Three Gotobed references
1. Thomas Gotobed was licencee of the Black Swan tavern in the Gallery, Ely, and leasing a brewery in Broad Street in 1757
2. Benjamin Vipan was a brewer in Mepal in 1830, his daughter Martha married James Gotobed jun. see 3.
3. Gotobed's Brewery, Cambridge. By 1805 James Gotobed sen had acquired the brewery, associated in his time with the Half Moon Inn, Trumpington Street. One of his granddaughters married Alexander Macmillan, joint founder of the famous publishing firm, and another married Robert Bowes, owner of Bowes & Bowes, a famous Cambridge bookshop & publishers.
James died in 1841 and the brewery was taken over by his son, James jun., whose wife was Martha the daughter of Benjamin Vipan the Mepal brewer. He remained the owner until the brewery was offered for sale by auction together with 29 inns and public houses on 22nd June 1850. Possibly James was ill at this time, by 1851 he was described as a retired brewer of 79 Trumpington Street and he died in 1852. Neither of his two sons were interested in the brewery. James Vipan Gotobed married a South African lady and lived for some years in South Africa. He later returned to England and dropped the Gotobed name, as James Vipan he had established an ironmongery business in Leicester by 1881, dying in Bournmouth in 1903. Henry, the other son became a solicitor and coroner in Cambridge, dying in 1894. However there is some record of Henry’s involvement with the Fountain public house in St Ives.
The brewery had closed by 1875 when the Emmanuel Congregational Church was built on the site of the Half Moon Hotel and part of the brewery.
Robert
