3-016-926 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Shakspeare Commemoration at Stratford-On-Avon: Mr. E. F. Flower, the Mayor of Stratford, 1864. Portrait of '...Edward Fordham Flower, the Mayor of Stratford-on-Avon, who has exerted himself so much in the last six months to make all the arrangements for the Shakspeare festival...[He] settled at Stratford-on-Avon, where, two years before, he had inscribed his name in the visitors' book in Shakspeare's house as "Citizen of the World." The Duke of Wellington's Government had just then taken the tax off brewery beer. Until then there had been few public breweries in Warwickshire; but, in 1832, Mr. Flower opened a brewery. He went steadily on, and ultimately achieved a fair amount of success. At the end of thirty years he gave up the brewery to two of his sons...He is a magistrate for the county of Warwick, and has been four times Mayor of Stratford-on-Avon, having served in the years '51 and '52, after which he retired from holding office in the town until two years ago. Then, in anticipation of the "Tercentenary" [of William Shakespeare's birth], a numerously-signed requisition from the inhabitants was sent to induce him again to become Mayor, that he might take a leading part in celebrating this occasion'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.