I recently came across these images of the old Backus & Johnston brewery in Lima. The Backus and Johnston brewery and ice manufacturing plant was founded in 1879 by the Americans Jacob Backus and John Howard Johnston in Lima’s Rímac District. In 1889, they incorporated “The Backus and Johnston’s Brewery Company Ltd” in London in order to raise investment capital in the joint stock of London to build the business.
Backus and Johnston continued as managing directors of the company until 1898 when Johnston left Peru. Backus died the following year. The company continued operations as a British corporation until 1954, when it was incorporated in Peru as the Cervecería Backus & Johnston S.A. Today, it is Peru’s largest brewing company, controlling upward of 99% of the market.
The studio inscription on the images indicates that they were likely taken by the Garreaud studio of Emilio and Fernando Garreaud.
Emilio Garreaud, a French immigrant, had started a photography studion in Lima in the 1860s but later moved to Chile. As he died four years before the brewery was founded, these photos can be attributed to his son, Fernando, who, though Chilean by birth and upbringing, had traveled throughout Peru between 1898 and 1900 to visually document the country at the turn of the century. Thus, we can conclude that these images of the brewery date from that period.
