Management in the early days of the Irish Free State: Bennetts of Ballinacurra

Our justification for using an archival research method adopts to some extent the maxim of Platt (1981: 35) that a researcher ‘must use what he can get’. Given the time period of the study, any nondocumentary method is likely to bear little fruit. We are thus limited to primary sources such as archives and/or to secondary sources such as extant literature – which as noted is scarce. Thus, archival data are our main source. It can reveal rich data, and Scott (1990: 15-16) observed that personal documents of ‘wealthy and well-known families’ were produced ‘before the distinction between the personal and official was institutionalised’. Armstrong (1991) noted that very few companies maintained an archive, and the companies that did, tended to be large companies, which may bias any sample. In Ireland, while Ó hÓgartaigh (2008) noted many archival sources, they were rather underutilised, with the possible exception being the Guinness archive. Scott (1990: 15-16) noted ‘if a researcher “discovers” a document in an archive and regards it as important source material it may be commercially published and thus become more readily available to other researchers’. In further support of our approach, Penrose (2009) emphasised the importance of the historical process and the value of using specific case studies, while Williamson (1981) noted the relative neglect of the business history approach in organisational studies. In essence, the records which we explore are reflective of what Scott (1990) termed recurrent and special administrative records and are ideal to form a picture of management at Bennetts. Scott (1990) described recurrent records as a necessary part of the daily operations and, consequently, they are embedded deep in the practices of the organisation; special records are reflective of ad hoc situations and requests. Other examples of studies that used recurrent records include Quinn and Jackson (2014), Hiebl et al. (2015) and Quinn (2014). There are extant studies using a case study approach similar to that employed here: e.g. case studies of a brewery (Hiebl et al., 2015; Quinn, 2014; Quinn and Jackson, 2014); department stores (Jeacle and Walsh, 2008; Walsh and Jeacle, 2003); a financial institution (Drea, 2014); a soap manufacturer (Griffiths, 1995); a thread producer (Kininmonth, 2006); a confectionery manufacturer (Jones, 1984) and an industry sector (Quinn and Leavy, 2004).

Ballinacurra is a small village near Midleton, Cork, and served as a port for Midleton. The business known as Bennetts of Ballinacurra dates from 1792, when a malthouse and quay were built. Ownership passed to William Hallaran Bennett in the 1850s and subsequently to his son John Hallaran Bennett (1862-1935) in 1885.

John H Bennett and Company, later John H Bennett and Company Limited.

Figure 1

Bennett played an active role in public and religious life in east Cork (West, 2006), as a justice of peace and as a trustee of Midleton College. He was a member of the Church of Ireland, serving on the select vestry for Midleton parish and on the diocesan board of education. His political outlook was unionist, and in 1916 he welcomed the imposition of martial law following the Easter rising. He later became a supporter of the Cumann na nGaedheal party, but noted in his diaries in the early 1932 the lack of canvassing on behalf of the party in his area, which foreshadowed a loss of power to Fianna Fáil in the 1932 general election. As already noted, Bennetts were almost entirely dependent on the contract with Guinness for malting of barley. Guinness was also historically regarded as having a close identification with the Church of Ireland (Hopkins, 2009) and having unionist sympathies (The Economist, 2014). However, our examination of the records of Bennetts (files of correspondence between Bennetts and Guinness and John H Bennett’s diary) does not bear out any favouritism based on religious or political sympathies. Bennetts can be contrasted with another long-established family business, the Scottish papermaking company Alex Cowan & Sons Ltd (Cowans), which was the subject of a historical study on the ‘Protestant work ethic’ of its owning family (McKinstry and Ding, 2013). Unlike Cowans, our study of the archives of Bennetts shows no evidence that the religion of the owners played a significant part in business decisions. Drea’s (2014: 1111) study of Ulster Bank ‘provides a unique case study of a solidly Protestant and Unionist financial institution operating successfully in an increasingly Catholic-dominated Irish Free State’. Drea (2014: 1113) noted the ‘strong Protestant representation in the Irish Free State industrial establishment’ and evidenced companies such as Ulster Bank, Guinness and Jameson and W&R Jacob. Although a smaller company than those examples, Bennetts also conformed to the same characteristics noted by Drea.

Bennett married Brida Williams in 1887, and they had two children: Jack (1890-1915) and Gwendoline (1891-1952). Brida died in 1916, and Bennett subsequently remarried to Esther MacNeill in 1918, who had a daughter, Dorothy. The family resided on the Charleston estate in Ballinacurra. Bennett headed the firm from 1885 until 1935 – which is within our study period – when his stepdaughter Dorothy West (née MacNeill) took over at the age of 30 years. Dorothy West ran the business until her retirement in 1969. Guinness acquired a majority shareholding in the company in 1951, acquiring the remaining shares in 1969. The business was purchased in a management buyout in 1996, eventually closing in 2006.

Key financial information for Bennetts is provided in Appendix 1. Extracts from the annual accounts of Bennetts from 1922 to 1935 are summarised in Table 1. The annual figures for income, net profit and dividends have been rebased to the current (i.e. 2015) values using Central Statistics Office (CSO) data (CSO, 2016) and are summarised in Table 2.

The CSO StatBank database is located at http://www.cso.ie/en/databases/ and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by year and selected base reference period was used to rebase the financial information in the annual accounts taking 1922 as a base year, and then Irish pound values have been converted to euros.

The methods employed in this study are now detailed. The archival records of Bennetts, located in the Cork City and County Archives, are in good condition, clear and readily accessible. Ó hÓgartaigh (2008) noted that historians have engaged with business archives mainly in the areas of social and economic history, drawing on macroeconomic data, whereas micro-level resources can also cast new light on old historical problems. This study draws on the latter source type. To get a high level view on the business, we examined all areas of the business: correspondence sent and received, directors and management reports, employee agreements and wage rates, accounting books and ledgers, financial statements, barley purchasing records, other barley records and accounting-related correspondence. We also examined the personal diary of John H Bennett which provided brief commentary on the workings of the company. All records were examined over the period of 1920–1935. This time period covers the early years of the Irish Free State, a time when large businesses were not common in Ireland, and includes the early years of the Anglo-Irish Economic War. McCann (2014) noted that the Irish economy of the 1920s was still suffering the consequences of the War of Independence, the Civil War, partition between the industrially dominant north and the agriculturally dominant south, and was yet to face the consequences of the Great Depression of October 1929. The records were photographed digitally on-site and analysed both on-site and later. Where possible, business processes were traced through several books and/or files to ascertain the full nature of those processes – this mainly applied to accounting records. Recurrent records were the main source for our study, with some reference to special records (more details are given in the reference list). Copies of the Cork Examiner

The Cork Examiner, now called the Irish Examiner, although a national newspaper, has historically been strongest in the Cork area.

Brewing has long been an important industry in Ireland, and during the time period of our study, Daly (1992) noted that brewing accounted for 30.6% of net industrial output and 7.5% of employment in 1926. There have been a number of historical accounting studies of Ireland’s largest brewer, Guinness (Hiebl et al., 2015; Quinn, 2014; Quinn and Jackson, 2014). However, these studies have not ventured beyond the accounting realm. Malt is the main raw material for brewing (Gourvish and Wilson, 1994), and while the UK malting industry has been studied by Gourvish and Wilson (1994), Clark (1998) and Talbot (2006), it is relatively understudied compared to brewing. In an Irish context, the malting industry and indeed the brewing industry have been a relatively neglected area for academic research. In addition, in an Irish context, the relative lack of extant research on firms in general in the 1920s and 1930s suggests that more could be done to contribute to our understanding of the historical management processes at this time.

Before reviewing the literature on various areas of management practice, we turn first to the literature on the malting industry. The UK malting industry and its importance for the brewing industry have been studied by Gourvish and Wilson (1994), Clark (1998) and Talbot (2006) – Clark (1998) specifically focused on the sector. There are two main types of malting firms, according to Gourvish and Wilson (1994): sales maltsters who produce malted barley for brewers according to orders and brewers who malt themselves. Malting is significant as it is the brewer’s ‘main raw material and their profits from year to year depended on its price and quality’ (Gourvish and Wilson, 1994: 185). Malting tends to occur in barley-growing areas and breweries chose to buy rather than malting their own barley because ‘malting was an extremely space-consuming operation; labour costs were higher than in the countryside; and malt, lighter in weight than barley, was marginally cheaper to transport’ (Gourvish and Wilson, 1994: 187). The purchase of the barley is often financed by the brewers, who then paid the maltsters ‘for their working costs and profits ... what the brewer liked to do was deal with several maltsters in order to obtain the best malt, spread his risks, and keep the maltsters on their toes’ (Gourvish and Wilson, 1994: 187). The malting contracts that were negotiated annually by the brewers ‘imposed quality conditions and the growing power of the brewers over the malt suppliers allowed them to dominate the supply chain’ (Talbot, 2006:198). As the brewers provided capital for the barley as well as other costs, the overheads of the maltsters were lower than otherwise (Talbot, 2006). The malting industry was regarded by Clark as being representative of many small business sectors, in that it was ‘small-scale, family dominated and technologically unimpressive’ (1998: 201). Clark noted that there are ‘few sectors of the British economy where the participation of founding families was more enduring than in malting’ (1998: 202). By the end of the First World War, most malting firms operated as partnerships; of firms that had converted to limited liability companies by the end of the nineteenth century, most were private companies (Clark, 1998). As we reveal later, Bennetts was family dominated and relatively small scale.

This paper adopts a broad perspective on management, based on Henri Fayol’s five elements of his definition of management, namely forecasting, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling (Pugh and Hickson, 2007). Various writers, such as Gourvish and Wilson (1994), Clark (1998) and Talbot (2006), commented that practices in the malting industry were generally slow to change. Gourvish and Wilson (1994: 186) noted that, for some maltsters, ‘the real test of their proficiency was in barley buying’. Talbot (2006: 325) commented that the continuity of production methods meant that there was a ‘mostly successful adherence to traditional management practices’. Therefore, our review of the archival material for Bennetts has concentrated on elements of Fayol’s definition of management that experienced change during the period of our study, as revealed through our inductive process. This in turn guided our literature review here. The two areas where change was apparent were organising (in particular, the topic of business structure) and commanding (in particular, the topic of industrial relations). In Fayol’s definitions, organising refers to ‘building up the structure, material and human, of the undertaking’ and commanding refers to ‘maintaining activity among the personnel’ (Pugh and Hickson, 2007: 145). We also review some literature on accounting practices, as the nature of the business (a malting business) has implications for accounting practices, and these in turn affect business structure and succession planning. While acknowledging the limitations of studying a firm’s accounts, Gourvish acknowledged (2006: 388-389) that the accounts ‘attempt to express the impact of a complex web of activities as more precise measures’ and ‘whatever the numbers may be, there is a role for the business historian in making sense of them’.

Alfred Chandler is regarded as a foremost writer on the study of organisations, through his historical analysis of the period from 1850 to 1920, which he termed the ‘formative years of modern capitalism’ (Pugh and Hickson, 2007: 36). Chandler’s influential book Scale and Scope (1994) studied growth and competitiveness in the US, Germany and the UK from the 1880s to the 1940s. Chandler (1994: 240) used the term ‘personally managed enterprises’ in relation to ‘the governance of the enterprise’ and to ‘management “style” or, to use a more popular word, its management “culture”’. Chandler contrasted the prevalence of ‘personal enterprises’ found in UK business with the ‘managerial capitalism’ found in US business. These ‘personal enterprises’ were defined as being ‘owner-controlled, frequently managed by founders or their families, and lacking extensive management hierarchies’ (Church, 1990: 704) and were characterised by being owned/managed by families, who prioritised short-term income over long-term asset growth. Chandler concluded that the corporate structures typically found in British family firms were influenced by the goal of providing ‘a steady flow of cash to owners – owners who were also managers’ (Chandler, 1994: 390), and this resulted in high dividend payouts, low levels of retained profits and the issuing of preference shares and debentures, compared to managerial firms. However, Church (1990) cautioned against over-reliance on balance sheet data to support the arguments about the level of dividends and profits and also noted that ‘by the very nature of personal enterprises after the first generation, owners tended to possess wealth, rendering income a welcome but less crucial objective’ (1990: 706). In a response to Church (1990), Chandler (1990: 749) called for further studies of the ‘role of retained earnings on the growth of enterprises’. In an Irish context, Quinn and Leavy (2004) studied the evolution of two Irish wholesaling industries, namely grocery and builders’ merchants, since 1922. While their focus was on an industry rather than a firm, and on the role of government activism as an impetus for structural change in an industry, it does provide a demonstration of how case studies can be used to study neglected areas of business history. Quinn and Leavy (2004) noted the rise in prominence of trade associations during the protectionist era of the 1930s.

Church (1993: 30) noted that ‘management succession has been widely acknowledged to pose particular problems for the longevity and performance of family firms’. The organisational structure of firms was studied by Gourvish (1987), who noted the importance of the general move by British firms to adopt limited liability status by around 1900, and the features of this trend included keeping the numbers of shareholders in individual firms small (with restrictions on share transfers) and control retained by families. According to Gourvish (1987), the principal reasons for limited liability status included concerns about future viability, desire for growth and personal or family circumstances of the business principal. A practical guide to conversion to limited liability companies was prepared by Palmer (1890), a barrister, and echoed the motivations noted by Gourvish (1987). According to Palmer (1890), the advantages of a limited company over a sole trader or partnership included the ability to obtain capital in consideration for a share in profits without incurring the liabilities of a partnership, and, continuance of a business in the event of the death or retirement of a partner/founder. Palmer (1890) also noted one circumstance where limited companies should preserve the typical rules of a partnership, namely where new partners could only be admitted with consent of all existing partners, as shares in a limited company could be transferred to any person unless the company’s rules specifically prevented it.

There is some accounting literature that explores the general nature of the accounting profession in Ireland. Works by Clarke provide useful insights into the history of the Irish accounting profession. Clarke (1996) noted the lack of literature on Irish accounting history at that time, noting that ‘the authorship of the first Irish accounting text may never be determined’ (1996: 37). Clarke (2001) detailed the difficulties faced by the profession in the early years of independence – the analysis period of this study. A key issue was the lack of legislation in the newly independent state. He also noted the end of ‘independent isolation’ as Ireland enacted the Companies Act of 1963, the first major piece of company law in 40 years of independence.

There are few studies that provide a more detailed account of accounting practices (or management accounting) within Irish firms. There are many sets of archival records held in Ireland (Ó hÓgartaigh and Ó hÓgartaigh, 2004), many of which are unexplored. Having said that the literature that does exist is insightful. For example, Jeacle and Walsh (2008), building on Walsh and Jeacle (2003), provided extensive detail on how a retail price inventory method was applied by a Dublin-based department store – Arnotts – during the 1930s. This was, according to Jeacle and Walsh (2008), a valuable management control tool as well as an inventory valuation method. There are also a small number of studies that detail internal accounting practices at Guinness. For example, Quinn (2014) explored accounting change in the cooperage at Guinness over a 100-year period from the 1880s. In a similar vein, Quinn and Jackson (2014) explored change to accounting practices at Guinness as influenced by the First World War. Finally, Hiebl et al. (2015) explored the role of the Chief Accountant at Guinness from 1920 to 1940, offering a view that this role was very similar to the modern-day chief financial officer (CFO). While these studies of Guinness are insightful, it should be noted that this company was one of a small number of large companies of the time, as the nascent Irish economy was mainly agricultural with the government not pursuing any policy of industrialisation until the early 1930s (Ó Gráda, 1997).

A study of accounting practices in the brewing sector (Walkden, 1891) noted that the accounting practices of maltsters may not follow good bookkeeping and accounting practice. Walkden (1891: 484) noted that ‘a maltster seldom receives an invoice from a farmer – therefore the only evidence of correct settlement will be in the paid cheques which can be compared to the Barley Purchases Book’. Clark (1998) provided some details on costs and profits at British maltsters from the period 1830-1914. Her work suggested that costs of a malting were tracked and profit could thus be calculated. She also indicated an increasing focus on costs and accounting during and after the First World War, something echoed in the accounting literature (Loft, 1986).

Daly (1992: 13) observed that ‘the 1920s were not the most opportune decade for a newly independent nation. Wages and prices fell after wartime inflation; agriculture was depressed; unemployment, external competition, and technological change affected hitherto stable industries’. One of the few studies of management history set in the time frame of our study is Drea’s (2014) study of Ulster Bank and provides a case study of how political factors influenced how this Northern Ireland-based bank operated in the Free State. Other studies that covered this time frame included examinations of how multinational companies such as Cadbury (Jones, 1984) and Woolworths (Walsh, 2011) operated overseas, but those studies had less relevance to the current study as they focused on multinational operations.

The typical characteristics of industrial relations in the sector were identified by Gourvish and Wilson (1994: 198), as continuity of employment and paternalism, and although malting remained a seasonal business, ‘generation followed generation’ of workers with ‘remarkable instances of the longevity of individuals’ service and the attachments of families’. Gourvish and Wilson also noted that the paternalism could be ‘heavy handed’ (1994: 198) in relation to attempts to unionise the workforce and that the continuity of employment in the brewing industry ‘guaranteed workforces which, in comparison with those in other industries, were remarkably quiescent and constant’ (1994: 200).

In an Irish context, the history of wage bargaining in Ireland was influenced by the fact that ‘huge increases in union membership in the 1910s had been followed by drastic declines in the 1920s’ (Ó Gráda, 1997: 99). Developments in industrial relations and trade unionism were heavily influenced by events in Britain (Gunnigle et al., 2002). Among the significant developments in the early twentieth century, Britain was the ‘Taff Vale’ case of 1901 (Taff Vale Railway Company v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, 1901) and the subsequent enactment of legislation dealing with picketing (Trade Disputes Act, 1906). The ‘Taff Vale’ case concerned violence during a strike, and while there was no evidence that the union had organised the violence, it was found liable and damages awarded to the company. The 1906 Act, ‘often referred to as the “Bill of Rights for Workers”, provided legal immunity for unions involved in strike activity and authorised peaceful picketing’ (Gunnigle et al., 2002: 249), but did not provide a positive right to strike. The 1906 Act also did not make it illegal to sack striking workers, although selective dismissal of individuals was not permitted, nor was selective re-engagement. The 1906 Act therefore made possible the 1913 Lockout in Dublin. The dismissal of workers for striking has seldom been a feature of Irish industrial relations, so it rarely features in Irish industrial relations literature.

Monks (1997) dated the first appearance of personnel management in the Irish private sector to the establishment in Dublin in 1937 of an Irish branch of the Institute of Labour Management (ILM), the predecessor of the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM).

The IPM was the forerunner to the organisation currently known as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The business was carried on as a sole trader under the name of John H Bennett until 1928. As of 4 April 4 1928, the business was incorporated as John H Bennett & Company Ltd. Companies Office records show that the initial directors of the company were John H Bennett and his wife Esther Bennett. Of the 10,000 ordinary shares issued, 9,685 were issued to John H Bennett himself, with the balance to his wife and children. The latter also held preference shares. The company’s lawyers, Exhams Solicitors, noted that Bennett was described as a ‘maltster’ on Form M45, whereas he was described as a ‘gentleman’ on the share register. The move to incorporation did cause some confusion. Guinness wrote in September 1928 to ascertain the correct form of address for future correspondence, noting Bennett’s use on different occasions of the styles ‘J.H. Bennett’ and ‘John H. Bennett Ltd.’ and believed that ‘we ought always to address you now as “John H. Bennett Limited”, but after all these years I do not like to start writing to you as “Dear Sir”’ (Letter from Guinness, 17 September 1928). The archive copy of this letter contains a handwritten note from Bennett stating that he also experienced difficulty in remembering the correct form of wording to use in his business letters.

The move to limited liability came about because Bennett was increasingly concerned about continuation of business as he had no male heir. Bennett had one son, Jack, who spent 7 years working with his father in the family business and 2 years working with another firm of maltsters, P.R. Norton,

The two malting businesses of Minch and P.R. Norton merged in 1921 to form Minch Norton. The company later changed its name to Minch Malt and is still in existence today.

During the entire period of our study, AJ Magennis & Company and Incorporated Accountants and Auditors,

This firm later became Magennis Burns Griffin & Company in 1936 and later became part of Deloitte & Touche, which is currently Deloitte.

Bennett was also advised about his own position in the business:

The accountants also advised Bennett about the capital structure of the limited company. They advised that if it was decided that the capital of the company should be £15,000, then £10,000 should be in the form of ordinary shares of £1 each and the remainder should be £5,000 of 10% preference shares. The stated reason for preference shares was that whoever was allocated preference shares would have an income of £500 per annum as first charge on the profits of the company, and in any year if profits after directors’ fees should fall to £1,000, a preference dividend of £500 would be paid even though an ordinary dividend would not be paid. In the event, the capital of the company was fixed at £15,000 and was split between ordinary shares of £10,000 and preference shares of £5,000, although the percentage dividend for the preference shares was fixed at 6% per annum.

The records do not provide an explanation of why the percentage dividend had changed.

However, it became apparent after Bennett’s death that there were difficulties in valuing the business for probate purposes. As Bennetts was a private company, its shares were not traded and this created a difficulty in reaching an agreed value. Two further factors specific to the circumstances of the formation of this particular company in 1928 prompted Bennett’s stepdaughter to write to Guinness, because of the close connection between Bennetts and Guinness. Firstly, the nature of the brewing industry and the accounting practices associated with it (as described by Walkden, 1891) meant that:

Secondly, there were also difficulties due to the low capitalisation of the company:

As noted earlier, Bennetts paid out substantial dividends after the formation of the company, which contributed to the low levels of equity reserve:

In some respects, Bennett was a benevolent employer who established a ‘Workmen’s Club’ that operated from 1912 to 1926 and enabled staff who subscribed as members of the club to read daily newspapers, play card games and engage in other social activities (West, 2006). Bennett left £1,000 in his will to a trust for Ballinacurra workers to be administered by Mrs West (née MacNeill). However, the taxation authorities determined that as no actual trust had been created by Bennett’s will; the ‘trust’ was regarded as income of his family.

In other respects, Bennett was an employer who was prepared to reduce the wage rates when necessary – as noted by Clark (1998), labour cost was one of the substantial costs of malting. The records contained details of notices issued from time to time regarding alterations in the weekly wages of workmen, and one such record noted that the workmen were ‘notified that they are employed from day to day only subject to deliveries of barley being sufficient to provide work’. Reductions in wages formed the background to a strike in the late 1928, the first strike in the company in over 100 years. Bennetts were a member of a representative body for the industry, the Irish Maltsters’ Association, and there were a series of agreements between the association and the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU). For example, an agreement signed on 12 October 1922 provided a mechanism for wages to rise or fall in certain circumstances if there was a change in generally accepted cost of living measures. In line with action taken by the Irish Maltsters’ Association, Bennett confirmed in October 1927 that the wage rates would be lower than in the previous year. On 6 December 1928, Bennett recorded in his diary that he ‘received a most unexpected demand’ from his maltsters for a wage increase and threatening a strike unless their demands were met. When 18 maltsters notified Bennett of their intention to strike, he paid them their wages to date and sacked them and refused offers of mediation until the malt had been harvested (West, 2006). The dismissal of striking workers was permitted under the Trade Disputes Act of 1906, and Bennett further complied with the provisions of that Act by not engaging in selective dismissal or selective re-engagement. Some of the senior employees decided to continue working during the strike:

Bennett also used his connections as vice-commodore of the Royal Munster Yacht Club (RMYC) to seek volunteers to help with the harvest, and 12 yachtsmen arrived on 11 December 1928.

The Royal Munster Yacht Club merged with the Royal Cork Yacht Club, the world’s oldest yacht club, in 1966.

While Guinness were not directly involved in the strike, they monitored closely the developing situation, and Bennett kept Guinness informed regularly by post and by telephone of all significant developments. Understandably, the focus of Guinness was on the maintenance of malt supplies and the quality of the production. For example, Bennett was ‘congratulated on the fact that the strike has had so little effect upon the malt’, but the same letter also requested a sample of the barley from the RMYC batch ‘to be checked in our laboratory, as this was one which was entirely handled by volunteers’ (Letter from Guinness to John H Bennett, 27 December 1928). Guinness wrote to Bennetts on 7 December 1928 and confirmed that they ‘approve entirely’ of the action taken by Bennett. A Guinness executive who was a member of the Irish Maltsters’ Association and also was one of the negotiators of the wage agreements between the unions and the association ‘offered his services if he can be of any use and is quite willing to undertake the journey to Cork at any time if you think he can be helpful’ (Letter from Guinness to John H Bennett, 7 December 1928). However, on the following day Guinness wrote again:

While Guinness declined to offer practical support during the strike, they continued to offer encouragement on 10 December 1928 and wrote that ‘if it is any consolation to you in your trouble, you may like to know that the Board are very pleased indeed with the way in which you have handled this difficult matter’ (Letter from Guinness to John H Bennett, 10 December 1928). That letter also queried the wage rates in Bennetts in recent years:

Guinness also declined to advise Bennett on any further steps to take in this industrial dispute:

On 5 January 1929, some of the striking workers approached Bennett, offering to return to work on the previous wages. Bennett insisted that all 18 maltsters sign a written agreement on conduct in any future strikes. The agreement was signed by the maltsters and Bennett’s diary entry for 7 January 1929 was brief: ‘Work resumed after strike’. His diary entry for 2 days previously was slightly longer and put the strike into context: ‘Thank God this trouble is over. The only strike that has occurred here in living memory – probably for 100 years’ (Diary of John H Bennett, 5 January 1929). While Bennett expressed understandable relief when the strike was over, it seemed that some bitterness from the strike remained afterwards, as evidenced by Bennett’s decision to decline to contribute to local hurling clubs:

The Cork Examiner newspaper reported (1929: 4) that while ‘acute distress prevailed amongst the strikers’ families’ during the strike period, ‘through the intervention of prominent local residents, an amicable agreement has been arrived at’. The contention of this newspaper report is supported by the fact that at the time of the strike, when Bennett’s assistants were collecting payment from Ballinacurra villagers for milk supplied from Bennett’s dairy, they ‘did not receive a hostile reception’ from villagers (West, 2006: 104).