Timeless Wollongong: Uncorking the bottle’s precious past
Wollongong has a fascinating history and each week the Advertiser brings you a story from Its rich past.
For centuries, people have enjoyed the contents of bottles.
Today, plastic bottles can be found littering streets, parks, waterways and many end up in the ocean. Not so long ago bottles were refundable and children enjoyed cashing them in at the corner store for pocket money to buy Jollies or ice blocks. Bottle-os walked the streets pushing carts collecting household bottles. Pharmacists dispensed medicines in brightly coloured bottles usually with raised lettering on the sides stating “poison” and the pharmacist’s name.
Then there were those with trademarked names stamped on the side of earthenware bottles from ginger beer, fine cordial or spirit producers. Three or more factories in Sydney manufactured bottles, in various sizes, shapes, with names and trademarks.
Old tipple: J. Parkinson earthenware ginger beer bottle circa 1910-1920.
The Illawarra Historical Society has collected bottles from early cordial manufacturers and dispensers in Illawarra such as Thomas Ball of Bulli who purchased the cordial factory of J. Pallier.
Mr Ball trademarked his cordial bottles with a side view of a bull’s head. He brewed ginger beer and initially sold them in earthenware “dump” bottles from around 1890. The glass “codd” bottle, with a marble in the neck, came into use around 1900.
T. Ball advertised in 1897 for a young lad as a bottle-washer for a wage of 12 shillings per week including board and lodgings. Around 1915, T. Ball handed over the business to his son Sydney Ball and from then on the bottles carried the same trademark bulls head but with the name of S. M. Ball.
In the early 1880s James Parkinson opened his cordial factory on the northern side of Bode’s Hotel (North Wollongong Hotel) before moving into Wollongong around 1898.
He sold ginger beer in a champagne style earthenware bottle. Parkinson’s trademark was the initials J. P. within a circle. The company produced cordials and sold them in bottles with a marble stopper in the neck.
Wheeldon & Marks champagne shape (right) with Crown Seal 1925-1930.
Another bottle in the collection is a Wheeldon and Marks cordial bottle. Edwin Richard Wheeldon was a late starter in Wollongong around the time of World War I. The firm operated from Keira Street, North Wollongong. The trade• mark was the initials W & M surrounded by a diamond shape. When E.R. Wheeldon died in 1932, he was still referred to as a cordial manufacturer of Keira Street. The bottles used by W & M were capped with the steel tops , with a cork lining and opened with a can opener.
Mario Borgo earthenware flagon with name on rim. Used from 1930.
Later, Italian immigrants established themselves in Wollongong and sold their wines in trademarked flagons. On the southern side of Crown Street, Wollongong, Lorenzo Filippi established his wine cellar selling wines in earthenware flagons. In the 1930s the business was sold to Mario Borgo who sold wine in the same style earthenware flagons before changing over to glass ones.
In 1903 the Crown Corporation introduced a new corking system.
Many bottlers attended a demonstration and were impressed with the simple method. A small metal cap, lined with a thin layer of cork, was positioned over the mouth of the bottle and when pressed either by a hand lever or machine pressure the cork would firmly seal the bottle. To open the bottle, one needed a metal-shaped hook known as a bottle opener. This system is still used today but over the past decade this style of lid has been phased out and replaced by a screw cap.
Timeless Wollongong is published weekly by the Wollongong Advertiser and is written by Carol Herben , Historian, president of the Illawarra Historical Society, and manager of the Illawarra Museum.
Information: Visit the Illawarra Museum’s website
http://www.illawarramuseum.com/
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Illawarra Museum 