Title: Bulmers Of Hereford
Author: L.P. Wilkinson
Year: 1987
Format: Hardback
Page Count: 215
Price used: £0.51 (Amazon)*
*accurate at the time of posting
Description: (TLDR)
A detailed history of Bulmers released for their centenary.
On the flysheet of the book it says:
"This is the story of an enterprise that, beginning with the sale of a few bottles of cider from apples grown on a Herefordshire parson's glebe, has become the biggest cider-making business in the world.
Cider used to be a national drink, but in the nineteenth century production fell sharply. The revival began when Henry Percival Bulmer, son of the Reverend C H Bulmer of Credenhill, began making cider in 1887 from the fruit of his father's glebe in an old fashioned stone mill of a neighbouring farm. In the same year he moved to Hereford, where works have since been on different sites as the business expanded. His brother Fred Bulmer then at kings College, Cambridge, declined an invitation to tutor the sons of the King of Siam in order to help, and their partnership in labours that today sound incredible laid the foundation of future success.
The business became a private company in 1910 and in 1970 the public were given the opportunity to share it's fortunes. But it has remained essentially a family firm. One consequence is that labour relations have at all times been excellent. With growth it is now operating I many countries and there has been some diversification, such as agencies for wine, spirits and mineral waters, but cider remains its mainstay, with nearly half of the British sales.
The author, Patrick Wilkinson, a famous classical scholar, was a fellow of King's College, Cambridge, where so many of the Bulmers and their colleagues have been educated. Adam's Hill, the house built by Fred Bulmer, became to him a second home, and he undertook the writing of this centenary volume in gratitude. He had completed it just before he died."
