Trove Tuesday: The Carlton Brewery in pictures

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.

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”

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

“Bottling by Machinery”

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

A quick mud map of death search resources in Victoria, Australia

Need to knock some relatives from Victoria, Australia off your tree? 
These are the online sources I most frequently use to find deaths in Victoria.

Birth, death and marriage registrations:
Now free to search the indexes! If you find the one you want you can pay to download an image.

• Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria

Electoral rolls:
Use the electoral rolls to find out the person’s full name, where they lived, and when they disappeared from the roll (could be when they died).

• Ancestry, Australian Electoral Rolls, 1903-1980 ($)

Death notices:

• Up to 1955 try Trove newspapers.
• Up to the 1980s if the date is known try The Age on Google Newspapers.
• From 1998(?) to today try the Herald Sun Tributes.
• Any time – the Ryerson index could be worth a shot.

Wills and Probate:

• Public Records Office of Victoria, Wills and Probate.
  Indexes up to 2013. Records up to 1925 are digitised and can be downloaded for free with more years coming. I love the PROV.

Cemeteries:
In some cases you will find burial records, in some you will find headstone information. If you can, get both.

I can’t cover every cemetery, but generally speaking…

• Google “Cemetery near place, Victoria” where ‘place’ is where the person lived.
• Look for cemeteries on Australian Cemeteries. It has links to online databases, headstone images sites or contact details for each cemetery.

Burial registers

Some of the bigger search sites in metropolitan areas that cover multiple cemeteries are:

• Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust 
  (includes “The Necropolis” Springvale)
• Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust 
  (includes Fawkner)
• Geelong Cemeteries Trust

Headstones

Headstone lists (photos available on request) for many cemeteries outside of metropolitan areas can be found on Carol's Headstone Photographs.

BillionGraves has enough coverage of Victoria that it’s worth trying.

 

Good luck!