Feature Profiles
10 January, 2026
SUMMER READING Glue put to gold pot
Bridgewater’s brilliant brewing brothers
By KEN ARNOLD
TRAVELLING the road considered to be a “slough of despond” between Eaglehawk, Bendigo and rural Bridgewater on Loddon with plans for brewing, brothers James and William Hedley formed a partnership and set out to establish the Bridgewater Brewery in 1872.
Only four years later, in a competition against the whole colony, the Hedley Bros. ale won the first prize gold medal at the 1876 Grand National Show held at Sandhurst.
On his way to visit the new bluestone brewery being constructed, the Marong Correspondent to the Bendigo Advertiser reported that that the road between Yorkshire hotel (Marong) and Mrs Wuest’s Half-way House hotel at Leichardt, was such a “slough of despond” as the “glue pot” would puzzle the understanding of Macadam. He wondered how the Cobb & Co drivers and others managed to force their way through.
During November 1879 this small report on Bridgewater was published in the Bendigo Advertiser newspaper.
“Bridgewater is a nice little town on the Loddon, with the usual proportion of churches, hotels, shops and stores. It has a police station and railway station, a brewery, soda-water manufactory, two mills (one steam and one water), and a branch of the National Bank.”
The Hedley Brothers continued to run the brewery for 18 years and often exhibited samples of their ales at the Northwestern Agricultural Show held in Inglewood in October 1878. They exhibited a barrel of Colonial ale and Colonial porter in October 1884, a barrel of Colonial ale in 1885 and 1886, and ales in October 1887. The brewery also won a gold locket at the Bendigo Agricultural and Horticultural Show held in May 1877.
The Sandhurst Brewing and Malting Company (Limited) proposed to incorporate the Bridgewater Brewery with several of its other companies, Wm. Bruce & Sons, Graham, Johnson & Illingworth, the late Jonathan Wharton and Charles Hoffmeye, in 1888. However, this proposal failed.
The brothers, preparing to retire, sold their brewery to George Elliott and Phillip Holler on April 16, 1890.
Elliott and Holler had originally formed a partnership, around August 1880, they trading as the Riverine Brewing Co., Ltd., at Deniliquin. This business was later floated as a company in December 1883, it then trading as The Riverine Brewery, Aerated Waters & Milling Co. Ltd.
After Phillip’s wife Margaret Holler, died in January 1885, they sold business and purchased the Standard Brewery, Main Street, Campbells Creek which they in turn sold in readiness to purchase the Bridgewater Brewery on April 16, 1890.
Shortly after this at the end of May, their partnership was dissolved and became known as P Holler & Co. The company continued brewing and manufacturing aerated waters.
While Holler advertised for a partner in April 1893, he seems to have been unsuccessful and offered the contents and brewery plant up for auction in May 1893. Earlier in the year, the Bendigo Advertiser published an article that suggested “a company has been formed to erect a new brewery and cordial manufactory at Bridgewater. The lease of the brewery known as Holler’s and owned by Mr. J. Hedley expires in about three months, and the company referred to has been formed in readiness to supply customers with a good article at the lowest possible price. A new plant will be erected in a central position, and every care will be taken to provide ales, aerated waters, etc.”
However, a new brewery was never built and the Cohn Brothers Bendigo who had an extensive brewery in Bridge Street Bendigo purchased the Bridgewater Brewery.
It would appear that Holler & Co., may have continued to manufacture aerated waters as he was still listed in business at the turn of the century. In light of their Bendigo brewery, it is doubtful that the Bridgewater Brewery continued to brew.