Richard Marsh

1678 - 1731

The young entrepreneur, Richard Marsh, leased the brewery from Hilton’s executors in 1678 and twenty years later, in 1698, was able to buy it outright signalling the official start of the history of the Shepherd Neame brewery as we know it today.

Marsh benefitted from the decline of small, publican and home brewers, but did have to contend with the rise of a competitor in the shape of the brewery of Alexander Bax. Bax’s smaller scale brewery, which was ultimately taken over by the Rigden family, faced that of Shepherd Neame on the opposite side of Court Street until it closed in 1991.

In an innovative move, Marsh decided to take a hand in the distribution side of the beer business and bought The Three Tuns in Tanners Street (which remains a Shepherd Neame pub today) and The Castle in West Street.

Richard Marsh died in 1726 leaving the business to his son, Richard Marsh II, who unfortunately also died within a year. Richard II’s widow, Mary Marsh, was the daughter of competitor Alexander Bax, and used her own brewing know-how to save the business. She remarried, was widowed again, and, in 1732, married a third time to one Samuel Shepherd.