Aeneas Coffey

Aeneas Coffey (1780–1839) was an Irish inventor, and distiller.

Coffey was born in Calais, France in 1780 to Irish parents and was educated at Trinity College, Dublin. He entered the excise service around 1799–1800 as a gauger. He married Susanna Logie in 1808, and they had a son, also named Aeneas, who may have been their only child.

Customs and Excise Officer

According to British customs and excise records, he was a remarkable man with widespread interests and multiple talents who rose quickly through the excise service ranks. He was appointed sub-commissioner of Inland Excise and Taxes for the district of Drogheda in 1813. He was appointed Surveyor of Excise for Clonmel and Wicklow in 1815. In 1816 he was promoted to the same post at Cork. By 1818 he was Acting Inspector General of Excise for the whole of Ireland and within 2 years was eventually promoted to Inspector General of Excise in Dublin, Ireland.

He was a strong, determined upholder of the law, but aware of its shortcomings. He survived many nasty skirmishes with illegal distillers and smugglers, particularly in the north and west of Ireland where moonshining was most rife. On several occasions he proposed to the government simple, pragmatic solutions to rules and regulations which had hampered legal distillers. Not all of his ideas were accepted. Between 1820 and 1824 he submitted reports and gave evidence to Parliamentary Commissions of Inquiry on many aspects of distilling, including formalising the different spellings of Irish whiskey and Scotch whisky. His 1822 report was solidly backed by the Irish distillers. He believed in making it viable to distill legally, and illegal distilling might largely disappear.

He assisted the government in the drafting of the 1823 Excise Act which made it easier to distil legally. It sanctioned the distilling of whiskey in return for a licence fee of £10, and a set payment per gallon of proof spirit. It also provided for the appointment of a single Board of Excise, under Treasury control, for the whole of the United Kingdom, replacing the separate Excise boards for England, Scotland and Ireland. The 1823 Excise Act also provided for not more than four assistant commissioners of excise to transact current business in Scotland and Ireland, under the control of the board in London.

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