From Fuggles to Firkin

My grandfather, Charles Frederick Hyde, a provocative and interesting man, was a key figure in the art of beer brewing in the heyday of the closing decade of the beer-drinking Victorian era. Full of the pleasures and pitfalls of family life and work; thwarted ambitions, babies, sickness before antibiotics, a passion for the new craze of bicycling: these vivid images are interwoven with revealing portraits of his friends and the endless difficulties encountered with his employers always contesting and challenging his vitally important field of expertise. These lavishly illustrated pages of the tapestry of daily life, are a fascinating record of social values, a glimpse inside the brewing world and rich in the visual history of Manchester around the 1890's.