Gray's Brewery
| Benjamin Gray was born in 1810 in Little Hampton, West Sussex, were he learned to be a carpenter from his father
Benjamin Gray Snr. At the age of 25 Benjamin married Eliza Ann Emery and by 1837 they had their first child Guildford
Emery Gray. The young family left England in 1838 on the ship 'Resource' and they arrived at Port Adelaide in January
1839. The family settled in Adelaide where Benjamin worked as a carpenter, work was pretty hard to come by and
a new settlement near the Barker Hills was in need for carpenters, so Benjamin decided to move to where there was
more work. Benjamin and his friends Thomas Biddle, Francis Robert Hunt, John Smith and John Forster all purchased a
parcel of land just north of the new township of Mount Barker, all with the plans of starting a new township. The new
town was named after Benjamin's home town Little Hampton. Benjamin and Robert started to brew beer out of Blakiston Hall in 1850. Robert left the brewery by 1852, and Benjamin built a new brewery, and with the assistance of his son Guildford continued the brewery. Guildford moved to Melrose around 1865 leaving Benjamin to brew alone. By the late 1870's Benjamin was in his late 60's and he had an accident at the brewery, a platform he was standing on gave way and he fell into a vat of boiling liquor, he was able to escape from the vat but he died from his injuries six days later. Guildford inherited the brewery, he was, by the 1870's a accomplished brewer and was the head brewer for the Lion Brewery in North Adelaide. Guildford tried to manage the brewery in Little Hampton as well as working at the Lion Brewery, but after 4 years this was too much for him to handle, so he leased the brewery to his cousin Charles Henry Gray. Charles Gray was also an experienced brewer, being a nomadic brewer all over the state since the early 1860s. Grays Bear branded ales were very famous in the country area's but unfortunately he did not have much success in Little Hampton and by 1887 he was declared insolvent. Charles left Little Hampton and moved to Langhorne Creek, leaving Guildford to lease the brewery to the new business owners Edwin and Frank Miels. Charles had taken the Bear brand name with him, so the Miels brothers adopted the Kangaroo as their logo, fortunately the Kangaroo Brewery in Hindmarsh had closed two years prior, so there was no branding issues. Frank Miels died in 1895 leaving Edwin to manage the brewery alone. With the changes to the regulations of breweries at the turn of the 20th century, the lots of the smaller breweries closed including the Little Hampton brewery. The brewery site was then used as a bacon curing factory. |
Gray's Brewery |
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