History at Harts Black Horse Brewery

Brewery Timeline

1861
May – Gold discovered in Gabriel’s Gully, N.Z’s first payable gold strike enticing more than 11,500 people to the area in temperatures that reached minus 20 degrees C.
July – Gold discovered at Weatherstons. Within a week 1,500 men flooded this valley.

1862 
August - Hartley & Reilly’s Dunstan strike led to a mass exodus to the interior leaving only two miners – Sam Gare and Ben Hart.

1863
Beer first brewed at Weatherstons in Henry Coverlid’s shaving saloon.

1865 
London Brewery erected in Blue Jacket Gully. (Blue Jacket refers to a colonial ship) Finance supplied by Peter Robertson.

1868 
Henry Coverlid sells brewery & goes on to make softdrink.
November - Horace Bastings with brewer Johannes Kofoed lease brewery with successful results.

1869
March – Tenders called to construct new brewery buildings.
April - Purchase brewery for £350, also applying to purchase 3 acres land freehold.
October - Approved subject to Goldfield Warden’s consent and land being deemed non-auriferous.

1870
First Total Abstinence meeting held.

1874 
April – Malt House completed
July – Partnership between Bastings and Kofoed dissolved. William Hayes purchased Basting’s shares for £2,686 18s 6d. (Hayes builder of 1st Beaumont Bridge)

1875
Hayes & Kofoed purchase 48 acres land around brewery for £1 per acre.

1878
Brewery in financial distress mortgaged to Alex McNab

1879 
Black Horse Gold Mining Co. formed.
June – Kofoed sold brewery shares to Hayes for £1800.
July – Hayes sold Kofoed’s shares to McNab. Kofoed opens Black Horse Brewery in Milton with brother.
December – Mining Co sold under distress warrant. Brewery offered for mortgagee sale, no takers. Hayes declared bankrupt.

1880 
Henry Clayton purchased brewery for £1850. J.K. Simpson employed as brewer.

1882 
Simpson resigns, goes to Christchurch.

1884 
Brewery leased to J.K. Simpson and Ben Hart. The Black Horse rose to be Otago’s most successful provincial brewery, famed throughout the goldfields and from Canterbury to Bluff.

1889 
Black Horse bottled stout wins at the Dunedin & South Seas Exhibition, 1889-90.

1891
Kofoed declared bankrupt and leaves country.

1892 
 First Arbor day - The Domain Board supplied the trees for 2d each and included Lombardy poplars, sycamores and hawthorns. Over 2,000 trees were planted in and around the Lawrence Township, 60 of these at Weatherstons.

1894
Clutha District is first to fall to prohibition and last to ease, not ending till the 1950’s.

1895 
Simpson & Hart purchase premises. Rhododendrons & daffodils planted, gardens established.

1908 
Prohibition carried nationally, closing 11 hotels in the district.

1909 
Private company formed with a capital of £20,000, shared equally between Simpson and the Hart family.
Horace Bastings dies in Auckland.

1912 
First train excursion to daffodil fields organised by Dunedin Horticultural Society. Two trains of 13 carriages.

1917 
Ben Hart dies.

1923 
October – Brewing rights purchased by NZ Breweries for £24,000. Brewery closed down, all employees offered work at Speights Brewery in Dunedin.

1937 
1500 people visit the brewery daffodils, arriving by road & rail, requiring 3 trains from Dunedin.
J.K. Simpson dies.

2005 
March - Brewery gates open to public for Cavalcade.
September – First time in 50 years daffodils on public display.
 

   
Daffodil History

The daffodils on the north side of the brewery were first planted in 1895, sourced from as far as the Netherlands, with no expense spared. Prices as high as £100 were paid for a single bulb. This is astounding when you think that the average wage was less than £5 per week. 10 - 15 acres were planted with the help of the brewery workers. It is thought that a million bulbs were planted. Today they have cross-pollinated into uncounted varieties. More Daffodil info here

Gold in Lawrence

(With thanks to the Lawrence Information Centre)

Gold was discovered in May 1861 by Gabriel Read, close to where the Pick and Shovel monument now stands. The ‘Goldrush’ began almost immediately. By the end of 1861 there were 11,500 miners living in the ‘Gully’ and almost as many again, scattered around Blue Spur, Munroe’s Gully, Weatherstons, and Waitahuna.  More on Lawrence gold here