Northern Bakeries opens a factory in Edward Street, Brunswick East

Northern Bakeries took over the Wunderlich tile factory site in 1939. 

Les Barnes records that the Brunswick Council owned some of the land and that it was partially zoned residential. This caused some difficulty, but a larger objection, at least to some councillors, was that it was alleged that entrepreneur and noted bookmaker John West held a leading interest in the business. 

In the end the Council granted a permit on the grounds that it would bring employment to the City of Brunswick. Harry Norris, a prominent Melbourne architect, designed the factory, which was in the Moderne style.

The Edward Street facade, date unknown. Image courtesy Little Projects and Tip Top Apartment Complex manager Sebastian Golotta 

I took this photo of the same view on 23 January 2018.

I took this photo looking down towards Lygon Street on 5 September 2011, just as construction of the new Tip Top complex was beginning.

I took this photo from a similar spot on 23 January 2018.

Doorway facing Edward Street, 23 January 2018.

Corn motif on the base post of the staircase in the restored Edward Street building, 23 January 2018. 

And some of the floor details, 23 January 2018. 

Thanks to building manager Sebastian Golotta for showing me around.

By the second half of 1939, during the first days of World War Two, the factory began production. The newspapers of the time were filled with war news, but I did find the following article in the Age, 24 October 1939.

And finally, some images of Brunswick's Northern Bakeries site at work. (Images courtesy Little Projects and the Tip Top Apartment Complex manager):

(Interpretive panel, 23 January 2018)

Sources:

Les Barnes research notes

Les Barnes, Street names of Brunswick

John Wren, Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/wren-john-9198

Harry Norris, Wikipedia entry, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Norris 

Age, 24 October 1939

The Tip Top Factory site, Edward Street, Brunswick East in the early 20th century

From 1900 today's Tip Top Apartment Complex was the site of W.H. Rocke & Co’s Australia Terracotta Works. The factory, owned by a well-known Collins Street furniture dealership, provided roofing tiles for many of Melbourne's buildings, including the new Outpatients building of the Children's Hospital in Drummond Street, Carlton in 1898.

W.H. Rocke & Co had factories in Carlton and Brunswick (in Edward Street) where they made different sorts of ornamental and sheet zinc (for covering walls and roofs), also embossed patterns of steel and zinc, to be used instead of plaster. They also made articles in zinc, steel and terracotta - but not roofing tiles, which were imported from Marseilles.

The terracotta works' manager was Matthew Wilson Kemp who lived right next door to the factory at what was then 264 Edward Street. (He later moved further down the street.)

In 1907, W.H. Rocke & Co was bought out by a Sydney company - the Wunderlich Terracotta Manufacturers whose main premises were at Vermont. One of the Directors of Wunderlich was Theodore Fink, brother of Benjamin J. Fink, who was involved with W.H. Rocke & Co. The manager of the Brunswick works was Frederick Liebentritt, who lived nearby in Brunswick Road. Liebentritt, originally from Sydney, was an interesting character who returned to Sydney in the 1920s where he died in mysterious circumstances. His family remained in Brunswick.

In December 1908, shortly after Wunderlich took over, Brunswick Council approved the erection of a factory on the site. The company prospered, adding to its buildings in 1916. 

It was not without its detractors, however. There were complaints about the noise and about the nuisance of the smoke from the huge towers that rose above the factory buildings.

Brunswick and Coburg Star , 26 September 1916

Looking across Edward Street, Brunswick towards brick wall and buildings of the Wunderlich Terracotta Tile Works. Smoke stacks rise behind the buildings, 19 February 1927. 1920s International truck with 'Wunderlich Roofing' on side carrying roofing tiles at the front.  Image H2010.63/5. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Detail of the Wunderlich delivery truck, 19 February 1927. Image H2010.63/5. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Photograph of Wunderlich Limited's tile factory in Brunswick, c1927, Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, accessed 17 February 2018, https://ma.as/392916.

Photograph of a brick chimney stack being demolished at Wunderlich Limited's tile factory in Brunswick c1927, Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences, accessed 17 February 2018, https://ma.as/392917

By the mid-1930s the clay needed to make the terracotta tiles had run out and Wunderlich closed its Brunswick operations. Then in 1938 H.L. Brisbane & Co took over Wunderlich and Australia's largest manufacturer of terracotta roofing tiles ceased to exist.

By the end of the 1930s the site had transformed into a bread factory but more of this later.


Sources:

Les Barnes, Street Names of Brunswick
Victorian Birth, Death and Marriage indexes
Victorian electoral rolls (accessed via Ancestry)
Sands and McDougall Street Directories
Powerhouse Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences Sydney picture collection
State Library of Victoria picture collection.
Leader, 23 April 1898
Age, 30 April 1900
Age 6 Sep 1900
Australasian, 6 Sep 1902
Age, 6 June 1903 
Age, 16 March 1906
Punch, 11 July 1907

Herald, 4 April 1908
Argus, 16 November 1908 
Coburg Leader, 19 December 1908
Coburg Leader, 1 July 1910
Brunswick and Coburg Star, 26 September 1915
Brunswick and Coburg Leader, 2 June 1916
Argus, 23 Sep 1938

The early history of the Tip Top site in Edward Street, Brunswick East

Did you know that today's Tip Top apartment complex began life as a quarry in the 1860s?

The quarry was owned by brothers George and John Storie who had married in a double wedding in Edinburgh, Scotland in April 1853 then with their brides Ann and Helen migrated to Australia together four months later. 
Shortly after their arrival they were living in Brunswick - in Edward Street.

In Scotland the brothers had been stone masons. Here they made their living as quarrymen. 

Les Barnes, the legendary historian of Brunswick, notes in his 1987 publication Street Names of Brunswick, that the Storie brothers' quarry later became the Tip Top Factory site. Their home, as the Sands and MacDougall Street Directories make clear, was a little further down the street.

George Storie and son, c1863. Image courtesy Moreland Libraries. The child is possibly Robert, born 1860. He died in 1866 aged 5 and is buried in the family plot in the Presbyterian Section of Melbourne General Cemetery.

Ann Storie and son, c1863. Image courtesy Moreland Libraries. This child is possibly son Francis (Frank), born 1863, who was still living in Edward Street in 1919. 

By the 1870s John had moved on to Nicholson Street where he quarried and George had settled in Edward Street where he set up as a bootmaker. 

George and Ann Storie had 11 sons, all born during their time in Edward Street. Six of them were still alive when Ann died in 1894 and all (except one married son) were still living at home.  By then the Storie family had been living in the same house for 40 years. Family members remained in the street well into the twentieth century.

The Storie family home in Edward Street, Brunswick. Image courtesy Moreland Libraries. Although Les Barnes notes in Street Names of Brunswick that Edward Street first appeared in the Sands and McDougall Street Directories in 1864, it seems clear from the Storie family's history that the street had existed for some time before then.

Up until the turn of the 20th century, the south side of Edward Street was made up mostly of individual homes, although there was always a large gap between what was number 288 and number 296, the site of what had been the Storie brothers'  quarry. (Note: Street numbers changed over time. Probably the most significant change happened right across the suburb (and Coburg as well) in 1925.)

By 1900, that gap was filled when W.H. Rocke and Company built a new terracotta tile factory on the site. But more of this in the next post.


Sources:
Moreland Libraries Local History Catalogue
Les Barnes, Street Names of Brunswick (1987 edition)
Sands and MacDougall Street Directories
Victorian Birth, Death and Marriage indexes
Family history material (accessed via Ancestry)
Victorian Inward Shipping Records
Victorian electoral rolls (accessed via Ancestry)
Monumental Inscription for Storie family grave at Melbourne General Cemetery (accessed via Genealogical Society of Victoria)
Newspapers accessed through the TROVE collection, including:
Argus, 30 Aug 1858
Herald, Sat 23 April 1887
Coburg Leader, 1 July 1910