For about 90 years, from the 1780s to the 1870s,
the TWINCH family ran what became The Royal
Brewery (in Peascod Street, New Windsor), and for
some of that time acted as victuallers at The
Ship public house in Church Lane, New Windsor.
Frederick TWINCH, joint owner of Twinch's
Brewery, was elected Mayor of Windsor in 1848 and
was on the Finance Committee that supported the
building of the first Windsor railway. The
Brewery is listed in 1869 as 'Brewers &
maltsters to Her Majesty & The Royal Family'.
Sheila de Bellaigue highlighted the difficulties
of getting information from the Royal Archives in
the December issue of the Berkshire Family
Historian, and there is nothing at all about the
Brewery in Windsor Library.
But can anybody help with The Ship? Did it
cease to function as a public house, or was it
renamed, and does it still exist? Ownership of
the Brewery and The Ship was split between the
children of the founder, John TWINCH, in 1814,
and was run for a time by a widowed daughter,
Priscilla AMBLER, and then by John BURNHAM, the
brother-in-law of Frederick (the Mayor) who had
married Arm BURNHAM in 1832. I am also hoping to
find out something of the relationship of the
Windsor Mayor to the Castle and wonder if anyone
could point to any published source. How
important was Frederick TWINCH's mayorship to the
Brewery, or was there a strict divide between the
Castle and the Town? Twinch's Brewery was taken
over in the 1870s by John CANNING when
Frederick's two sons, Frederick and John, sold
out and emigrated to America. There is a mention
in the family papers that Frederick was involved
in an 'unfortunate incident', but so far I have
not been able to discover what it could have been.
Various members of the TWINCH family were
involved in Windsor's commercial and public life
during the nineteenth century, but so far little
evidence has come my way. Can anybody help?
