West End Brewery

The West End Brewery was a South Australian brewer of beer founded in 1859 and closed in 1980. West End became a brand of the South Australian Brewing Company, and continues to this day.

History

West End Brewery 1880
West End Brewery 1920

Some time around 1844 William Henry Clark (approx. 1815–1870), an Irish immigrant to South Australia, founded the Halifax Street Brewery;[1] to the nearby inhabitants a most unwelcome addition to the neighbourhood due to the stench of the liquid he discharged into Gilles Street.[2]

In July 1854 Clark, with partners J. B. Spence, J. H. Parr and Edward Logue, took over Crawford brothers' Hindmarsh Brewery in order to close it down and supply its customers from the Halifax Street brewery.[3] The business continued however under E. J. F. Crawford.[4]
William Knox Simms and John Hayter operated the Pirie Street brewery from 1851 to 1855 when Hayter left the partnership. This brewery was also not popular with those living nearby.[5]

Simms took over the Halifax Street operation in March 1856,[1] then in February 1858 Clark sold the property to Henry Noltenius. In July 1858 Noltenius took in Simms as a partner, then in November 1858 sold him his interest in the business. Clark meanwhile had borrowed money from John Haimes[6] to build a new brewery on Town Acre 66 at the south side of Hindley Street, midway between Morphett Street and West Terrace.

Noltenius found himself in financial difficulties, and neither Simms nor Clark could repay any of the £3,530 they collectively owed him, which resulted in his insolvency.[7] Clark moved to Victoria in 1860, and thereby evaded his creditors, and probably died there some time before 1873.[8]

In 1859 a consortium of Simms, Haimes, and Edgar Chapman founded the "West End Brewery" on the Hindley Street property, and invested heavily in establishing buildings, in cellar construction, and equipping the brewery with all the latest refinements.[9][10] The location had the advantage of proximity to the Parklands (less smell nuisance), the Port Road (transport of raw materials and finished product) and the River Torrens (handy for discharge of effluent). By October 1859 W. H. Clark (!) was advertising barrels of "West End Ale" for sale to publicans at ₤2/2s.[11] They closed their smaller, competing establishments, which included Halifax Street.

Simms ran the business with help from Clark's brewer John Plummer Gardner.[12] W. K. Simms bought the company in 1861; Edgar Chapman was his partner 1865–1879. An extensive contemporary description of the brewery may be read here. The West End Brewery proved highly profitable and Simms and Chapman became wealthy men. They joined with Edwin Smith, who in 1876 built a large brewery complete with its own malting facilities at Kent Town, William Rounsevell and Alfred Simms, as the South Australian Brewing, Malting & Wine & Spirit Co. Ltd., enlarging the brewing facilities at West End, and centering the malting work at Kent Town. In 1893 they sold off their wine and spirit business to A. E. & F. Tolley Pty Ltd and Milne & Co., and the name was changed to South Australian Brewing Company, Limited.[13]

The company began a campaign of purchasing hotels freehold or leasehold, and by the end of the 1880s had a stranglehold on the Adelaide market, owning 44 hotels and leasing 65. Until 1974, when the Whitlam government revised the Trade Practices Act they were legally able to dispense only the company's beer in their pubs.[6]
Robert Stock, Edwin Smith’s brother-in-law and manager of the Kent Town Brewery became chairman of the board and general manager of SA Brewing; Stock died in 1904 and Samuel Jacobs served from 1904 to 1937. Jacobs' son (later Sir) Roland Jacobs was managing director from 1948 to 1967.[6]

From 1955 operations were split between the company's two major factories, with the West End brewery making only draught beer in kegs; bottled beer only was produced at the Thebarton ("Nathan", later "Southwark")[14] plant. In 1980, faced with mounting problems with traffic on West Terrace and ageing and inefficient equipment, not to mention the rapidly increasing value of City land, the brewery closed and the property sold.[6]

Further reading

A useful article depicting practical details of brewing in Adelaide (West End, Kent Town, Union, Pirie Street/Adelaide, Hindmarsh, Morphett Street, and Walkerville breweries) in the late 1860s may be read here.

References

  1. 1 2 "Advertising". South Australian Register. XX, (2946). South Australia. 12 March 1856. p. 1. Retrieved 20 May 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. ↑ "Health of the City". The South Australian. XIII, (1204). South Australia. 16 December 1850. p. 2. Retrieved 24 September 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ↑ "Advertising". Adelaide Times. VIII, (1229). South Australia. 17 July 1854. p. 2. Retrieved 18 December 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. ↑ "The Hindmarsh Brewery". Adelaide Observer. XXVI, (1392). South Australia. 6 June 1868. p. 14. Retrieved 18 December 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ↑ "Board of City Commissioners". Adelaide Observer. IX, (440). South Australia. 29 November 1851. p. 2. Retrieved 18 December 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Alison Painter. "South Australian Brewing Co. Ltd". Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  7. ↑ "Insolvency Court". South Australian Register. XXIV, (4272). South Australia. 23 June 1860. p. 3. Retrieved 23 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  8. ↑ "Adelaide in the Olden Time". South Australian Register. XXXVIII, (8210). South Australia. 11 March 1873. p. 4. Retrieved 23 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. ↑ "South Australian Manufactures: Simms's Brewery". South Australian Register. XXV, (4466). South Australia. 7 February 1861. p. 3. Retrieved 23 May 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. ↑ "The Imperial Brewery". South Australian Register. XL, (8818). South Australia. 18 February 1875. p. 5. Retrieved 23 May 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. ↑ "Classified Advertising". The South Australian Advertiser. II, (404). South Australia. 26 October 1859. p. 1. Retrieved 17 December 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. ↑ "The Late Mr. Gardner". South Australian Weekly Chronicle. II, (90). South Australia. 7 April 1860. p. 3. Retrieved 23 May 2017 – via National Library of Australia. Gardner was murdered by a fellow miner at the Inglewood, Victoria diggings c. 1 April 1860.
  13. ↑ "South Australian Brewing Company". The Advertiser (Adelaide). XXXV, (10722). South Australia. 28 February 1893. p. 6. Retrieved 18 December 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  14. ↑ "Nathan Beer Renamed: 'Same Brew'". The News (Adelaide). 57, (8, 818). South Australia. 12 November 1951. p. 2. Retrieved 30 December 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
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