The Derwent Distillery and Artillery Brewery

Citation

All One: A History and Analysis of the Derwent Distillery & Artillery Brewery (1820-1970) : Gore Street, South Hobart, Tasmania. Peter MacFie, 1994 (for Cripps & Assoc.) (15pp)

Outline

A report from 1984 on the early industrial site on the Hobart Rivulet which variously housed a distillery, a brewery and later a woollen mill.

Library copy

Copy available in Society of Australian Geneologists Library

Download as pdf

1994 Derwent Distillery & Artillery Brewery 2018-08-09.pdf

Excerpt

Until 1820, the new Settlement of Hobart Town had no legal alcohol industry. Imported spirits and illegal distilleries abounded, and in an effort to overcome ‘grog fever’, in January 1820 the government relaxed its attitude and allowed contraction of two breweries. One of these was R. W. Loane’s Brewery[1] at Gore Street.

On January 22, 1820, the Hobart Town Gazette reported,

“The foundations of an extensive brewery were laid in the presence of a number of persons by R. W. Loane Esq.”[2]

On completion, Loane’s structure does not appear to have been used as a brewery, as in January 1822 it was advertised as intended for a brewery, but was let as a store or warehouse. (Button, p.53) By August 1823, Loane had the brewery under way once more, with a water race on the opposite side of the rivulet, which transferred water over the creek by a raised platform. In December of 1823 the building was operating as the ‘Derwent Distillery.’[3]

T.Y. Lowes[4], also a distiller on the Rivulet, recalled Loane’s being the first. ‘I recollect that your premises in Macquarie Street were nearly finished when I arrived here in April 1823 and under the direction of Mr Forrest (?) spirits were manufactured there a very short time afterwards.’[5]

John Walker- another Hobart brewer – recalled in 1836 that he had supplied the Derwent Distillery in December 1823 with cracking barley and malt for the building and was in operation long previous to that time.[6]

[1] Roland Walpole Lone – see ADB

[2] (Loane, p. 14)

[3] (op cit p. 54)

[4] Thomas Yardley Lowes – see ADB

[5] (CSO1/101/2432. p.60)

[6] (ibid p. 62)

End of Excerpt

To continue, download the pdf as above or access the library copy.

Indexed words

Aikman, James

alcohol abuse

alcohol production

ale

Artillery Brewery

barley

beer

breweries

Brewery Store

Brotherhood of Myrtle

Brown’s River

Burnett, R. E.

bushfires

Cascade Brewery

Cascade Brewery Company

Cascade Grove

Cascades

Corn Store

cracking barley

Derwent Distillery

Derwent Woollen Mills and Steam Laundry

Dibbin, William

distilleries

Dwyer, Lawrence

Forrest, Mr ?

Franklin, Lt.Gov. Sir John

Friend, Leila Mary

gin

Gracie, William

grog fever

Hackett, James

Hackett, James jr

Hackett, Jane (Mrs James)

Hackett, Leila (Mrs James Jr)

Heyes, John

Hickman, Frank

Hickman, Richard

Hickman’s Joinery

Hobart Town Rivulet

hops

Hutchins School

Huxtable, Mick

inns

Bridgewater Hotel

Golden Gate Inn

Johnstone Woollen Mill

Johnstone, Archibald

Johnstone, David

Loane, Roland Walpole

Lowes, Thomas Yardley

MacFie, Rob

malt

malt houses

malt kilns

Manning, Phil

Messrs Johnstone and Co.

Midwood, Thomas Haigh

Midwood, Tom

Pacoe, Thomas jnr

Pascoe, Cecilia (Mrs Thomas)

Pascoe, Selina (Mrs Thomas)

Pascoe, Thomas

Pascoe, William

Pickering, Roger

Rayner’s Mill

Reid, Paul

ships

Asia 6

Carol J

Cygnet 2

Duke of Richmond

Sorell Distillery

Spirit Store

spirits

Stewart, J. L.

Syme and Co.

Turnbull, John Scott

Walker, John

woollen mill

Peter MacFie, Historian