Liquid History - Exploring South Australia's past, a pint at a time

Henry Lewis, the 'Macclesfield Arms Inn' and the Macclesfield Brewery, 1868-1876

Colonial breweries, the Macclesfield Brewery and Henry Lewis

A short presentation on Henry Lewis and the early years of the Macclesfield Brewery delivered to a 'Lewis family gathering' on 18 November 2023, partly to celebrate the brewing of a facsimile of the Macclesfield ale that won a gold medal at the London International Exhibition in 1873. View here (click to advance slides or use arrow keys) or downloadable as a low resolution (mp4; 2.7MB) or high resolution movie (mp4; 62.67MB); 4 seconds per slide, approx 3 minutes total).

The following are images of several less readily accessible documents used in the presentation plus others that might be of interest.

Memorials summarising two lease agreements between Samuel Davenport and John Marriot Davenport with James Hacket, 10 July 1849 [enlarge] and 11 April 1850 [enlarge]
[Land Services Group, Memorials 55/16 and 184/21]

Memorial 'assigning' Hacket's lease to Henry Lewis, 30 July 1853 [enlarge]
[Land Services Group, Memorial 169/54]

Memorial summarising the lease agreement between John Marriot Davenport and George Devereaux Davenport through their attorney Robert Davenport with Henry Lewis, 22 May 1855 [enlarge]
[Land Services Group, Memorial 76/87]

Memorial summarising the lease agreement between Henry Lewis and brewer Samuel Coleman, 26 October 1856 [enlarge]
[Land Services Group, Memorial 320/110]

Certificate of Title 115/76 officially documenting Henry Lewis' purchase of lots 90, 91, 83 and 84, Township and Hundred of Macclesfield, 3 June 1868, including subsequent transfers of ownership etc to May 1876 [download complete Certificate; .pdf, 1.1MB]
[Land Services Group, CT 115/76]

Memorial summarising the 'assignment' of "inter alia all and singular the real and personal estate, property and effects of what nature or description soever and wheresoever" of Henry Lewis and conveying (transferring) it to Algernon Sidney Clark as trustee of Henry Lewis' estate, 8 December 1870 [enlarge]
[Land Services Group, Memorial 199/250]

District Council of Macclesfield Assessment Book, 1879 [earliest available] showing the assessments (including rated values) for the Davenport Arms and the "Southern Cross Brewery" [enlarge]
[State Records of South Australia MRG4/2/00000/1]

Detail of a Plan of Macclesfield "probably in the 1840s" and possibly showing the location of the Goat's Head Inn, the "dwelling house" and the brewery or spring [the complete Plan]
[From Anna Pope & Claire Booth, District Council of Mount Barker Heritage Survey, p.74, 2004]

Below are various photographs of the Macclesfield Brewery or the Creamery that succeeded, various dates. The photograph of the Macclesfield Brewery used in the presentation came from the State Library's Macclesfield Collection.

Panorama of Macclesfield in the 1880s [enlarge]
[SLSA B-12540]

Detail of panorama of Macclesfield in about 1900 [enlarge]
[SLSA B-29502]

Macclesfield Creamery in about 1905; note the stone-walled cellar [enlarge]
[SLSA B-36804]

Remains of the Macclesfield Brewery, about 2004 (Anna Pope & Claire Booth) [enlarge]
[Anna Pope & Claire Booth, District Council of Mount Barker Heritage Survey, Part 2, p.193, 2004]