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Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Trove Tuesday: The Carlton Brewery in pictures

Woodcut image of the Carlton Brewery, 1870

No title (1870, December 10). Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), p. 10 (TOWN EDITION). Retrieved June 6, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article219366218

The Carlton Brewery was five years old in 1870, when the woodcut above was published. The accompanying extensive article describes a large and busy operation with a smoke stack 105 feet high (30 metres). On site were boilers, crushers, a steam engine, refrigeration, thousands of bags of malt and hops, liquor in various stages of fermentation, not to mention barrels of the finished product.

The large stables (at the back left of the woodcut image) could house 20 horses “with every convenience that a man who regardeth the life of his beast could desire”. It sounds like life was pretty good for the beasts.

I wonder what life was like for the neighbours?

This image was a particularly good find for me, because Francis McMahon and Ellen Keogh (my 2xgreat grandparents) lived next to Carlton Brewery in Ballarat street (a street which no longer exists) for at least 40 years. From my reading of maps and street directories, I think they lived in one of the houses I have shaded red, below.

image

A later newspaper article (1904) also found on Trove provides a glimpse into the interior of the Brewery buildings and gives some idea of the scale of the Brewery.

“The Boiler House”

image


“Engine Room
Hercules Refrigerator or Ice Machine, having a capacity of 40 tons per day”

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“Bottling by Machinery”

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More images are available in the article.

VICTORIAN INDUSTRIES. (1904, November 3). Punch (Melbourne, Vic. : 1900 - 1918; 1925), pp. 25-26. Retrieved June 6, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article175405919



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