This is the first of a series of posts about local family manufacturing businesses in Brisbane’s West End and South Brisbane that grew to be large employers of local residents, but eventually moved to outer Brisbane industrial areas, only to cease existence. This post looks at a small West End tinsmith business that grew into a large packaging company.

James Cole

James Cole was born in Birmingham in 1851 to parents James, who was a coach bead maker, and his wife Sarah. They had both been only 19 years old when James, their first child, was born. The census of 1871 finds the family now grown to 7 children including James’ younger sister Alice, who was working as a warehouse girl. Nineteen year old James had been trained in the skilled occupation of carriage lamp maker.

Sarah Hodges

Sarah Hodges was one of the 4 daughters of John and Sarah Hodges, and also lived in Birmingham. John was a japanner. Black Japan was a resin based varnish applied to wood, metal, leather and paper mache objects. A common use was to coat metal household objects such as stoves, grates, cookware and sewing machines.

The 1871 census records 17 year old Sarah’s occupation as a japan stover, which entailed placing japanned objects in an oven and regulating the heat to ensure the correct hardening of the coating.

Marriage

Birmingham was one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution and its population had grown rapidly from the mid 18th century. Housing and other facilities lagged behind creating widespread slum conditions for workers and their families, although urban improvement projects were underway by the mid 1870s.

The Cole and Hodges families lived near to each other on Graham Street. The buildings from that period have been demolished, but were likely to have been of the low cost unsanitary “Back to Back” style built in the early 19th century.

On Christmas Day of 1873, James and Sarah married at All Saints Church in Birmingham. At the time, James was still working as a carriage lamp maker, however by 1881 James and Sarah were running a pub called “Ye Old Hands to the Pump” in nearby Stourbridge.

Emigration

The Colony of Queensland was offering assisted passages from Britain and James, as a “mechanic’, as artisans and tradesmen were then called, qualified. In 1883, the couple accompanied by James’ sister Alice, left for Australia. They had no children.

The three arrived in Brisbane onboard the RMS Merkara in December after a journey of 55 days, passing the floating debris from the recent eruption of Krakatoa on the way.

Soon after their arrival, James established a lamp and tinsmith manufacturing business at Bradley Street, Spring Hill. The tinsmith side of the business soon became the dominant one. In the 19th century, containers made from tin plated steel played an important role in food storage, along with heavier glass and stoneware containers.

By 1895, James had moved his business to Manning Street, South Brisbane, where he developed his “Perfect” brand honey extractor. The year 1898 saw Cole established at his final location on Vulture Street, opposite the West End State School.

Industrial safety left quite a bit to be desired , and there are reports of accidents, such as in 1905 when 22 year old Charles Tait had 3 fingers of his left hand torn off in a tin pressing machine.

A family tragedy

In 1887, James’ sister Alice married wheelwright William Grice and they had three children, James, William and Florence. Years later, Alice developed mental health problems and in 1913, she was admitted to the Willowburn Mental Hospital in Toowoomba.

Her son James was living with his Uncle James and Aunt Sarah at Coorparoo. In 1915, as Alice’s health was improving, her brother James successfully applied to have her released into the family’s care for 3 months. Two months later the family returned home to find that Alice had hung herself, leaving a poignant letter.

Cole & Grice

In 1913, Cole expanded by purchasing the canister manufacturing business of Verney and Company in Dogget Street, Fortitude Valley and formed a partnership with his nephew James Grice. Their firm became known as Cole and Grice. In 1924, at ages 70 and 36, the partners floated their company as Cole and Grice Pty. Ltd. This gave them the capital to expand into products that were a far cry from the hand made artisan tinwork of the 19th century.

Cole and Grice saw an opportunity to commence the production of tins for various products, using the latest technology. A 1924 newspaper article based on a visit to the West End factory described newly installed machinery capable of making 2 pineapple tins a second. A flatbed tin printer enabled 960 tin sheets to be printed in colour per hour. It was the only factory in Brisbane producing both tins and labels.

Mobiloil was a major customer of Cole and Grice, and the company boasted of a recent production run of 128,000 oil tins with only 8 leaky.

Just a few years later, the company merged with the Queensland Can Company.

The Queensland Can Company

The Queensland Can Company was founded in 1921 and had its factory in Stanley Street, South Brisbane.

In 1926, Queensland Can merged with Cole and Grice. Although in partial retirement and living on Tambourine Mountain, James Cole remained a company director for some years before retiring due to ill health. James died in 1933, aged 82. Sarah had passed away in 1925. 

James Grice continued his association with Queensland Can, and became Chairman of the company in 1938. He remained on the board until the late 1950s.

Queensland Can concentrated its activities at the Vulture Street location. Extension of the factory was approved by Council in 1926, even though the area had been previously declared residential.

The company was quite profitable and even in 1932, in the depths of the depression, shareholders received an 11% dividend. Chairman and Managing Director Charles Topham, who joined the company in 1928, sought out new markets. In 1935 he was advocating the production of canned beer which had recently been introduced in the USA. Topham was well ahead of his time, as Australia was to wait another 23 years for this to happen.

He added cartons, cork board and crown seal production to the company’s portfolio.

These products were of military interest, and when the Montague Road factory caught fire in 1940 destroying the large quantity of cork stored there, investigations of possible sabotage took place.

As conditions in Europe deteriorated in the lead up to the outbreak of war, deliveries of tin plate from suppliers in Wales became erratic and stocks were perilously low before the unexpected arrival of large orders.

Australian manufacture of tinplate was not to commence until 1958, by which time the national annual production of cans had reached 1,000 million a year. In 2007, production ceased and Australian can manufacturers once again rely on imported tinplate.

The 1939 facade

The Queensland Can Company remained in a healthy financial state, and in 1939 it undertook further factory modernisation including a new 3 story facade featuring the extensive use of glass bricks. The facade was possibly intended to contain the noise of the factory, especially with the West End State School just across the street.

Much of the building is still standing today although the front section facing Vulture Street, including the 1939 facade, has been demolished.

The now demolished Vulture Street facade featured a greater degree of architectural embellishment.

Employee activities

Similarly to many other companies, the Can Company had a recreation club which held regular social events such as dances.

The club also fielded teams competing in football, cricket, hockey, tennis, and basketball competitions as well as in swimming carnivals.

The war effort

In the 1930s, the company began production of 4 gallon tins, and during World War 2 tens of thousands of these tins containing egg pulp were dispatched to Great Britain. There, rationing limited fresh eggs to one per person per week.

By 1941, the factory was operating 24 hours a day producing over a million canisters a week. A large part of this production consisted of cans for the packing of foodstuffs for the armed forces.

In 1941, a bulk store building was constructed in Turin Street to cater for this huge increase in activity in support of the war effort.

During the war, the supply of the tin plated steel used to manufacture cans was obtained from the USA, where many non-military uses of cans such as for beer, dog food, coffee and tobacco were restricted due to the scarcity of tin. Some 75% of the world’s tin supply had previously come from Malaya, occupied by Japanese forces from 1942 until 1945.

Crown seals and cork

In 1942, the company built a crown seal factory in Paris Street on top of an existing air raid shelter. Here they manufactured the bottle tops for such household names as Castlemaine Beer, Tristram’s and Helidon Spa. The air raid shelter was converted into a chemistry laboratory where glues and paints were developed.

At the time, crown seals utilised cork sealing. Queensland Can began to use scrap cork from bottle top manufacture at its factory on Montague Road producing “Corlite” insulation and flooring.

Sir Arthur Petfield

In 1929, 17 year old Arthur Petfield started work as a junior cost clerk at the Vulture Street factory. He was steadily promoted and became General Manager in 1948 following Charles Topham’s death. He later became Chairman and Managing Director.

In 1968 he was awarded a knighthood in the system which predated the introduction of Australian honours, for his impressive contribution to industry and to a wide range of charities. Petfield retired as Managing Director in 1973 and died unexpectedly the year after. 

Each year, the company’s Art Department would produce a greeting card for him.

Later years

In 1946, the company purchased an ex-army building at Moorooka and moved their printing and carton operations there. Nevertheless, in 1951 Queensland Can was still employing 250 people at Vulture Street, many of whom were local residents.

Further expansion occurred at Yeerongpilly, Archerfield and notably at a 48 acre site at Rocklea in 1962. Purchase of widespread smaller businesses gave the company a national presence. Strangely, one of their acquisitions was Howards Motors, a Queensland assembler and retailer of British automobiles.

The Vulture Street facility closed in 1965, with the company headquarters moving to Rocklea. Local residents would certainly have noticed the closure. Marion Feros recalls walking past the factory on her way to the West End State School in the 1950s. “The walls were galvanized sheeting and the din was incredible.”

In 1967, Queensland Can changed its name to United Packaging to better reflect its widening interests. In the 1980s, it was bought by APM, later known as Amcor, and its various parts absorbed or sold.

The West End buildings were sold after 1965 and have been used for a variety of industrial and commercial purposes since then. The main building had been constructed over the years in adjoining sections, and the three front structures were demolished in the mid 1980s to create a car park.

Unlike similar local enterprises such as Tristram’s and Dixons whose name has been retained in subsequent building redevelopment, with no visual reminders, the Queensland Can Company’s significant local presence is now only remembered by a few.

References

Many of the images in this post appear in the publication 25 Years Achievement : the story of the Queensland Can Company Limited. (1951), which can be viewed online at the State Library of Queensland.

© P. Granville 2024