic Victorian brewery was built under the supervision of Titlow-Barrett, having been designed by William Bradford, a renowned brewery architect.
Harveys’ fortunes contrasted dramatically to those of many other contemporary brewing companies. A few of these were to experience phenomenal growth over the ensuing century emerging as national brewing giants. Companies such as Watneys, Charrington and Whitbread. Paradoxically it was Harveys’ very lack of expansion at this time that may have been a key reason for the company’s long term survival (and those other great names became memories). At the turn of the 20th century Harveys was so insignificant that it fell ‘below the gaze’ of the large companies that would have swallowed a more dynamic business.
Women in charge
Alice May Harvey-Smith
By the 1920s the Company was heavily mortgaged and its few pubs were in a poor state of repair. John Maxfield-Smith’s daughters were running Harveys at the time of its incorporation in 1928. Alice May Harvey-Smith (William Harvey’s grand-daughter) was the firm’s first chairman. It was she and her sisters who decided to make two crucial appointments that ultimately lead to Harveys survival and long term prosperity
One sister, Beatrice Harvey-Smith, had married a doctor and talented musician from Kent, Frank Carlyon-Rundle. Their only son Eric had recently returned from India and joined the company. In the late 1930s his Aunt May decided to interview some technical brewers and a newly qualified young brewer called Anthony A Jenner was hired.
Harveys revival
Anthony Jenner
It was these two men who were to strike up a lasting business relationship which over the course of the next 40 years gradually took the firm out of debt, repaired the pubs, brewed award winning beers and developed a respected reputation throughout the local community.
Following the Second World War Eric Rundle became the Chairman and the last sole proprietor of Harveys; Anthony Jenner was Head brewer and became Managing Director.
Prior to his death in 1980, Eric Rundle had made arrangements to divide the brewery among his three daughters. He also bequeathed a shareholding stake to Anthony Jenner in recognition of his contribution to the recovery of Harvey’s fortunes. At this time a significant proportion of the Company’s shareholding was held in Family Trusts. Anthony Jenner became the firm’s Chairman and partnered the Managing Directorship with Eric Rundle’s son in law, W.K. Saunders, who took over the administration of the Company’s Pubs.
The next generation
In the 1980s Eric Rundle’s daughters Audrey, Eileen and Joan took seats on the Harvey Board and Anthony Jenner’s son Miles joined the brewing room, after learning his craft at Greene King. A year later Hamish Elder (son of Audrey and a seventh generation descendant of John Harvey) joined the firm from Independent Distillers and Vintners and his cousin Adele Smith (daughter of Joan) also spent some years with the company running the Pub Estate. Adele Smith and Julia Prescott (sister of Hamish, daughter of Audrey) now sit on the the company’s Board of Directors.
Hamish Elder is now Harveys Chairman. He is also Joint Managing Director with Miles Jenner, the Head Brewer. And so from John Harveys’ unusual joint venture with Thomas Wood two centuries ago through to the current joint Managing Directorship of Hamish Elder and Miles Jenner, the principles of shared administration have applied successfully within the firm.
and the next…
There are 11 eighth generation descendents separated in ages by 23 years which gives plenty of scope for future partnerships.
Harveys Brewery (Harvey & Son (Lewes) Ltd.) is a brewery in Lewes, the county town of East Sussex, England.
As of 2015, Harvey's estate includes 48 tied houses, mostly in Sussex. It sells and distributes its main product Sussex Best, a bitter, primarily to a greater number of other pubs, licensed sports and social clubs mostly in England.
It was under the management of John Harvey (1784–1862) that the Bridge Wharf Brewery was established on its present site by the River Ouse, overlooking long-standing crossing: Cliffe Bridge.
In 1880 part of the original Georgian brewery was rebuilt: the Tower and Brew House visible for example from Cliffe Bridge. This is an example of a country brewery with a façade in a rustic Neo-Gothic design of the Victorian era, a listed building at Grade II*.[1] Behind it stands another half: the Georgian fermenting room, cellars and Vat House. The fermenting room, Brew House and cellars have not changed in layout and dimensions, although reinforced and their contents have evolved. The Vat House was converted and expanded into the modern bottling process.
In 1984, a second brewing line was completed doubling production capacity from 25,000 to 50,000 barrels a year. The building for this plant has been added in front of the Tower in a similar Gothic style, such as an arched ironwork window.
Harveys is an independent family company: Harvey & Son (Lewes) Ltd. The seventh generation of John Harvey's descendants are among directors.