Arthur Guinness the United Irishmen during the 1798 rebellion and was accused of spying for the British. and was against Irish home-rule. In general, the Guinness family became Irish Unionists and Arthur Guinness accepted the system, with Arthur ""directly opposed to any movement toward Irish independence"" and wanting ""Ireland to remain under British control"". Guinness leased a brewery in Leixlip in 1755, brewing ale. Five years later he left his younger brother Richard in charge of that enterprise and moved on to another in St. James' Gate, Dublin, at the end of 1759. The 9,000-year lease he signed for the brewery is
Swan Brewery in order to support his six children. He saw the Swan River as the ideal place to build a brewery, as the Swan provided fresh, clean water for making the beer, hiring convicts as a source of cheap labour. Following Sherwood's death in 1874, the family offered the Swan Brewery for lease. The lease was taken up by the partnership of John Maxwell Ferguson and William Mumme, who appreciated the value of its pure water supply. In 1879 the Swan Brewery was moved to a site at the foot of Mount Eliza not far from the Stanley Brewery and another