Meat Preserving: Heat Processing Introduced (continued)

Elliott's first attempts to establish his preserved meats were through the semi-annual exhibitions conducted by the Australian Floral and Horticultural Society. At the same time, through his business in Charlotte Street, he offered his products for sale to ships' captains. He had difficulty in persuading naval ships to buy them, but some whaling captains, especially American ones, bought from him and gave him testimonials. He made a variety of products but he had run his course. He lacked the capital to put the heat preservation of foods on a firm basis.

In July 1846 Moses Joseph went into production in his Patent Preserved Meat Manufactory at Camperdown, New South Wales.[17] He used a calcium chloride brine bath at 250°F, and the lids of his cans carried the same tube/siphon as Elliott's. His plant could produce half a ton of preserved meats per day. Joseph had imported his technology directly from London. Israel Joseph, probably a brother, had been to London to learn the process patented by Stefan Goldner in 1841 and then being used by him in Rumania and by Ritchie and McCall, 137 Houndsditch, London. Goldner's innovation was the introduction of the calcium chloride brine bath to raise the processing temperature, and this then became the norm, not only for English production but also for all the development which followed in Australia during the succeeding decades.[18]

Goldner's success with the brine bath and Admiralty pressure to supply more quickly led him to process in larger cans. Ignorance of the true function of heat processing, the killing of micro-organisms, led to the supply of much under-processed meat and the inevitable putrefaction of it resulted in a major scandal, a Parliamentary Enquiry and the Report on Preserved Meats (Navy) which, with the evidence presented, is a classic account of the technology of heat processing of foods in the middle of the nineteenth century.[19]

Joseph's scale of production was far in excess of anything Elliott could do, but Joseph, in turn, was overwhelmed by the activities of the Dangars at Newcastle.[20] Henry Dangar arrived in Sydney in 1821 aged 24 and at once became assistant surveyor to Oxley. As such he received grants of land and in 1825 was joined by two brothers, William and Thomas. In 1833, Henry settled on his own land becoming in turn grazier, squatter, hotel proprietor and politician. Others of the family also came to Australia, and one of them, Richard, who arrived in 1836, was set up in business by Henry at Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley. His store was the beginning of the firm which ultimately became Dangar, Gedye and Malloch.

In 1847 Henry, William and Richard combined to set up a boiling-down and meat preserving works at Newcastle. This location was chosen because it was close to cattle stations and to supplies of coal, and it had a good harbour. The site was in present day Wickham. While the factory was being built, Richard returned to England and arranged for Charles Gedye, a connection by marriage, to be taught the procedures for the commercial canning of meat. Where was he taught? Almost certainly at 137 Houndsditch, London.

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering