This is an example of a cinema advertisement for Vaux Brewery, one of ten commercials sponsored by the brewery in the mid-1960s preserved at North East Film Archive. Vaux Brewery operated in Sunderland from 1806 up until 1999 when it was closed due to advice from London based financiers. The founder of the company was Cuthbert Vaux, who produced the company's most infamous drinks, the Vaux’s Stout and the Double Maxim, both of which are featured in the advertisements and were the most...

This is an example of a cinema advertisement for Vaux Brewery, one of ten commercials sponsored by the brewery in the mid-1960s preserved at North East Film Archive. Vaux Brewery operated in Sunderland from 1806 up until 1999 when it was closed due to advice from London based financiers.

The founder of the company was Cuthbert Vaux, who produced the company's most infamous drinks, the Vaux’s Stout and the Double Maxim, both of which are featured in the advertisements and were the most common drinks they brewed. The first brewery location for the company was on the corner of Matlock Street and Cumberland Street. However, they were forced to move when the land was purchased for the Central Railway Station, their second location on Castle Street from 1875, where they would stay until the company’s dissolution. They also held another brewery in Union Street for thirty years from 1844 until the 1870s.

The Vaux & Co. brewery was a family owned business. After Cuthbert Vaux died in 1878 the company was passed on to his sons, John and Edwin. John Vaux’s sons, named Cuthbert and Ernest, would go on to join Edwin in the brewing business after their father’s passing. Even parts of management were family members. Frank Nicholson, who joined as a manager in the late 1890s, married the daughter of John Vaux, Amy, and became director.

Upon becoming director, Frank Nicholson oversaw a variety of big changes for the brewery. Vaux expanded into a bigger company under Frank; he organised a union with North East Breweries Ltd., creating the second largest brewers in England, with Vaux and Associated Breweries Ltd. Brewing companies were also purchased in Sheffield, and in 1972 Vaux expanded overseas, with the acquisition of Fred Koch Brewery in New York, but this venture only lasted three years. In the 1990s they also made their fatal expansion into hotels, which would ultimately lead to the end of Vaux Breweries.

The Vaux breweries were closed in 1999 and the company then turned to focus on its investments in hotels and restaurants, under advice from London financier Alex Brown. This was a shock to many in the area, even some within the company itself, as the brewing sector was very successful with profits of £50 million. The Chairman of the company, Paul Nicholson, was so displeased with the news that he resigned from his post. Ultimately the closure would leave 700 out of a job and a hole in the spirit of the city.

After rebranding as Swallow Group Plc. the new company did not last very long on its own. In 2000 the company was taken over by Whitbread. From here the Swallow Hotels became Marriott hotels and the pubs were turned into brands such as Brewers Fayre. In 2003 the Swallow brand itself was purchased by London Inn Group, however, by 2006 this went into administration. In 2014 the last hotel located in Glasgow had closed.

The Vaux Breweries were closely linked to the culture and community of Sunderland. They served as the team shirt sponsors for Sunderland AFC from the mid-1980s until the brewery’s closure in 1999 and the headquarters on Castle Street in central Sunderland, played a big part in its architectural landscape. This headquarters was demolished in 2008 and as of 2014 it has been a discontinuous construction site for a new base for Sunderland City Council.

After its demise, the spirit of Vaux Breweries was continued by two of its former directors, who would go on to form the Maxim Brewery, buying the original recipes of their classic drinks, including Double Maxim. More recently, as of Easter 2019, there has been a revival of the Vaux Brewery name. An attempt to open another Vaux Brewery with a more modern take on the Vaux name is trying to fill the void left in Sunderland by the original closure.

Their advertisements were made firstly to promote their products, but also served to highlight their chain of local pubs and bars around the North East. Their adverts commonly featured their trademark dray and horses, appealing historical symbols of the Vaux Brewery, which spoke to the tradition and trustworthiness of the company. At the end of the adverts the company jingle would play out, ‘Vaux Beer brewed in the North- for people who know good beer’.

These beer adverts were narrated by, or featured, sports commentator Kent Walton, who became famous for commentating on tennis, football, and most notably on wrestling coverage on ITV’s ‘World of Sport’. Whilst Walton is usually joined by a celebrity sports personality in the Vaux commercials of 1965, several feature locals known in the community around the pub. At the Copper Beech in Darlington, it's Alan Mackay, the secretary of the local pigeon fanciers club, some of whom rent the designer-built Vaux-owned lofts in the grounds of the pub. Pigeon races were among the many sports in the north east sponsored by Vaux Breweries in the 1960s, specifically focusing in long form film promotions on the Up North Combine's involvement in the the Vaux-Usher International Gold Tankard Pigeon Race cross-channel from Beauvais in France. One of the best of the Vaux promotional films available to watch free on the NEFA website, Time on the Wing, lovingly documents the dedication of pigeon fanciers as they strive for perfection in breeding racers.

The Up North Combine was founded in 1905 to handle the logistics of long distance races for an increasing number of clubs and federations in the North East. The volume of pigeon traffic on the railways from mining districts in Northumberland was heavy enough in 1905 to begin running pigeon specials during the racing season. Pigeons became known as ‘the poor man’s racehorse’ as the popularity of raising birds grew in working class culture during the last third of the 19th century, particularly in mining districts.

Our perception of the ubiquitous pigeon over time, and in different communities, it seems, oscillates wildly. We have considered the bird anything from urban pest (cue former London Mayor Ken Livingstone) to war hero, 'feathered athlete to beautiful show specimen' with wonderful fanned tail.  In his book Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan ... and the World (2008), Courtney Humphries explains that people are indifferent to urban pigeons seeing them as “identical gray blobs populating the planet...background scenery or extras in movies...invisible”. One mainstream slur on the pigeon is the term  'rats with wings', a term coined by the New York City parks commissioner in 1966. It pops up later in Woody Allen's movie Stardust Memories (1980) when two of the main characters argue over whether a pigeon is 'pretty' or 'a killer' as it inadvertently flies into a New York apartment, a symptom of how we think of the pigeon as  'out of place' in our urban cityscape. Not something the pigeon fancier would ever consider. Here's a taste of the conflicting opinions in an exuberant animation by Sheila Graber based on writer Sid Chaplin’s short story about the defiant spirit of an old miner who finds his beloved pigeon loft is under threat The Pigeon Cree

References:

Whiston, Kate (2017) Pigeon Geographies: Aesthetics, Organisation, and Athleticism in British Pigeon Fancying, c.1850-1939. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

https://www.audubon.org/news/the-origins-our-misguided-hatred-pigeons

https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/legendary-vaux-brewing-name-set-for-sunderland-return-1-9590081

https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/timeline-the-history-of-sunderland-s-vaux-brewery-as-it-prepares-for-city-rebirth-1-9590412

https://boakandbailey.com/2015/05/gallery-vaux-beer-mats-1970s-80s/

https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/former-vaux-breweries-boss-will-be-delighted-if-new-sunderland-brewery-succeeds-1-9591489

https://www.sunderlandecho.com/our-region/sunderland/1960s-vaux-beer-advert-shot-at-once-popular-sunderland-pub-released-in-search-for-lost-film-gems-1-9333908

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/history/17521521.those-were-the-drays-memories-of-vaux-brewery-20-years-after-its-closure/

https://wearsideonline.com/vaux-brewery/

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/sunderland-council-vaux-civic-centre-15262298

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Great-British-Pub/

 

Related Collections:

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-shepherd-and-shepherdess-beamish

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-fairfield-arms-stockton

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-pennywell-comrades-club-sunderland

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-middlesbrough-co-operative-club

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-beresford-arms-whalton

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-thorney-close-sports-club-sunderland

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/vaux-commercial-windmill-cowgate

http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/time-wing