Hamilton's Ewell Vineyards was a winery founded by Richard Hamilton (1792–1852) in the early days of the colony of South Australia.

History

Richard Hamilton (18 February 1792 – 13 August 1852), a tailor of

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

, Kent, was owner of property on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

, New York, which he sold in 1837 to purchase an section in

Glenelg, South Australia Glenelg is a beach-side suburb of the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Located on the shore of Holdfast Bay in Gulf St Vincent, it has become a tourist destination due to its beach and many attractions, home to several hotels and dozens of ...

. He emigrated with his wife and their seven children aboard ''Katherine Stewart Forbes'', arriving in Adelaide on 17 October 1837, and set about establishing a farm. By 1840 "Ewell Farm", named after the farm he had at Ewell near Dover which is now known as

Temple Ewell Temple Ewell is a civil parish and historic village in the county of Kent, England. The village is part of the Dover district of Kent, and forms part of the Dover urban area. It is situated three miles North West of the town of Dover. Situa ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, incorporated a vineyard covering , planted with vine cuttings he had purchased in South Africa ''en route'' to Australia. A son, Henry Hamilton (6 January 1826 – 10 February 1907), remained in England, where he was a student at a

Christ's Hospital Christ's Hospital is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English Private schools in the United Kingdom, fee-charging boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter, located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. T ...

bluecoat school, then emigrated aboard ''Christina'' in 1841 and for two years worked on a sheep station near Burra. He purchased a property in Oaklands adjoining his father's property, built a house and settled there. He inherited his father's Glenelg property, but it was disposed of within his lifetime. He suffered from ill-health in his later years, and handed over management of Ewell Vineyards, to his son F E "Frank" Hamilton (5 February 1859 – 13 June 1913 — a Friday) in 1890. Frank served on Marion Council for many years. Ewell Vineyards at this time covered , as well as groves of almonds and other fruit. Frank married Violet Ayliffe (1 February 1875 – 1 February 1865) on 17 September 1895. She was a granddaughter of Dr.

George Hamilton Ayliffe Thomas Hamilton Ayliffe MD (1774 – 28 May 1852) was a medical doctor whose family were early settlers of South Australia, remembered in several place names, namely Ayliffe's Crossing and Ayliffe Hill, which is skirted by Ayliffes Road in the ...

. Their eldest son (Frank) Eric Hamilton (4 July 1896 – May 1967) took over management of the company, with Sydney (18 July 1898 – 22 July 1987), another son, as winemaker. They rebuilt the winery and installed a distillery. They restructured the company as Hamilton's Ewell Vineyards Pty. Ltd. in 1934. Eric's son Robert (27 May 1926 – 8 January 1976) became chairman of directors in 1967, while his brother Sydney Hamilton was winemaker at Ewell.

The wines

Hamiltons Ewell vineyards were planted with red (

Grenache Grenache (; ) or Garnacha () is one of the most widely planted red wine grape varieties in the world. Niels Lillelund: ''Rhône-Vinene'' p. 25, JP Bøger – JP/Politikens Forlagshus A/S, 2004. . It ripens late, so it needs hot, dry condi ...

) and white ( Pedro Ximenes) wine grapes for wines they marketed as

Chablis Chablis () is a town and commune in the Yonne department in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté in north-central France. It lies in the valley of the River Serein. Wine The village of Chablis gives its name to one of the most famous French white win ...

and

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...

. In 1841 the vineyard produced South Australia's first commercial wine. With the installation of pot stills they were able to specialize in fortified wines, notably Sauterne, and brandy. In 1958 the company purchased the Bridgewater Mill (built for John Dunn), which they used for maturation of their

table wine Table wine (rarely abbreviated TW) is a wine term with two different meanings: a style of wine and a quality level within wine classification. In the United States, the term primarily designates a wine style: an ordinary wine which is not fort ...

s and as a

bond store A bonded warehouse, or bond, is a building or other secured area in which imported but dutiable goods may be stored, manipulated, or undergo manufacturing operations without payment of duty. They may then be again exported without payment of duty. ...

for brandy spirit. Petaluma Wines purchased the Mill in 1986.

Demise of the original Ewell vineyards

From the 1950s, with the spread of suburban Adelaide, the company sold off large swathes of land, much to the

South Australian Housing Trust The South Australian Housing Trust (SAHT) is an independent statutory authority originally established by the Government of South Australia responsible for providing low-cost rental housing to working people and their families, as a means of su ...

for "austerity housing". In 1968 was compulsorily acquired for creation of Glengowrie High School, which closed and was demolished in 1991 to make way for a retirement estate. The school body was amalgamated with Mitchell Park High to form Hamilton Secondary College. Another was assumed in 1975 for the MTT bus depot. The section "Laffer's Triangle" which they had purchased from the Laffer family, was leased to Flinders University, then sold to the South Australian Government and now includes the Sturt police station. By the turn of the 21st Century, only a few tiny patches of vines remained on Oaklands Road, maintained by the Marion Council, and in "Laffers Triangle", for twenty years overrun with wild olive trees, and subsequently involved as a construction site for the Darlington Upgrade Project. The company purchased land for vineyards at Happy Valley, Springton, Eden Valley,

Nildottie Nildottie is a locality in the Australian state of South Australia located on the east side of the Murray River about east of the state capital of Adelaide and about north-east of the municipal seat in Mannum. Nildottie's boundaries were crea ...

, and

Wood Wood Wood Wood is a contemporary fashion and lifestyle brand founded in 2002 and based in Copenhagen, Denmark. It has stores in Berlin, London, Aarhus and Copenhagen, and an online store. Wood Wood is directed by co-founders Karl-Oskar Olsen and Br ...

, near

Swan Hill Swan Hill is a List of cities in Australia, city in the northwest of Victoria, Australia on the Murray Valley Highway and on the south bank of the Murray River, downstream from the junction of the Loddon River, Victoria, Loddon River. At the , ...

, and continues to make wines in South Australia, under Mark Hamilton, a member of the sixth-generation of South Australian Hamiltons. Richard Burton Hamilton, Frank Hamilton’s grandson and a fifth generation of South Australian Hamilton’s began making wine in 1972 in McLaren Vale and continues to produce South Australian wine to this day under ‘Richard Hamilton Wines’ and ‘Leconfield Wines’ labels.

References

Sources

*Bishop, Geoffrey C. ''The Vineyards of Adelaide'' Lynton Publications Pty. Ltd., Blackwood, SA. *http://hamiltonewell.com.au/pdfs/HamiltonDescendants.pdf

External links