-
52cm x 44cm The London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) was a British railway company. It was formed on 1 January 1923 under the Railways Act of 1921,which required the grouping of over 120 separate railways into four. The companies merged into the LMS included the London and North Western Railway, Midland Railway, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (which had previously merged with the London and North Western Railway on 1 January 1922), several Scottish railway companies (including the Caledonian Railway), and numerous other, smaller ventures. Besides being the world's largest transport organisation, the company was also the largest commercial enterprise in the British Empire and the United Kingdom's second largest employer, after the Post Office. In 1938, the LMS operated 6,870 miles (11,056 km) of railway (excluding its lines in Northern Ireland), but its profitability was generally disappointing, with a rate of return of only 2.7%. Under the Transport Act 1947, along with the other members of the "Big Four" British railway companies (Great Western Railway, London and North Eastern Railway and Southern Railway), the LMS was nationalised on 1 January 1948, becoming part of the state-owned British Railways. The LMS was the largest of the Big Four railway companies serving routes in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The LMS's commercial success in the 1920s resulted in part from the contributions of English painter, Norman Wilkinson. In 1923, Wilkinson advised Superintendent of Advertising and Publicity of the LMS, T.C Jeffrey, to improve rail sales and other LMS services by incorporating fine art into the design of their advertisement posters. In this time, fine art already had a distinguished association in Europe and North America with good taste, longevity and quality.[26] Jeffrey wanted LMS’ commercial image to align with these qualities and therefore accepted Wilkinson's advice.[27] For the first series of posters, Wilkinson personally invited 16 of his fellow alumni from the Royal Academy of London to take part. In letter correspondence, Wilkinson outlined the details of the LMS proposal to the artists.The artist fee for each participant was £100. The railway poster would measure 50 X 40 inches. In this area, the artist's design would be reproduced as a photolithographic print on double royal satin paper, filling 45 X 35 inches. The mass-produced posters were pasted inside railway stations in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. LMS decided the subject advertised, but choices of style and approach were left to the artist's discretion. LMS’ open design brief resulted in a collection of posters that reflected the large capacity of destinations and experiences available with the transport organisation.For the Irish Free State, Wilkinson designed a poster in 1927 encouraging the public to avail of the LMS ferry and connecting boat trains to Ireland. For this promotion, Wilkinson's design was accompanied with four posters of Ireland by Belfast modernist painter, Paul Henry. The commercial success of Wilkinson and Jeffrey's collaboration manifested between 1924 and 1928, with public sale of 12,000 railway posters.Paul Henry's 1925 poster depicting the Gaeltacht region of Connemara in County Galway proved most commercially popular, with 1,500 sales. Paul Henry (11 April 1876 – 24 August 1958) was an Irish artist noted for depicting the West of Ireland landscape in a spare Post-Impressioniststyle. Henry was born at 61 University Road, Belfast, Ireland, the son of the Rev Robert Mitchell Henry, a Baptist minister (who later joined the Plymouth Brethren), and Kate Ann Berry. Henry began studying at Methodist College Belfast in 1882 where he first began drawing regularly. At the age of fifteen he moved to the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.He studied art at the Belfast School of Art before going to Paris in 1898 to study at the Académie Julian and at Whistler's Académie Carmen. He married the painter Grace Henry in 1903 and returned to Ireland in 1910. From then until 1919 he lived on Achill Island, where he learned to capture the peculiar interplay of light and landscape specific to the West of Ireland. In 1919 he moved to Dublin and in 1920 was one of the founders of the Society of Dublin Painters, originally a group of ten artists. Henry designed several railway posters, some of which, notably Connemara Landscape, achieved considerable sales.He separated from his wife in 1929. His second wife was the artist Mabel Young. In the 1920s and 1930s Henry was Ireland's best known artist, one who had a considerable influence on the popular image of the west of Ireland. Although he seems to have ceased experimenting with his technique after he left Achill and his range is limited, he created a large body of fine images whose familiarity is a testament to its influence. Henry's use of colour was affected by his red-green color blindness.He lost his sight during 1945 and did not regain his vision before his death. A commemorative exhibition of Henry's work was held at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1973 and the National Gallery of Ireland held a major exhibition of his work in 2004. A painting by Henry was featured on an episode of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, broadcast on 12 November 2006. The painting was given a value of approximately £40,000–60,000 by the roadshow. However, due to the buoyancy of the Irish art market at that time, it sold for €260,000 on 5 December 2006 in James Adams' and Bonhams' joint Important Irish Art sale. He died at his home at 1 Sidmonton Square, Bray, County Wicklow, and was survived by his wife, Mabel. -
44cm x 52cmMountjoy Brewery Ltd, Russell Street, Dublin, Ireland. Founded 1852. Known as Findlater & Co. until June 1891. Closed 1957. From the Brewery History society Journal Number 91 Founded by Alexander Findlater, a Scottish businessman, in 1852. Primarily a porter brewer but later ale brewers. They enjoyed local, military and export trade with markets in the UK and the colonies. The brewery passed into the hands of Messrs Malone & Blood in 1900 and had by this time become the largest exporter of porter next to Guinness through the port of Dublin. It outlived all its rivals in Dublin apart from Guinness and closed in 1957.Entry in the Trade Mark Registry Registration No : 5,664 Description : Three castles in shield Date of Application : 13/5/1876 Used Prior to 1875? : 10 years
Registration No : 5,665 Description : Crown in shield Date of Application : 13/5/1876 Used Prior to 1875? : 10 years Registration No : 156,739 Description : Label design Date of Application : 26/5/1891 Used Prior to 1875? : Since Aug 1875 Registration No : 372,597 Description : Joy (word) Date of Application : 19/04/1916 Used Prior to 1875? : NO -
30cm x 65cmBEFORE THE ADVENT of opinion polls, by-elections were the most reliable means of gauging the mood of the electorate.For decades before the 1916 Rising, Irish nationalists represented by the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) sought Irish home rule – a subordinate parliament and government in Dublin.But the emergence of Sinn Féin, which championed an independent Irish republic, transformed the political landscape. In 1917 Sinn Féin won four by-elections on the bounce in North Roscommon, South Longford, East Clare and South Kilkenny.No victory was more emphatic than East Clare and no winning candidate more central to the future history of Ireland.A political noviceThe victor was a political novice with little experience of public speaking outside the classroom. The senior surviving Volunteer from 1916, he was largely unknown before the East Clare by-election.But after it he was catapulted to national prominence, became president of Sinn Féin and represented East Clare for the next four decades. That soldier turned politician was De Valera .The East Clare by-election on July 10 was precipitated by the death on the Western Front of the sitting MP: Major Willie Redmond, brother of the leader of the IPP.Patrick Lynch KC, a barrister, contested the seat for the IPP under the banner: “Clare for a Clareman – Lynch is the Man”. His supporters, who were strongest in Ennis, contended that an Irish republic was a political fantasy. For several reasons, few expected anything other than a Sinn Féin victory.One of the most rebellious counties in IrelandFirst, Clare was one of the most rebellious counties in Ireland and during the by-election the county inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary had to obtain a draft of 150 soldiers. Eight months after the by-election Clare became the first county to be placed under military rule since the 1916 Rising.Second, no election had been contested in East Clare since 1895 and the IPP’s constituency machine was decrepit and almost bankrupt. By contrast, the Sinn Féin campaign was highly organised and backboned by the revamped Irish Volunteers who were unafraid to defy the authorities and acted as a private police force.De Valera, who had only been released from prison on 16 June, campaigned in his Volunteer uniform and told the electors that, “every vote you give now is as good as the crack of a rifle in proclaiming your desire for freedom”.Third, buoyed up by its earlier electoral successes Sinn Féin attracted not just the support of the young but that of the Clare Champion (the county newspaper) and, more significantly, the endorsement of Bishop Michael Fogarty of Killaloe and the majority of younger clergy. The Catholic card was played astutely and reassuringly by de Valera.Although everyone expected a victory for de Valera, no one expected so stunning a winning margin. When the result of the election was announced on July 11 de Valera had secured 5,010 votes to Lynch’s 2,035.A game changerThe rural vote had turned against the IPP. The Freeman’s Journal, the newspaper of the IPP, lamented that, “East Clare has declared for revolution by an overwhelming majority”. Lynch was not the man after all.The East Clare by-election was a milestone for Sinn Féin because it secured a striking popular mandate which helped the organisation to continue its rapid growth ahead of the 1918 general election.For de Valera his victory was a pivotal episode in his progression from militant to political republican. More than any other factor, the scale of his success propelled him to the presidency of Sinn Féin in October 1917 and launched his long political career. For a man who in the early months of 1917 wished to have no truck with politics this was quite a turn of events. -
45cm x 45cm The "Manchester Martyrs" is a term used by Irish nationalists to refer to three men—William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin and Michael O'Brien—who were executed following their conviction of murder in 1867 after an attack on a police van in Manchester, England, in which a police officer was accidentally shot dead, an incident that was known at the time as the "Manchester Outrages". The three were members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, also known as the Fenians, an organisation dedicated to ending British rule in Ireland, and were among a group of 30–40 Fenians who attacked a horse-drawn police van transporting two arrested leaders of the Brotherhood, Thomas J. Kelly and Timothy Deasy, to Belle Vue Gaol. Police Sergeant Charles Brett, travelling inside with the keys, was shot and killed while looking through the keyhole of the van as the attackers attempted to force the door open by shooting the lock. Kelly and Deasy were released after another prisoner in the van took the keys from Brett's body and passed them to the group outside through a ventilation grill; the pair were never recaptured, despite an extensive search. Although Allen and Larkin admitted taking part in the attack, none of the defendants was accused of firing the fatal shot, but they were convicted on the basis of "joint enterprise" for taking part in a criminal enterprise that ended in the killing. The trial has nonetheless been described by an eminent Irish historian as "unsatisfactory", and the evidence as "dubious".Two others were also charged and found guilty of Brett's murder, Thomas Maguire and Edward O'Meagher Condon, but their death sentences were overturned—O'Meagher Condon's through the intercession of the United States government (he was an American citizen), and Maguire's because the evidence given against him was considered unsatisfactory by the court. Allen, Larkin and O'Brien were publicly hanged on a temporary structure built on the wall of Salford Gaol, on 23 November 1867, in front of a crowd of 8,000–10,000. Ireland reacted with revulsion and anger to the executions,and Allen, Larkin and O'Brien were hailed as political martyrs. Annual commemorations were held throughout Ireland, and monuments were built in many Irish towns.Brett, the first Manchester City Policeofficer to be killed on duty, is memorialised in a monument in St Ann's Church. -
48cm x 38cm Limerick In 1791 James Power, an innkeeper from Dublin, established a small distillery at his public house at 109 Thomas St., Dublin. The distillery, which had an output of about 6,000 gallons in its first year of operation, initially traded as James Power and Son, but by 1822 had become John Power & Son, and had moved to a new premises at John's Lane, a side street off Thomas Street. At the time the distillery had three pot stills, though only one, a 500-gallon still is thought to have been in use. Following reform of the distilling laws in 1823, the distillery expanded rapidly. In 1827, production was reported at 160,270 gallons,and by 1833 had grown to 300,000 gallons per annum. As the distillery grew, so too did the stature of the family. In 1841, John Power, grandson of the founder was awarded a baronet, a hereditary title. In 1855, his son Sir James Power, laid the foundation stone for the O'Connell Monument, and in 1859 became High Sheriff of Dublin. In 1871, the distillery was expanded and rebuilt in the Victorian style, becoming one of the most impressive sights in Dublin.After expansion, output at the distillery rose to 700,000 gallons per annum, and by the 1880s, had reached about 900,000 gallons per annum, at which point the distillery covered over six acres of central Dublin, and had a staff of about 300 people.During this period, when the Dublin whiskey distilleries were amongst the largest in the world, the family run firms of John Powers, along with John Jameson, William Jameson, and George Roe, (collectively known as the "Big Four") came to dominate the Irish distilling landscape, introducing several innovations. In 1886, John Power & Son began bottling their own whiskey, rather than following the practice customary at the time, of selling whiskey directly to merchants and bonders who would bottle it themselves. They were the first Dublin distillery to do so, and one of the first in the world.A gold label adorned each bottle and it was from these that the whiskey got the name Powers Gold Label. When Alfred Barnard, the British historian visited John's Lane in the late 1880s, he noted the elegance and cleanliness of the buildings, and the modernity of the distillery, describing it as "about as complete a work as it is possible to find anywhere". At the time of his visit, the distillery was home to five pot stills, two of which with capacities of 25,000 gallons, were amongst the largest ever built.In addition, Barnard was high in his praise for Powers whiskey, noting:"The old make, which we drank with our luncheon was delicious and finer than anything we had hitherto tasted.It was as perfect in flavour, and as pronounced in the ancient aroma of Irish Whiskey so dear to to the hearts of connoisseurs,as one could possibly desire and we found a small flask of it very useful afterwards on our travels." The last member of the family to sit on the board was Sir Thomas Talbot Power,who died in 1930,and with him the Power's Baronetcy. However, ownership remained in the family until 1966, and several descendants of his sisters remained at work with the company until recent times. In 1961, a Coffey still was installed in John's Lane Distillery, allowing the production of vodka and gin, in addition to the testing of grain whiskey for use in blended whiskey. This was a notable departure for the firm, as for many years the big Dublin distilling dynasties had shunned the use of Coffey stills, questioning if their output, grain whiskey could even be termed whiskey. However, with many of the Irish distilleries having closed in the early 20th century in part due to their failure to embrace a change in consumer preference towards blended whiskey, Powers were instrumental in convincing the remaining Irish distilleries to reconsider their stance on blended whiskey. In 1966, with the Irish whiskey industry still struggling following Prohibition in the United States, the Anglo-Irish Trade War and the rise of competition from Scotch whiskey, John Powers & Son joined forces with the only other remaining distillers in the Irish Republic, the Cork Distilleries Company and their Dublin rivals John Jameson & Son, to form Irish Distillers. Soon after, in a bold move, Irish Distillers decided to close all of their existing distilleries, and to consolidate production at a new purpose-built facility in Midleton (the New Midleton Distillery) alongside their existing Old Midleton Distillery. The new distillery opened in 1975, and a year later, production ceased at John's Lane Distillery and began anew in Cork, with Powers Gold Label and many other Irish whiskeys reformulated from single pot stills whiskeys to blends. In 1989, Irish Distillers itself became a subsidiary of Pernod-Ricard following a friendly takeover.Since the closure of the John's Lane distillery, many of the distillery buildings were demolished. However, some of the buildings have been incorporated into the National College of Art and Design, and are now protected structures. In addition, three of the distillery's pot stills were saved and now located in the college's Red Square.
The Still House at John's Lane Distillery, as it looked when Alfred Barnard visited in the 1800s.
-
32cm x 28cm Originating from an pub in Co Kerry -this innuendo laden election poster will catch the eye in any bar ! Richard Nixon’s mother Hannah was descended from the Milhous family, Irish Quakers from Timahoe, Kildare while the first Nixon to arrive in the US, James, left Ireland in 1731. President Nixon visited the small town in October 1970 during a state visit to Ireland. He is the only US president to date to resign from office following his involvement in the Watergate scandal. -
50cm x 65cm Imagination is something Guinness Advertising has never been short of… From John Gilroy’s hapless zookeeper and his menagerie of creatures to a Polynesian surfer and a herd of white horses; from messages in bottles setting sail across the ocean to a single, heart-stoppingly enormous wave. Guinness have been carving out their own creative path for almost a century with decades of extraordinary and enduring print, TV and digital campaigns to their name, and hopefully they will continue to push boundaries to tell stories to the world. Here’s to original thinking ! -
55cm x 70cm Imagination is something Guinness Advertising has never been short of… From John Gilroy’s hapless zookeeper and his menagerie of creatures to a Polynesian surfer and a herd of white horses; from messages in bottles setting sail across the ocean to a single, heart-stoppingly enormous wave. Guinness have been carving out their own creative path for almost a century with decades of extraordinary and enduring print, TV and digital campaigns to their name, and hopefully they will continue to push boundaries to tell stories to the world. Here’s to original thinking ! -
50cm x 65cm Imagination is something Guinness Advertising has never been short of… From John Gilroy’s hapless zookeeper and his menagerie of creatures to a Polynesian surfer and a herd of white horses; from messages in bottles setting sail across the ocean to a single, heart-stoppingly enormous wave. Guinness have been carving out their own creative path for almost a century with decades of extraordinary and enduring print, TV and digital campaigns to their name, and hopefully they will continue to push boundaries to tell stories to the world. Here’s to original thinking ! -
65cm x 50cm PHOTOGRAPHER TARQUIN BLAKE has a penchant for visiting parts of Ireland people don’t always get to see. He’s written about and photographed Ireland’s abandoned ‘big houses’ and haunted houses, but for his latest book he turns his sights on Irish castles. Like his previous books, Exploring Irish Castles is a coffee table book filled with gorgeous photos and the background stories to some fascinating locations. While his previous book ideas came from his own travels throughout Ireland, this topic was suggested by his publisher – showing how popular Irish castles are to the Irish and those abroad. “I was given an objective – the book had to cover all the main Irish castles and it should cover a variety of ruins, family homes and heritage sites that are open to the public,” explains Blake. “I went off and started investigating all the Irish castles, drawing up a list of the best ones. I started going out visiting them – I visited about 100 castles and 40 of those ended up in the book.” He wanted to cover all the main periods of Irish castles, from the big Anglo Norman castles like Trim Castle to the tower houses and fortified houses, which are the commonest small castle in Ireland. The book also has a selection of the neo gothic castles – the Victorian country houses made to look like castles. Blake did a lot of in-depth research into the castles for the book. “What I found was a lot of the tower houses would have very little history so they weren’t very suitable for including in the book,” he says. There are around 6,000 towers in Ireland, but Blake says that there are very few records related to them around. He gave some insight into the history of castles here: “The concept of using building methods to protect territory was introduced from overseas in the 12th century, when the Irish term caisleán began to appear in manuscripts. By the 16th century, Ireland had become the most castellated country in Europe.” “The tower houses were built up until the early 1600s and it’s generally recognised that Cromwell’s invasion put an end to true castle building,” says Blake. This is because after the invention of artillery, the castle didn’t provide enough protection from invaders. “Before that they were pretty much invincible and everybody was building them and everyone was living in them,” he says. “After Cromwell, they went back to the renaissance houses, and the big country houses in the Georgian period.” The book features very well-known castles, such as Trim Castle and Blarney Castle, but also some lesser-known locations, such as Co Galway’s Fiddaun Castle. It’s all about trying to encourage people to visit the spots, says Blake. One of the most interesting locations was Tullynally Castle in Co Westmeath. Thomas Packenham, the historian, and his family still live there. “It was a fascinating place to visit,” says Blake. “It’s pretty impressive – it is the largest family home in Ireland.”For me the most interesting part was visiting the places and meeting the people. It was great seeing Tullynally, that’s an example there of seeing how people still live in these places. They have massive kitchen and the huge halls, and you can’t really imagine the rooms – big enough to fit 200-300 people.Castle facts
Kilwaughter Castle, County Antrim- There are quite a number of Patrick Agnews in the family, resulting in a bit of a genealogical headache.
- It was used to billet Americans from the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion in preparation for D-Day.
- It occupies a wild position perched on top of the cliff. In 1639 a section of the kitchen collapsed when the cliff face underneath gave way. The dinner, kitchen tables, and all the silverware fell into the sea below.
- Nine of the kitchen staff fell to their deaths and the kitchen boy only survived by clinging to a corner of the crumbling wall.
- After his father’s death in 1581, David Barry, fifth Viscount Buttevant, set fire to the castle, rendering it unliveable so that Sir Walter Raleigh couldn’t have it.
- In 1751, Richard Barry became the sixth earl when he was six years old. A reckless gambler and drinker, he served briefly in the 9th Regiment of Dragoons before dying of a fever at the age of 28.
- In 1599, four-year-old Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth’s namesake and godchild, inherited the Mallow property. The story goes that the Queen sent her godchild two white deer as a christening gift, and the herd of white deer at Mallow today is descended from this original pair.
- In the eighteenth century, Mallow Castle became fantastically famous for its social goings-on, becoming known as ‘The Bath of Ireland’.
- Sir John Jephson upheld a bizarre ritual of having a white rat on a small chair at his right-hand side during all meals, believing this would keep him free from debt. Apparently, the white rat then often appeared before the head of the Jephson family, predicting their imminent demise.
- The hill upon which it is built is a long extinct volcano.
- ‘Fighting Charlie’ was a mean landlord – he gave just £30 for famine relief but spent £15,000 renovating his home.
- You can see the Isle of Man and Scotland from the tower on a clear day.
- The third Earl of Rosse built the 16-ton telescope called Leviathan, which remained the world’s largest telescope until 1917.
- His wife, Lady Mary, was an accomplished early pioneer of photography and installed a darkroom. It is the oldest surviving example of its kind in the world.
- Their son Charles invented the steam turbine. His company eventually became part of Rolls-Royce and still survives as a division of Siemens.
- Jonathan Charles Darby found three upright skeletons sealed into a wall and bricked them up again because he decided there must have been a good reason to put them there.
- It has a reputation as the most haunted castle in Europe.
-
33cm x 57cm In the winter of 1893, prospectors Patrick (Paddy) Hannan, Tom Flanagan, and Dan Shea were travelling to Mount Youle, when one of their horses cast a shoe. During the halt in their journey, the men noticed signs of gold in the area around the foot of what is now the Mount Charlotte gold mine, located on a small hill north of the current city, and decided to stay and investigate. On 17 June 1893, Hannan filed a Reward Claim, leading to hundreds of men swarming to the area in search of gold, and Kalgoorlie, originally called Hannan's Find, was born.The population of the town was 2,018 (1,516 males and 502 females) in 1898. The mining of gold, along with other metals such as nickel, has been a major industry in Kalgoorlie ever since, and today employs about one-quarter of Kalgoorlie's workforce and generates a significant proportion of its income. The concentrated area of large gold mines surrounding the original Hannan's find is often referred to as the Golden Mile, and was sometimes referred to as the world's richest square mile of earth. In 1901, the population of Kalgoorlie was 4,793 (3,087 males and 1,706 females) which increased to 6,790 (3,904 males and 2,886 females) by 1903. The 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow-gauge Government Eastern Goldfields Railway line reached Kalgoorlie station in 1896, and the main named railway service from Perth was the overnight sleeper train The Westland, which ran until the 1970s. In 1917, a 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in(1,435 mm) standard gauge railway line was completed, connecting Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta, South Australia, across 2,000 kilometres (1,243 mi) of desert, and consequently the rest of the eastern states. The standardisation of the railway connecting Perth (which changed route from the narrow-gauge route) in 1968 completed the Sydney–Perth railway, making rail travel from Perth to Sydney possible; the Indian Pacific rail service commenced soon after. During the 1890s, the Goldfields area boomed as a whole, with an area population exceeding 200,000, composed mainly of prospectors. The area gained a reputation for being a "wild west", notorious for its bandits and prostitutes. This rapid increase in population and claims of neglect by the state government in Perth led to the proposition of the new state of Auralia, but with the sudden diaspora after the Gold Rush, these plans fell through. Places, famous or infamous, for which Kalgoorlie is noted include its water pipeline, designed by C. Y. O'Connor and bringing in fresh water from Mundaring Weir near Perth, its Hay Street brothels, its two-up school, the goldfields railway loopline, the Kalgoorlie Town Hall, the Paddy Hannan statue/drinking fountain, the Super Pit, and Mount Charlotte lookout. Its main street is Hannan Street, named after the town's founder. One of the infamous brothels also serves as a museum and is a major national attraction. Paddy Hannan was the son of John Hannan and Bridget Lynch, and was baptised on 26 April 1840 in the town of Quin, County Clare, Ireland. His baptismal record shows that his godparents (sponsors) were Margaret Lynch and John O'Brien. Many of the people in his family emigrated to Australia from 1852 onwards, and close ties were maintained. Two of Hannan's nieces would welcome Hannan into their house for the last years of his life. Hannan emigrated to Australia when he was 22, arriving in Melbourne on 23 December 1862 aboard the Henry Fernie from Liverpool. He is recorded in the passenger list as Pat Hannan, a labourer.
Hannan Street in September 1930; the Exchange Hotel is at the centre, with the Palace Hotel on the right.Prospecting success
In 1893 in Western Australia, Hannan and his partners were the first to find gold near Mount Charlotte, less than 40 kilometres from the existing Coolgardie Goldfields. Hannan, Flanagan and Shea were following a large number of prospectors who set out for a rumoured new prospect at Mount Youle. One version of the story of the find has it that on the night of 14 June 1893, Hannan found gold in a gully. Not wanting to cause a rush, he concealed the find. During the night the trio moved one of their horses into the scrub. The following morning Hannan informed the main party they were going to stay behind to find their lost horse. After the main group moved off east, the three men started to pick up the gold and peg out their lease. Amongst the various counter-claims to emerge over the years, one lively version of the story was told in 1909 by Fred Dugan (another prospector, who was present at the time) relating how Thomas Flanagan found the first nuggets, and covered his find with brushwood to conceal it until the following day. By law, those finding "payable" gold were required to report the fact to the warden's office within seven days, so Hannan set off for Coolgardie to register their find, doing so on 17 June 1893. It has been suggested that Hannan, rather than Flanagan or Shea, was chosen to officially register the claim because only he could read and write, but there is evidence that Flanagan was literate, since, in 1864, he had clearly signed the official death certificate of his brother John Flanagan, and had written his own place of residence at the time - White Hills (in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia). The other possible reasons for Hannan going alone to the office at Coolgardie are set out by Martyn Webb,who relates that:
Hannan's Western Australian miner's right, 1893The fact that Flanagan and Shea were able to secure another 100 ounces while Hannan was away registering their claim at Coolgardie might help to explain why Hannan was chosen ... simply because they were better at specking than he was – it needs good eyesight. On the other hand, since the journey was arduous and had to be done as quickly as possible, Hannan might have been chosen because, as Uren and others suggest, he was the youngest and the fittest of the three. … The most likely reason … was that he was the undisputed leader of the party.
Hannan registered the claim in Flanagan's name as well as his own. Within hours a stampede began. It was estimated that about 400 men were prospecting in the area within three days, and over 1,000 within a week.— Webb, p. 103Final years
In 1904, at the age of sixty-four, Hannan was granted an annual pension of £150 by the Government of Western Australia. Having searched for gold throughout his adult life, he did not cease his prospecting activities until after 1910, his seventieth year. At that time he went to live with two of his nieces in Fallon Street, Brunswick, Victoria (close to the city of Melbourne). He died there in 1925 and was buried in Melbourne Central Cemetery, in the Catholic section, near the North Gate. In 1993 his grave was restored by the citizens of Kalgoorlie, led by Tess Thomson, as a part of the celebration of the 100-year anniversary of the original find by Hannan, Flanagan and Shea.
Hannan's grave in Melbourne Central Cemetery, Section YLegacy
In memory of a man who is regarded as the founder of Kalgoorlie, the main street and a suburb in Kalgoorlie both bear Hannan's name, and in 1929 a statue of him by the sculptor John MacLeod was erected there. The city boasts several commemorative plaques to the three Irishmen, Hannan, Flanagan and Shea. A popular Irish pub at the Burswood Entertainment Complex was also named after Hannan. In Ireland there is a plaque dedicated to his memory opposite Quin Abbey, Quin, County Clare, and there is a bust with an explanatory dedication on display inside the DeValera Library in Ennis, County Clare.
1929 statue of Paddy Hannan in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia -
47cm x 35cm The Jack Daniel's brand's official website suggests that its founder, Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel, was born in 1850 (and his tombstone bears that date), but says his exact birth date is unknown. The company website says it is customary to celebrate his birthday in September.The Tennessee state library website said in 2013 that records list his birth date as September 5, 1846, and that the 1850 birth date seems impossible since his mother died in 1847.In the 2004 biography Blood & Whiskey: The Life and Times of Jack Daniel, author Peter Krass said his investigation showed that Daniel was born in January 1849 (based on Jack's sister's diary, census records, and the date of death of Jack's mother). Jack was the youngest of 10 children born to his mother, Lucinda (Cook) Daniel, and father Calaway Daniel. After Lucinda's death, his father remarried and had three more children. Calaway Daniel's father, Joseph "Job" Daniel, had emigrated from Wales to the United States with his Scottish wife, the former Elizabeth Calaway.Jack Daniels' ancestry included English, and Scots-Irish as well. Jack did not get along with his stepmother. After Daniel's father died in the Civil War, the boy ran away from home and was essentially orphaned at a young age.Career
As a teenager, Daniel was taken in by Dan Call, a local lay preacher and moonshine distiller. He began learning the distilling trade from Call and his Master Distiller, Nathan "Nearest" Green, an enslaved African-American man. Green continued to work with Call after emancipation. In 1875, on receiving an inheritance from his father's estate (following a long dispute with his siblings), Daniel founded a legally registered distilling business with Call. He took over the distillery shortly afterward when Call quit for religious reasons.] The brand label on the product says "Est. & Reg. in 1866", but his biographer has cited official registration documents in asserting that the business was not established until 1875. After taking over the distillery in 1884, Daniel purchased the hollow and land where the distillery is now located.By the 1880s, Jack Daniel's was one of 15 distilleries operating in Moore County, and the second-most productive behind Tom Eaton's Distillery.He began using square-shaped bottles, intended to convey a sense of fairness and integrity, in 1897. According to Daniel's biographer, the origin of the "Old No. 7" brand name was the number assigned to Daniel's distillery for government registration.He was forced to change the registration number when the federal government redrew the district, and he became Number 16 in district 5 instead of No. 7 in district 4. However, he continued to use his original number as a brand name, since his brand reputation already had been established.An entirely different explanation is given in the 1967 book 'Jack Daniel's Legacy' which states that the name was chosen in 1887 after a visit to a merchant friend in Tullahoma, who had built a chain of seven stores. Jack Daniel's had a surge in popularity after the whiskey received the gold medal for the finest whiskey at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. However, its local reputation began to suffer as the temperance movement began gaining strength in Tennessee.
Jack Daniel, founderJack Daniel never married and did not have any known children. He took his nephews under his wing – one of whom was Lemuel "Lem" Motlow (1869–1947).Lem, a son of Daniel's sister, Finetta, was skilled with numbers. He soon was responsible for all of the distillery's bookkeeping. In failing health, Jack Daniel gave the distillery to Lem Motlow and another nephew in 1907.Motlow soon bought out his partner, and went on to operate the distillery for about 40 years. Tennessee passed a statewide prohibition law in 1910, effectively barring the legal distillation of Jack Daniel's within the state. Motlow challenged the law in a test case that eventually worked its way to the Tennessee Supreme Court. The court upheld the law as constitutional. Daniel died in 1911 from blood poisoning. An oft-told tale is that the infection began in one of his toes, which Daniel injured one early morning at work by kicking his safe in anger when he could not get it open (he was said to always have had trouble remembering the combination).But Daniel's modern biographer has asserted that this account is not true. Because of prohibition in Tennessee, the company shifted its distilling operations to St Louis, Missouri, and Birmingham, Alabama. None of the production from these locations was ever sold due to quality problems.The Alabama operation was halted following a similar statewide prohibition law in that state, and the St. Louis operation fell to the onset of nationwide prohibition following passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1920. While the passage of the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933 repealed prohibition at the federal level, state prohibition laws (including Tennessee's) remained in effect, thus preventing the Lynchburg distillery from reopening. Motlow, who had become a Tennessee state senator, led efforts to repeal these laws, which allowed production to restart in 1938. The five-year gap between national repeal and Tennessee repeal was commemorated in 2008 with a gift pack of two bottles, one for the 75th anniversary of the end of prohibition and a second commemorating the 70th anniversary of the reopening of the distillery. The Jack Daniel's distillery ceased operations from 1942 to 1946 when the U.S. government banned the manufacture of whiskey due to World War II. Motlow resumed production of Jack Daniel's in 1947 after good-quality corn was again available. Motlow died the same year, bequeathing the distillery to his children, Robert, Reagor, Dan, Conner, and Mary, upon his death.
The replica home of Lem Motlow, proprietor from 1911 to 1947; the original home was demolished in 2005 and rebuilt at the distillery in LynchburgThe company was later incorporated as "Jack Daniel Distillery, Lem Motlow, Prop., Inc.", allowing the company to continue to include Motlow in its tradition-oriented marketing. Likewise, company advertisements continue to use Lynchburg's 1960s-era population figure of 361, though the city has since formed a consolidated city-county government with Moore County. Its official population is more than 6,000, according to the 2010 census. The company was sold to the Brown–Forman Corporation in 1956. The Jack Daniel's Distillery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. In 2012, a Welshman, Mark Evans, claimed to have discovered the original recipe for Daniel's whiskey,in a book written in 1853 by his great-great-grandmother. Her brother-in-law had emigrated to Tennessee. Moore County, where the Jack Daniel's distillery is located, is one of the state's many dry counties. While it is legal to distill the product within the county, it is illegal to purchase it there. However, a state law has provided one exception: a distillery may sell one commemorative product, regardless of county statutes. Jack Daniel's now sells Gentleman Jack, Jack Daniel's Single Barrel, the original No. 7 blend (in a commemorative bottle), and a seasonal blend (on rotation) at the distillery's White Rabbit Bottle Shop.
A plaque on Jack Daniels' office recognizing the distillery's status in the National Register of Historic Places
.jpg)
