Mrs Dewar's Brunswick milk bar - 1920s and 1930s

Interior of Mrs Dewar's milk bar, 385 Sydney Road, Brunswick, taken in the late 1920s or 1930s. Image from the Harold Paynting Collection, State Library of Victoria. Image number H2009.185/26

I just love this photo of Sara Dewar's milk bar and soda fountain taken some time in the late 1920s or 1930s. As the State Library's description says, you can see cordials and flavourings, Horlick's Malted Milk, McNiven's Beauty Cake Cones, Cadbury's Cocoa, Tarax soft drinks, Elliott's Lemonade, jars of sweets, cash register and milkshake glasses. 

Sara Dewar (nee Tyack) and her husband Robert were originally from Wangaratta. Robert was a bookmaker and was well known in the local court: he'd been in a fight; he'd cheated at cards; he inflicted grievous bodily harm on a police informant; he used obscene language while trying to collect on a debt; he took money that wasn't his. 

By 1906 their daughter Nellie had come down to study at the Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music. (Wangaratta residents had raised the money to pay for her board, lodgings and fees.) By 1909, Robert and Sarah Dewar had joined her in Melbourne.

'One of our songbirds' Nellie Dewar, Punch, 17 June 1909.

In 1910, Sara Dewar charged her husband with violent assault at the court in Coburg. They were already living in Sydney Road by then and he was a 'racing man', she said. He had dragged her from one room to another by the hair, but the court did not convict him. Rather, they gave him some time to 'amend his ways'. (Coburg Leader, 2 December 1910)

It was around this time that Sara set up her Sydney Road confectioner's business. Robert was then working as a labourer. The address is given as 412 Sydney Road, Brunswick until 1924 when street numbering throughout the area changed and 412 became 385 Sydney Road, Brunswick. 

It appears that Robert and Sarah continued to live together until about 1925, when he resumed life as a bookmaker. Although he still lived in Brunswick, they lived separately. He appears in the Victorian electoral rolls until 1928. It is not known what happened to him after that.

Sarah's daughter Nellie married a local man, Louis Carrigg, at St Ambrose Roman Catholic Church, Brunswick in February 1912. They then moved to Dromana where Louis, previously an accountant, began work as a hotel keeper.

Standing: Miss K. Carrigg, Mr J. Barron, the bride, Miss E. Homewood. Sitting: Mr T. Etheridge, the bridegroom. Punch, 7 March 1912.

Sara Dewar remained in business at 385 Sydney Road, Brunswick until at least 1937. She then moved to Dromana where her daughter lived and died there on 26 October 1944 aged 76. Her daughter died just two months later, on 28 December 1944.


Sources:
Victorian electoral rolls
Victorian birth, death, marriage indexes
Sands and MacDougall Street Directories
Harold Paynting Collection, State Library of Victoria
Age, 6 November 1896
Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 2 April 1898
Benalla Standard, 23 August 1901
Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 17 March 1906
Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 15 September 1906
Ovens and Murray Advertiser, 24 November 1906
Table Talk, 17 June 1909
Punch, 17 June 1909

Coburg Leader, 2 December 1910

Punch, 7 March 1912

Argus, 20 August 1921