Chapter 2
I Technology Transported; 1788-1840
II Technology Established; 1840-1940
i Meat Preserving: Heat Processing Introduced
ii Horticultural Products: Heat, Sugar and Solar Drying
iii Refrigeration and the Export of Meat
iv Milling and Baking
v Dairy Products
vi Beverages
vii Sugar: Supplying an Ingredient
III The Coming Of Science
IV From Science To Technology: The Post-war Years
V Products And Processes
VI Conclusion
VII Acknowledgements
References
Index
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In 1848, William Arnott, a Scot, arrived in Sydney and was a baker in Maitland until 1851, when gold lured him to Turon.[79] He had no luck digging but successfully baked bread and pies and in 1853, returned to Maitland as a baker and pastry-cook. The severe floods of subsequent years drove him into debt, which he eventually repaid in full and, in 1865, into Newcastle. There he began again baking bread at night and biscuits and other baked goods during the day. The business prospered and he began to specialize in biscuits. From 1882, they were shipped to Sydney and by 1885, the factory covered two acres and employed 300 people. Three years later the output was 31 tons of biscuits, some 80 varieties, and over 11,000 cakes per week. In 1894, William Arnott bought a factory in Sydney and took his five sons into partnership. By this time the total work-force at the two locations was about 800. In 1908, William Arnott Limited opened a new factory on a six and a half acre site at Homebush in suburban Sydney. At this time bakehouse machinery was steam driven (Swallow and Ariell electrified it in 1911) and the ovens were coke, coal, or wood fired. Gas-fired ovens were introduced in the 1920s and band ovens in the thirties. During the war biscuit manufacturers generally reduced the range available to the civilian population and switched to the manufacture of service rations, for some of which they were uniquely suited.
Early in the nineteenth century, Charles Haywood had begun in Hobart as a baker and pastry-cook.[80] From 1875, his son, as C. D. Haywood Pty., Ltd., specialized in biscuits and followed the technological progress of the total industry; major remodelling in 1924, travelling ovens in 1931. In 1950 the firm was absorbed by Swallow and Ariell. From 1949 to 1963, Arnotts became associated with six other family companies from Brisbane to Perth, and in 1965, with Swallow and Ariell. Known as the Australian Biscuit Company, this company has now become Arnotts Limited.[81]
Of uncertain Anglo-Saxon origin, the term crumpet was applied in the eighteenth century to a leavened cereal product baked from below on griddle or hot-plate. Thus it has come to us, more recent production being a manual batch process in which a batter was poured into rings on a large gas heated hot-plate. In 1947, R. J. Hastings, a Sydney engineer, applied for and was later granted a patent for a machine for the first continuous and automatic production of crumpets. This Australian invention has since been working here and overseas. A second machine producing an intrinsically different kind of crumpet, the De Jersey machine, was also developed in Australia. After perfecting the crumpet machine, Hastings invented a machine for the automatic and continuous production of pikelets, which must be cooked on both sides.[82]
Organisations in Australian Science at Work - Arnotts Limited; Australian Biscuit Company; C. D. Haywood Pty Ltd
People in Bright Sparcs - Ariell, T. H.; Arnott, William; Hastings, R. J.; Haywood, Charles; Swallow, Thomas
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition page 100, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
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