The story of McVeigh's cordial factory in Young

He arrived in the Australasian colonies in the late 1850s and moved around the goldfields, including the Snowy River diggings and Lambing Flat before being employed on Mr Macansh’s Beggan Beggan station in the Murrumburrah district. He married Mary Stack, another Irish immigrant, at Binalong in 1861. The couple then moved to Forbes, being there in September 1862. The couple’s first child Mary was registered at Forbes in 1862. In March 1863, David was stuck up on the road about 10 miles from Forbes by three mounted men with revolvers and robbed of 13s in silver. Later in 1863, David set up a cordial factory in Binalong Street, Young but soon moved to a site on the corner of Currawong Street and Kingsvale Rd (now Gordon St). ‘Mules were first used to pump the water from the well and drive the machinery; the mules were later replaced by horses’. David supplied pubs with Soda Water, Belfast Ginger Ale, Lemonade, Brewed Hop Beer, Ginger Beer and Vinegar. The couple’s other children were all born at Young: David (1864), Thomas (1866), John Joseph (1868), Garett Stack (1877) and Patrick Morris (1880). By 1881, Mary McVeigh had opened a branch of their cordial business at Temora however, she died aged just 43 in Sydney in 1883 and the business at Temora failed. In 1899, the business at Young moved to Edwards Street when an engine was installed to drive the plant. However, horses were still retained to pump water and for the delivery of drinks. All carbon dioxide gas was made on the premises. David died at the Sydney hospital on 5 March 1903 and his son, Thomas, carried on the business. The factory moved in 1910 to occupy the butter factory on the corner of Currawong and Templemore Streets and they began making ice using a three-ton Waugh & Josephson compressor. In 1916 the company became the first in Young to use electricity on a 24-hour basis. Thomas died in 1952 and his sons Roy and Ben continued operating the business, called Thomas McVeigh Pty Ltd by this time. Members of the fourth generation continued operating the business until it was wound up in 1987. The McVeigh’s cordial factory display at the Young Historical Museum features a ginger beer filter made by the firm Boldt & Vogel Hamburg between 1874 and 1928, as well as other factory machinery, bottles and bottle openers. Gordon Ricketts donated a bottle holder for putting labels on cordial bottles by hand which he used when working in the factory. Barry Snelson has donated a wooden crate and some bottles from the 1960s-80s. Geoff McVeigh has donated photographs, oral and family histories and funds to help refresh this display which he dedicated to his father Amos.