HANDS up if you’ve ever tried a glass of Maxwell’s (non-alcoholic) Jubilee Champagne. Me neither… and it’s unlikely ever to happen these days because (a) I think most of us prefer the alcoholic variety and (b) it was made back in 1887 to mark Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee.

At that time Jubilee Champagne, having proved popular in London, was a new speciality to the north, and Mr Isaac Maxwell promised to take great care in its manufacture, ensuring that “his liquors are flavoured with ingredients the wholesomeness of which are beyond suspicion”.

Mr Maxwell, already well known in the Whitehaven district in the bottled beer and stout trade, had decided to branch out and establish “a new manufactory for aerated water” in Schoolhouse Lane. Prior to that he had acted as agent for a Belfast company of fizzy drink makers and, the astute businessman that he was, had decided it was now time to make his own brand. It was also the era when the Temperance movement was in full force and there was a good market out there for ‘pop’… especially if you called it champagne!

Long before sugar became demonised, Maxwell was keen to stress the ‘wholesomeness’ of his products – this at a time when a mixture of butyrate of ethyl and propyl could be used to create a pineapple flavour, acetate of amyl for pear, validate of amyl for apple and formic ether for peach.

He had Ramsay Brothers of Whitehaven’s Phoenix Foundry install the latest machinery, made by W Eagles of Salford and which had been on show at the recent London Brewers’ Exhibition. A contemporary report tells us: “The carbonic acid gas is produced by pouring diluted sulphuric acid into a large lead chamber into which has been previously introduced a quantity of whiting or carbonate of lime. The result is effervescence, which evolves the required gas with great rapidity. The gas is then ‘washed’ to free it from any impurity and is then conveyed to a machine which impregnates water with it under high pressure.”

Maxwell had even installed a self-cleaning filter to ensure that his supply of Ennerdale water was free of any impurities. His flavoured syrup formulas would be kept a trade secret and he had employed a chemist from one of the largest firms in the south to ensure his products hit the right note in public taste.

Lemonade, soda water, orange ale, horehound ale (made with herbs), sparkling water, cider and lime juice were among his products and his ginger ale, he maintained, “retained all the best stomachic properties of the root, not requiring so much adventitious aid of capsicum to strengthen its grip”.

Once the bottles had been ‘syruped’ they were taken to an Eagle turnover bottling machine, to be filled with aerated water, with the pressure of the gas keeping a little glass ball jammed into the bottle neck, in place of a cork. Maxwells could turn out near 15,000 bottles a day.

It was over 70 years later and long after Maxwell’s had moved operations to their Scotch Street premises, that teenager Rita Sayle found herself working in the bottling plant in her first job from leaving school. Now aged 75, and known by her married name Rita Neen, she was just 15 when she started work for Maxwell’s in 1959, and recalls there being about 12 employees in the factory at the time with a Mr Jack Ramsey in charge and a lady working in the shop.

Rita would have to empty the stacked crates and wash the bottles on a circular wheel with brushes on. She later transferred to where the bottles were filled and recalls Vimto, sarsaparilla, lemonade and orangeade being among the most popular flavours. There was plenty of advice from her elder sisters who all worked at Cartmell’s just round the corner on Catherine Street.

After several years Rita, who now lives at Parton, left Mawell’s to go and work at Smith’s paper mill. Maxwell’s closed in the 1980s. The Scotch Street buildings were built in about 1750 and had previously been occupied by McNaughton’s coach builders.