Joule's circular drinks tray

Description:This metal tray is decorated with stylised figures of a man and a woman in foreground and three men in background beside a steam engine.

The caption reads "Famous before the days of the Rocket, Joule's Stone Ale."

Rim diameter: 320mm.
Height: 20mm.

This item is held within the Staffordshire County Museum collection.

Francis Joule came into possession of the White House Inn and brewhouse at Stone in 1758. Nine years later he demolished the inn and built a house, which later became the home of the head brewer. In 1780 he established a public brewery, to supply its own premises and other public houses. To expand production land was bought in the High Street.

Francis' son, John, took over the company in 1813 and the brewery was named John Joule and Son. In 1873 Joules was sold to three brewers from Liverpool - John Parrington, Thomas Harding and John Harding.

Joule's thrived throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Local deliveries were made by dray and the company owned forty shire horses and twenty drays. The Trent and Mersey Canal which passed behind the Newcastle Street Ales Stores enabled transport to other parts of the country, and exports to America and Europe left from the docks of Liverpool and Hull respectively. Transport by barge eventually gave way to railway and from the 1920s drays were replaced by lorries.

Joule's was taken over by Bass Charrington in 1970, but production ceased four years later.