A November 1839 letter from the owner of the Hawkesbury Brewery , Windsor , Sydney, New South Wales , provided an insight into the great demand for libations. The letter , in the Douglas Stewart Fine Books , Melbourne , latest January acquisitions , for $1750. , was written by Thomas Cadell , from a family who had been involved in the Edinburgh brewing business for generations.
He started the Windsor brewery on the southern bank of the Hawkesbury River in about 1834- a year before Tooth and Newnham established their Kent Brewery on the Parramatta Road.
In the letter Cadell told an uncle back in Scotland the brewery was a financial success by 1839, owing to the high demand for harvest beer among the settlers and the ‘incessant cry of the Publicans for Ale’.
The youngest son of John Cadell, of Cockenzie, near Prestonpans ,Scotland, Thomas joined the Royal Navy at 14 as a midshipman -wonder if he was entitled to a daily grog ration ? In l801 his ship was captured by the French .
After being a prisoner of war for seven years, he escaped across the Channel and went into the Edinburgh brewing business. In l832 he emigrated with his family to New South Wales .
The brewery booming, Cadell also had a two storey residence , named Cockenzie House, built at Windsor, where he married . His parents and other relatives joined him at Windsor and contributed to the success of the business .
There was a suspected arson attack on the brewery in l836.
The bookshop says a combination of factors, including the discovery of gold in New South Wales in 1851 which led to an exodus of much of the male population to the diggings, contributed to the demise of Cadell’s brewing business in the 1850s.
(Brewery. Letter. Colony.)
