All Change? Happen not.

The news broke late yesterday morning that Humphrey Smith had passed away.  The doyen of Samuel Smith Brewery was only 81 - though to some he had been around forever - and seemingly had been in poor health for some time though details are, as you'd expect rather scarce. Some insiders refer to him having been in palliative care for a short while, but whatever the circumstances, he is no more, so let's look back a little before looking forward.

The brewery was established by his predecessors in 1758 and Humphrey took over in the early 1980s. Until then the brewery had run its 300 or so pubs as mainly tenancies, where the business was let out to individual landlords, while still tied to the brewery. Over a relatively short period all were converted to managed houses, which allowed Humphrey free reign to set his own rules and impose them on his managers.  This slowly but surely resulted in his somewhat idiosyncratic ways of enforcing the banning of mobile phones, music, televisions, laptops and of course, swearing at their sites. Over the years his iron rule was characterised by unannounced visits at all sorts of odd times of the day. I'm told that particularly, closing time was one to be on your guard for. Subsequent peremptory sacking of managers for not following his rules to the letter was meted out.  That is all fairly well known though, as are the outcome. Disobeying his edicts which are usually displayed all over the pubs, seemed to make his particularly crabby. Following such dismissals, a large number of his pubs were closed and remained so, some for many years and many still. (As many as fifty percent.) But we know all this I think.

New to me yesterday was that he was an old Etonian, which I suppose explains a lot - or doesn't depending on your point of view. While it has been seen before in smaller measures, there was a fair old outpouring of support from him from some former colleagues and pub managers, mostly along the lines of "If  you obeyed the rules, you got on fine with him". The consensus, such as I could make out is that those who fell foul of him didn't think highly of him at all, while those who hadn't did. Despite ups and downs.the mayor of Tadcaster was pretty effusive in his praise of the man saying, according to the BBC, " Humphrey was a "true gentleman" and a "man of principle"."I've known him all my life and he's a respected person. He had Tadcaster at heart. He's done many things in Tadcaster unseen that people don't know about.There's a lot of amenities in Tadcaster that, if it wasn't for Mr Smith and the brewery, we wouldn't have. We've got a lot to thank him for."

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I've met Humphrey once and seen him in a local pub on one other occasion.  He was dapper man, both times dressed in a dark blue suit and very busy looking. I last wrote about Sam's here in 2022 and I commend it to you as are my two accounts of meeting the man. The first in 2009 when I actually spoke to him and the other ten years later when I was next to him and didn't.  I have also written fairly extensively about Sam's and their pubs when I was good at this blogging game. I commend all to you, particularly where I discuss his London estate, which was mostly acquired from one of the first Pub Companies, Henekeys, and operates on a modified model of the Humph regime.

I could go on, but I won't, but what will happen next?  His London estate run by his son, Sam gives us a clue. There the rules still exist, but are applied more in the breach than the observance. Mobile phones are used willy-nilly, as are laptops and swearing -  though I think anything excessive is jumped on - as it should be in any licensed premises.

My view is that is what will happen in the rest of the Smith Empire. While not encouraged, phones will be tolerated for simple things like silent scrolling, finding out the next bus and ordering an Uber etc. There is unlikely to be Juke boxes,TVs or live music. Illegal and ad hoc sackings and closures will become a thing of the past. Pubs will be able to attract managers more easily and more closed ones will re-open. I predict that young Sam will not throw out what makes Smiths different, but he will tone it down while keeping the best bits. That would be fine as I'm sure most of us want the nod to the past that typifies Sam's pubs.If that does happen that is the optimum outcome and while not what Humphrey would have done, it is what he should have done,  

So farewell to Humphrey Smith.  A character, an oppressor at times, but a man who knew what he wanted and was not afraid to do just as he liked. Not always admirable traits for sure, but old school from a time breweries were full of such larger then life individuals, particularly family owned ones and Humphrey was probably the last of them in terms of running the business as a fiefdom.

They don't make them like Humphrey Smith any more and while that is a good thing, he certainly leaves a legacy to live up to. Or live down.

At times like this I miss my old mate the Pub Curmudgeon who would no doubt have also written about this. It has dragged me out of semi-retirement too.

Humphrey was very wealthy man. Rumour has it he was one of the first to see the value of the then derelict London Docklands, was also a landowner in Yorkshire and elsewhere, and freeholder of most of his pub estate including London. Lad did all right for himself.

I haven't used any photo of the Humph as I am unsure about copyright, but easily googled.