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The White Hat Guide to 7 Lost Icons of MelbourneThese short articles are currently being published one at a time in the White Hat Melbourne Newsletter.
No.1 Redheads MatchesA press release came across our desk recently. It begins - “Every Australian knows and trusts the Redheads brand. .” In 1909 the Bryant & May company built a match factory in Richmond and the bulk of this red brick complex with its distinctive clock tower is still there today, if in a slightly altered form. Bryant & May attempted to create a civilised work environment. They built a bowling green for employees (see picture), installed gardens (see picture), had men’s club rooms (see picture) and women’s club rooms where matchmaking of a slightly different nature took place. At this time Melbourne had a number of employers who were attempting to set new standards in looking after their staff. Through the wars and depression years both Mac Robertson and Sidney Myer went out of their way to provide employment for their staff in tough times, while down at Warrnambool, Fletcher Jones was creating a model factory. Until well into the 20th century, 'strike anywhere' matches were popular (for instructions on use watch any John Wayne movie). These were made from white phosphorous whose dangerous side effects could create ‘phossy jaw’ in factory workers. The newer safety matches which required a special striking strip on the box were made from the much less dangerous than red phosphorous. In 1946 these matches with their red tips were launched under the name Redheads with a distinctive red headed lady on the pack. By the 1990s Bryant & May had sold their operations and ownership, production (and profits) moved to Sweden. Redheads are now made by blondes. There seems no real reason for Australians to buy this ex-Australian product other than nostalgia. This is where the PR comes in. The press release begins - “Every Australian knows and trusts the Redheads brand. .”, uses the word “Australian” numbers of times and nowhere mentions the Swedish connection. Instead it diverts our attention to the human interest and nostalgia elements. It proposes a search for the original model who posed for the logo in 1946 and finishes by saying that in 2007 we should “Join the Australian public in remembering our heritage and light 60 candles to celebrate this momentous anniversary.” Still, not all jobs have been moved to Sweden. It appears there is still work available for local PR agencies to convince the local punters that overseas products are still really Australian. And judging by the mainstream media's enthusiastic and unquestioning promotion of their press release as 'news', a good and enthusiastic job they are doing.
No.2 - The Flying Swallow
In the Melbourne General Cemetery in Carlton there lies a forlorn, once-impressive but now badly-damaged grave. The large tombstone from the neighbouring grave behind has fallen backwards and trashed the grave in question. It is not vandalism which has caused this. Just neglect and ground movement, and with all those decaying coffins underground there is plenty of ground movement. It is not the job of the cemetery authorities to maintain individual graves. There are nearly a million people buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery (or to give it its original name, the New Melbourne Cemetery which distinguished it from the Old Melbourne Cemetery which most Melburnians have visited without knowing it) and cemeteries receive no government funding. It is up to descendents to maintain the family grave. A closer inspection of the now-wrecked wrought iron fence around the grave reveals the following words worked into the ironwork. “Family Grave of Swallow” as well as “Thomas” and “Sandridge”. Thomas Swallow had arrived in Melbourne when the goldrush was at its height. He headed off for Ballarat and like many others at the time found that the real opportunity of the gold rush was not that you could chance your luck in trying to dig up gold, but that a hard working entrepreneur could create a sustainable business with virtually no start-up capital. Thomas tried his hand at selling Colt pistols but eventually settled on sea biscuits. Sea biscuits were a reasonably nutritious and long lasting biscuit that were so tough that even the weevils had trouble making any impact on them. Just the stuff for a gold rush settlement and thus Thomas was able to simultaneously improve the general health and demolish the decaying teeth of the miners of Ballarat. On returning to Melbourne he set up a factory to produce biscuits at Liardets Beach. The area was officially known as Sandridge and later Port Melbourne and you can find a description of this are at the time at Sandridge Rail Bridge. Swallow’s Biscuits were doing well and Thomas soon went into partnership with another Thomas - Thomas Ariell. The Swallow & Ariell factory needed to expand and over time cannibalised most of the buildings in a large block. This factory and its workers feature in one of the earliest moving films of Melbourne with the workers parading before the camera in and out the factory door. I’m sure someone out there will send me a link to this footage online. If you are looking for a weekend stroll, try a stroll around the old Swallow & Ariell Factory site (near Station Pier in Sandridge - you have been paying attention, so you know where Sandridge is). There is a pub on the corner so have a drink before you leave. Head north along Princes Street and look out for signs of the old Swallows factory. Like any buildings that sit still close to the city for too long they have probably been changed into apartments. Continue around the block to your right. As you turn into Stokes Place notice the signage on the building
Continue around the block and when you arrive at the pub you may as well have another drink. Thomas looked along the supply chain and decided that sugar was the place to be so he set up sugar plantations near Cairns. He had been Mayor of Sandridge but sold out to Mr Ariell to concentrate on his sugar and other interests. Still, by this time the Swallow brand had caught the public imagination and elaborately decorated tins of “Swallow’s Biscuits” featuring a swallow in flight (everyone seemed to forget Mr Ariell, but he didn’t mind and just sat back and counted the money) continued to be sold long after Thomas Swallow was no longer connected with the business. With the arrival of radio, the company decided to sponsor a junior talent show with plenty of product placement and brand reinforcement. Swallows Juniors commenced with the catchy Melody
Thomas Swallow had long left the building but the name Ariell just wouldn’t have worked as well. The brand was eventually bought by the multinational Heinz group. I sometimes walk past Thomas Swallow’s grave and wonder if Heinz would show any interest in restoring his grave for a fraction of the price they paid for his name. I think the answer is probably no. No.3 - Cremorne GardensBy 1860, Melbourne’s streets were awash with gold money and its residents were aware that one day the city, which until recently had been a smallish settlement, could maybe rival the great cities of the world. Impressive stone edifices were being erected everywhere since there were no building tribunals which would have forced them to maintain the ‘neighbourhood character’ of two-storey wooden buildings. But of course, a city to be reckoned with also needed culture and urbane entertainment for the citizens. Into this aspirational town strode George Coppin. He always strode – he was born into the theatre and knew how to carry himself to best advantage. Even when making a hasty exit stage left due to a failed business enterprise with monies owing. However he could always go back to his knitting. He was a competent violin player before his teens and had worked hard on the craft of a comic actor – they were always in demand. If a business venture failed, he would disappear overseas and, sometimes with creaking bones, tread the boards, often adapting his role to reflect on the current affairs of the time, before striding back into town for a theatrically contrived champagne luncheon for his creditors where he would pay them 20 shillings in the pound. Here he was striding back into Melbourne in the late 1850s. He had been there and successful before the gold rush with his theatre company and with his talented wife Mrs Coppin. At that time in Melbourne, you knew not to enquire too closely. If she said she was Mrs Coppin then they must be married. Once you started asking questions like that who knows where they might lead. After she died, there were two more Mrs Coppins – the third the daughter of the second. When Coppin returned to a newly wealthy Melbourne he decided what the residents needed was a pleasure garden. The residents didn’t realise they needed this, but Coppin was soon able to convince them. After all, on one of his refinancing ventures he had worked for Phineas Barnum in America and learned a thing or two about talking up a venue. He set up his pleasure gardens in Burnley at enormous cost. The Cremorne Gardens had exotic plants, exotic animals, roving jugglers musicians and cultured entertainment. He had learned that what worked best in Melbourne was middle-brow entertainment marketed as high-brow – a formula that still works well to this day. He knew from his years in theatre that you could tell whether a show was going to work just by walking through the foyer beforehand. If there was no sense of excitement, whatever happened later on stage was unlikely to change that. Thus, when the good people of Melbourne went to the Cremorne Gardens, they boarded a paddle steamer under Princes Bridge and after the on-board entertainment were already in a state of expectation when they arrived. “Oh pater, look at those two darling camels over there. I have never seen one in the flesh before.” I have a feeling we might be meeting those two camels in a later newsletter. For a period, Cremorne Gardens was Melbourne’s equivalent of Disneyland. Now it has disappeared with hardly a trace. In a future newsletter we might direct those of you who are interested to the remaining traces. Meanwhile, Coppin went on to leave his mark in both the upper and lower houses of Parliament, in Gordon House, in The old Colonists Village, in Sorrento and in Coppin Street Richmond. In a society which has grown to delight in cutting down tall poppies, I like to remember George Coppin as someone who not only presented Shakespeare and grand opera to Melbourne but, if they didn’t work and he lost lots of money, in the best music hall tradition he “picked himself up, brushed himself off, and started all over again”. No. 4 - The Royal Jetty
Next time you have a cup of weak white tea (even though your preference is for a strong espresso) with your grandmother, try reading the tealeaves. There in the tea leaves you will find reference to QE2's first visit to Australia. Well, not in the tealeaves as such but in the Royal Visit China from which you are drinking. If you mention it to grandma she will quickly retrieve the Royal Visit coffee table book and teaspoon complete with its original packaging. This visit was highly significant. The first time a reigning monarch of Australia deigned to set foot on the soil of their Australian dominion was in the 1950s. This was at a landing on the Yarra River. Some of you may be able to track down some photos or, better still, ask grandma. The landing upon where the then young reigning deigning monarch alighted from the lighter was a point of land near the base of the Bolte Bridge. During the 1990s you could walk along this neglected bank the river past vessels used for night party cruises on the bay and which like most ladies of the night did not show up too well under the cruel light of day, and on to that original landing complete with several moored lighters. Nearby was a control tower used by the port authorities (now replaced with one further downstream) and a secluded Japanese Garden. This was one of our favourite secluded places in Melbourne and the venue for a number of quiet picnics with friends while we watched the passing river traffic. The site fell into increasing disrepair with the abandoned goods sheds presaging the current trend to green roofs with copious weed life sprouting in their asbestos guttering. The area is now closed off. Before long we expect it to be habited by sophisticated, urbane young professionals who believe we are long overdue for a republic and who have the latest designer items in their upmarket apartments. It will be their children who discover great grandma’s bone china and coffee table book and wonder about the location of the historic spot where a reigning monarch first set foot on Victorian soil.
No. 5 - Bendigo Street RichmondTo most Melburnians the words ‘Bendigo Street Richmond’ mean just one thing. Channel 9’s television studios. It hasn’t always been that way. Early last century a ‘colourful identity’ called John Wren was barred from thoroughbred race meetings. Not to be deterred he set up a number of pony tracks where the working classes could be entertained and if they chose to have a bet via his establishment, so much the better. Pony racing conjures up images of 9 year old Esmeralda on her Shetland Pony Silvertail. In fact, pony was just the name for a horse that was not a thoroughbred. The Man From Snowy River rode a horse that was ‘three parts Timor Pony’. Around the same time a German immigrant called Hugo had been importing and reselling pianos with great success. So successful was he that he embarked on a bold plan to build a huge factory next to John Wren’s pony track. This factory would build pianos and employ many hundreds. Such was the importance of this venture that the opening was attended by Alfred Deakin and Australia’s greatest musician – Percy Grainger. Before long, every aspirational family worth its salt had a piano in the lounge room bearing Hugo’s name – Wertheim. So highly regarded was Hugo that he became a member of the Melbourne club – not a common occurrence in that period for a German Jew. Eventually, Hugo died and family disagreements led to the eventual demise of the Wertheim manufacturing empire. By the 1950s the factory was largely abandoned and part of it was taken over by an enterprise that was to oust the piano from its pride of place in the home – television. Bendigo Street Richmond became the home of Channel 9. Before long, Kerry Packer had become enamoured of this new medium but could not pass up the opportunity to sell it to Alan Bond at top dollar only to buy it back from him three years later at a bargain basement price Kerry Packer reputedly later said “You only get one Alan Bond in your life and I’ve had mine.” Maybe it was the ghost of John Wren’s pony track that led to on of Packer’s more controversial ventures. John Wren had set up an alternative to thoroughbred racing and eventually the establishment had to come to a compromise. Kerry Packer set up an alternative to mainstream cricket and eventually the establishment had to come to a compromise. By the end of this month the last of the Channel 9 staff in Bendigo Street will have moved out to their shiny new premises in Docklands which has quickly become the media centre of Melbourne with channels 7 and 9, The Age, 3AW and a number of internet media organisations. Meanwhile back in Richmond, the old piano factory is likely to become apartments which is after all a better fit in this residential area than a television studio. However I wouldn’t be surprised if occasionally the new residents become aware late at night of disembodied voices in animated discussion. It sounds like three headstrong men each with very firm ideas discussing what the next big thing is likely to be. It sounds like John Wren, Hugo Wertheim and Kerry Packer.
Two more lost icons to follow in the coming weeks so revisit this page regularly (or subscribe to our newsletter) if you find them of interest.
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