It is with the greatest sadness that Arkell’s Brewery in Swindon, one of the UK’s few remaining Family Breweries, announces the death of former chairman, Peter Arkell OBE. Before joining Arkell’s in 1954, Peter flew Spitfires, Mustangs and Lysanders behind enemy lines during the Second World War, delivering and retrieving secret agents and provisions under cover of darkness.
Peter, 87, passed away peacefully at home in Whelford, near Kempsford, Cirencester on Friday morning. He is survived by his wife, Anne (herself from brewing stock in Norfolk), children James (current chairman of Arkell’s Brewery) Jane Bayley, Rosalind Arkell and Alison Jenkinson and their families, as well as his one surviving brother and three sisters.
Born in 1923, Peter Arkell, the second eldest son of Sir Noel (his older brother died during the war), joined the family brewing business as a director in 1954. A war veteran who served with the RAF in France and Burma, Peter spent a year in hospital after his Lysander aircraft crashed behind enemy lines in Burma.
After the war he considered resuming his degree at Edinburgh University but was offered a job at Hammonds Brewery in Yorkshire – later taken over by Tadcaster Tower Brewery.
In 1954 he returned to join the family business in Swindon as a director and became Chairman in 1971. Peter’s return to Arkell’s Brewery heralded a new age for the then 91-year old brewery, bringing fresh perspectives from his time in Yorkshire and a new informality within the traditional old brewery reflecting the signs of the times in Britain after the war had ended.
He also spotted early the growing trend amongst consumers for wine and the increased interest in dining out. Responding to this, in 1962 the brewery set up John Arkell Vintners – now a hugely successful and integral part of Arkell’s Brewery’s activities and one of the largest wine distributors in the area.
Peter, who was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 1997, once said: “My initials are ‘PA’ – Pale Ale. I was born in the brewery and I married a brewer’s daughter – I’m in it up to my neck.”
