Guinness Barley Research Station

The records relate to the work of E.S. Beaven at Warminster on the development of new barley varieties, and the establishment of the British Seed Corn Association Ltd for the distribution of these varieties; and to subsequent developmental work at the Guinness Barley Research Station Warminster.

E.S. Beaven (1857-1941) was one of the leading breeders of barley in the first half of the twentieth century. He was a maltster in Warminster, Wiltshire, and he began to make experimental trials of barley. One outcome of his experiments was a new variety, Plumage-Archer, which was one of the principal types of malting barleys until new hybrids, such as Proctor, were introduced after the Second World War. Much of Beaven’s work was published posthumously in the book Barley (1947). Both the maltings and the experimental station were taken over by Arthur Guinness, Son & Company (Park Royal) Ltd.

The records cover the period 1828-1967 and consist of administrative and commercial records (TR GUI/AD), technical records (TR GUI/ET), photographs (TR GUI/PH) and social and personal records (TR GUI/SP).

Beaven’s collection of seed samples contains over 500 samples of early barley breeds.

More information

• A full description is available on our online database.
• A handlist for the whole collection can be found here.
• The seed samples are in our object collections and are catalogued on our online database. Search using the phrase ‘Guinness barley’