Ann Bushby's Dove And Olive Branch Public House

Most people know Church Hill for the churches. Mid-1840s drinkers knew it for Ann Bushby. After publican Jabez Bushby died in 1842, his widow held the licence at the Dove and Olive Branch — a public house at 203 Kent Street on the older western side of town. We still “meet” her through George Roberts’s watercolour (scene dated 1845; published context around 1850): Ann in the doorway under the signboard, looking every bit the licensee who ran the house.

She sold fermented and spirituous liquors, but she did not brew on site. Her advertising offered imported Taylor’s London Porter and local beer from Wright’s Australian Brewery in George Street — a useful reminder that plenty of colonial “brew pubs” were retailers of other people’s beer. The State Library of NSW has featured the Roberts picture in Openbook pieces on colonial drinking and women publicans.

Keep the post anchored to Ann Bushby, the Kent Street / Church Hill location, and the Roberts image — social history of women licensees and colonial beer retail, not romantic invention.

Ann Bushby's Dove And Olive Branch Public House 

Mrs Bushby's As It Shows, Did Not Brew Her own, As Her Advertising Shows; She Had On Sale Taylor's London Porter, And Local Australian Beer from Wrights Brewery In George Street