The man who famously declared war on mobile phones and foul language in his pubs has passed away at the age of 81. John Bexon, the former managing director of Wadworth Brewery, transformed the way many Britons experience their local. His death marks the end of an era for a brewing tradition that valued civility and conversation over digital distraction.
Bexon took the helm of the Devizes based brewery in 1985, at a time when pub culture was already beginning its slow erosion. He implemented a strict code of conduct in Wadworth pubs: no mobile phones, no swearing, and no hats. The rules were not merely quaint. They were a deliberate attempt to preserve a social space that had existed for centuries. Bexon understood something fundamental about thermodynamics and social order. Every system left to entropy degrades. Pubs were no exception.
His approach was empirical. He observed that phone use reduced conversation by measurable amounts. He noted that swearing escalated tensions, and that hats obscured faces making communication less human. His pubs became laboratories for social physics. The results were clear: enforced norms increased customer satisfaction and repeat visits.
Bexon’s career spanned a period of immense change in the British pub industry. The number of pubs in the UK has declined from around 69,000 in 1980 to fewer than 48,000 today. The causes are manifold: higher beer duties, the smoking ban, changing leisure habits, and the rise of cheap supermarket alcohol. But Bexon’s pubs bucked the trend. They maintained a steady clientele even as others closed. His insistence on a certain standard of behaviour was not nostalgia. It was survival.
Critics called him authoritarian. Supporters called him visionary. The data sided with Bexon. His pubs had lower turnover of staff and fewer incidents of anti social behaviour. They were safer spaces for women and older patrons. They were, in his words, “how a pub should be.”
The irony is that Bexon himself was a heavy drinker in his youth. He dropped out of school and worked in a brewery before rising through the ranks. He understood the allure of alcohol and the dangers of excess. He did not want his pubs to become temples of drunkenness. He wanted them to be extensions of home. Warm. Civil. Human.
His death comes as the UK faces a new energy transition in its pub industry. The cost of living crisis, the shift to low and no alcohol drinks, and the accelerating digitisation of payments and reservations all threaten the traditional model. Bexon’s legacy may offer a template for resilience. The data suggests that pubs which enforce a clear identity, whether through rules on phones or through beer selection, outperform those that try to be everything to everyone.
The biosphere of British pub culture is collapsing. But small pockets of high biodiversity remain. Pubs like those under Bexon’s stewardship are refuges. They are rare. They are precious. They are worth mourning.
John Bexon leaves behind a wife, three children, and a brewery that continues to operate under his principles. The phones are still banned in Wadworth pubs. The swearing still costs you your custom. And the hats still come off at the door. The tradition continues. But the man who started it is gone.
