IT WAS not surprising that some of these day trippers were drinking ale – they made the stuff.

The picture above shows a group of workers at Morrell’s Brewery in Oxford enjoying a day out in the early 1950s.

We are not sure of their destination, but it may have been Southend-on-Sea.

As was the custom in those days, many of them wore jackets and ties for their day in the sun.

And judging by the fact that they had wound down the huge side window of the coach, it looks as if the weather was fair for the trip.

Among those who travelled were Bert Cornborough, Harris Tredell, Bill Durham, Reg Tredwell, Tanto Webb, Horace Kelly, Henry Field, Bill Speaks, Oly Taylor, Frank Robinson, George Weston, Basil Hitchcock, Drummer Gibbons, Frank Smith, Jack Palmer, Cyril Cudd, Laurie Coates, Tom Tredell and Jack Monday. In the 1950s, a summer coach outing was a regular feature for workers at many firms, whose bosses realised that many couldn‘t afford to go away on holiday.

The workers above were following in a long tradition of beer production in Oxford stretching back centuries.

Morrell’s contribution to the industry can be traced back to 1743 when Richard Tawney founded a brewery in St Thomas’s. Richard’s son, Edward, took charge after the death of his father and elder brother, both called Richard, and in 1797, took Mark and James Morrell, sons of an Oxford solicitor, into partnership.

The Morrell family soon assumed control and the business remained in Oxford until 1998 when it was sold.

The brewery – the last in Oxford to survive – closed and production of Morrell’s beer was transferred to the Thomas Hardy brewery in Dorset.

Most of Morrell’s tied pubs were sold to Greene King.