Search to identify former Grafton Brewery employee depicted in 1950s photograph

The image was first discovered in a commemorative book given to a contingent of Japanese visitors in the 1950s

Can you identify this dashing young lad working the lathe in the former Grafton Brewery workshop? If so, the team from the Brewhouse Group want to hear from you.

The image was first discovered in a commemorative book given to a contingent of Japanese visitors in the 1950s who were keen to see Grafton’s state of the art brewery. However, with no name attached to the image the Group reached out on social media to help identify the mystery man.

Since posting the image to their Facebook page, it has reached over 4,000 people and more than a dozen comments about who it might be, with two names suggested: John Hudson or Phillip Anderson. However, no one has been able to confirm if either of those names are correct.

“It's not John Hudson,” former Brewery employee Gary McSkimming said.

“John didn‘t work in maintenance, he was a brewing foreman. The lathe he is using was the biggest, and the main lathe in the workshop all apprentices, like myself, Les Paine, Doug Ensbey and many more who did their time at Grafton Brewery... cut our teeth on.”

Does anyone know who this dashing young lad was? Back in its day the Tooheys Brewery (formerly the Grafton Brewery) was...

Posted by Brewhouse Group on Thursday, August 5, 2021

Mr McSkimming went on to explain that the lathe in the photograph was responsible for many repairs and machining new parts for the Brewery, including some overseas orders.

“It was still in place in the workshop until Kim Dahl held the auction to sell off all the equipment from the Brewery,” he said.

Anyone who is able to identify the man is invited to contact the Brewhouse Group on [phone] or respond to the Facebook post.