CCSI Cork Crowncap Database - Brewer/Bottler
   
Entered: 02 Nov 2006 13:12 - Wietze Veld - Modified: 22 Feb 2020 10:41 - Jon Bailey
 Brewer/bottler #640
Name Shea's Winnipeg Brewery Ltd.
Address 137 Colony Street
City Winnipeg
State/Province Manitoba
Country Canada
Type Brewery
Website  
Extra info 1928 - 1958

The story begins in the 1880s with a man named Patrick Shea. He was born in Co. Kerry, Ireland on March 7, 1854 and trained as an engineer. In 1870 he came to North America to work on railway infrastructure projects, eventually settling in Manitoba in 1882. From 1882 to 1884 he was in charge of the water distribution system for the railway construction from Oak Lake westward. When that job was completed, he decided to put down roots in Winnipeg.
Shea met fellow Irishman John McDonagh and together they purchased the Waverley Hotel near Higgins and Main. They became well know for their hospitality and the hotel and its beverage room became a popular place.
In 1887 the two men decided that they should leave the hotel business and go into brewing. For $16,000 they purchased from from Sylvester Thomas the assets of his defunct and run-down Winnipeg Brewery on Colony Street at Broadway. Others had leased it from Thomas to try to make a go of it but couldn't, McDunough and Shea, which is what their new enterprise was called, found success. (The Winnipeg Brewery was established in 1873, so in later advertising for the company, they used that year as the date their brewery was established in.)
McDonagh died in 1893 leaving Shea the sole owner. Shea kept the "McDonagh and Shea" business name until 1926 when it the brewery had to be reincorporated due to the province's new liquor production rules. It then became known as "Shea's Winnipeg Brewery Ltd."
Business was good and in in 1903 the brewery underwent the first of many major expansions at the Colony Street site, eventually becoming the city's largest breweries. He died suddenly at the hospital on October 20, 1933 at the age of 44.This left Margaret Shea the the majority shareholder in the company. By this time, though, Shea's was a mature business with a full executive team and over 100 staff.
From 1934 to 1950 the brewery was run by John T. Boyd, a long-time executive who started out as an office boy when the brewery first opened. During that time, Shea's assumed control of two other local breweries, Pelissier's and Kiewel's. It also ran the beer distribution firm Brewery Products Ltd. and had a controlling interest in 41 of Manitoba's 260 hotels.
When Margaret died, around 1950, she was succeeded by Ethel Shea, Frank's widow.
Ethel died in 1952 and left 33,000 shares each to the General Hospital and Misericordia Hospital which put them in the uncomfortable position of being the brewery's largest combined shareholder. When added to the shares owned by the Boyd estate, the three had controlled.
The hospitals were eager to cash in their shares and, it turns out, so was the Boyd family. That's when Labatt's was called on. It was the family's wishes that if the shares were ever sold on, it was to be to Labatt's, versus their other competitors.
In December 1953 Hugh Labatt announced that his company's offer to purchase was overwhelmingly accepted by Shea shareholders. Manitoba's oldest and largest brewery was now in Eastern hands.
The Shea brewery / Labatt Brewery on Colony Street was closed and torn down in 1979.
  
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Other names used for this Brewer/bottler
Name 1 Labatt's (Manitoba) Brewery Ltd.
Extra info 1959 - 1971
Name 2 McDonagh & Shea Winnipeg Brewery
Extra info 1873-1926
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