THE AUSTRALIAN ARK – Federation to the Modern Era | 1900–1982
Silver trophy presented to Australian cricket captain Don Bradman in 1948. His Australian test match side played an entire tour of England without losing a match. They became known as ‘The Invincibles’. [PRG 682/8/50/1]
Elsewhere in the Clare Valley, Peter McNichol Mitchell bought an orchard and dairying farm in 1949. The Mitchell Wines website says that the property also had a ‘small underdeveloped patch of vineyard’, which was managed by hand, as was typical of the time. Although Mitchell Winery would not be established until 1975, the Mitchell family was involved in grape growing from around 1949, with son Andrew as a child helping his father prune the vines and pick grapes at harvest. It was this early beginning in wine that initiated Andrew Mitchell’s lifelong commitment to viticulture and winemaking. . . .
After Frank Penfold Hyland died in 1948, his wife, Gladys, took over the reins as chairman. She relied heavily on her late husband’s longstanding secretary, Grace Longhurst, for guidance. In a business dominated by men, this new arrangement took ‘some getting used to’, according to Ray Beckwith’s recollection, but it launched the most exciting period in Penfolds’ history. Longhurst, or Longie as she was called, managed the business for 12 years with mixed financial success, but she was in charge during momentous times. Max Schubert’s recollections of her management style, in which she ‘ran the place as she thought Frank would have done’, are tinged with a hint of bitterness as her risk-averse, ‘stubborn and strong-willed style’ would have impaired his creative winemaking projects that would take place under her watch during the 1950s. At Hardy’s, after the death of her husband Thomas Mayfield Hardy in 1938, Eileen Hardy also became a forceful figure in the running of the family wine business. She is credited for building recognition for the family brand during the 1940s and 1950s. Also, before the crisis of 1938, it was she who commissioned the design and construction of the classic timber- planked wooden racing yacht Nerida , a 45-foot gaff cutter that would win the Sydney-to-Hobart race in 1950.
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