Geographic Threads: Kembla Sewing Machine

Advert for Silovac, ‘the silent servant’, and Domsew products, 1954. Original image courtesy of Geoff Nowak on Flickr.

Members of the Illawarra Museum page on Facebook, the Smith-Hendersons, have sent in images enquiring about this delightful item with its elaborately patterned moulded guard, and gilded Gothic text. Its weave-inspired decorations and borders hark back to the Arts and Crafts movement, but in reality the item dates quite a bit later than that period, probably being from the 1930s.

The ‘Kembla’ electric sewing machine, image courtesy of and © Smith-Henderson collection.

It’s a ‘Kembla’ brand sewing machine made by ‘Silovac’. There is very little information on this brand and company, but I was able to find out that they were established around 1928 by Aris Jan Albert Metzelaar, who had emigrated from the Netherlands to New South Wales with his wife Stella.
The business made household appliances, starting off with electric floor scrubbers, sweepers and polishers, and vacuum cleaners.

The ‘Kembla’ electric sewing machine, image courtesy of and © Smith-Henderson collection.

They really had their heyday in the 1940s and 50s; in the latter decade they had a contract to manufacture commercial milkshake makers for milk bars for the Nestlé brand. By this time the company name had been shortened to Metzel. By the 1970s they were making automatic sewing machines, polishers, arc welders and home welding kits, and spray painting units and also had models under the ‘Domsew’ and ‘Consort’ brands. During this decade they were based on the Hume Highway, Yagoona, NSW.

The ‘Kembla’ electric sewing machine, showing plate with brand and manufacturers details. Image courtesy of and © Smith-Henderson collection.

It wasn’t Silovac, however, that registered the trademark for the ’Kembla’ brand. This appears to have been done by Metal Manufactures Ltd (MM) of NSW.
MM was a business founded in 1916 with Sydney and Wollongong offices. To begin with, their enterprise centred on manufacturing various items with a basis in steel and copper. They made electrical wires for telephones, trams and aerials. They also made small moulded metal components like pipes, rods and tubes.

The ‘Kembla’ electric sewing machine, image courtesy of and © Smith-Henderson collection.

So what is the relationship to Kembla – Mount, Grange or Port?
One can assume the connection is metal coming out of the latter, which inspired the name, and indeed MM had the main manufacturing arm of the firm there. As the decades went on they added aluminium but ultimately focused more on copper products.

Advert for Silovac electric vacuums, from the 1938 souvenir catalogue, for the ERDA Electrical & Radio Exhibition held at the Town Hall Sydney. Image courtesy of National Library of Australia (NLA) collection, ref Npf 2010-252.

Searches turn up nothing on sewing machines for the Silovac company earlier than the 1960s and no mention of ’Kembla’ , so one can assume this item is quite rare and was perhaps a business arrangement with MM, a brief foray into this area of appliances in the late 1920s to early thirties, which didn’t really take off.

‘Kembla’ products logo, Kembla Metal Manufacturers Ltd, 1953. Original image courtesy of IP Australia, ref 114137.

There’s no mention of appliances in relation to MM at all until 1970 when they registered the Kembla brand for classes of manufacture including hand-operated electrical equipment, tools, and apparatus and instruments for science industries. About this time they were also manufacturing tube-bending machinery.

Silovac commercial milkshake maker, manufactured for Nestlé and Anglo-Swiss Milk Co (Australasia)Ltd.Used at Keary’s Milkbar in Strathfield after 1945, likely from the 1950s. Image courtesy of the MAAS (Powerhouse Museum) collection, ref 91/64.

There seem to be some parallels and I can only assume that the two companies had a business relationship of sorts and MM likely made molded metal components for Silovac/Metzel products.  Another possibility is that, having registered the brand name, MM pretty quickly put the kibosh on Metzelaar using it and this indicates the lack of information available on ‘Kembla’ appliances.

Advert for the Silovac automatic sewing machine, The Australian Women’s Weekly, May 1964. Image courtesy of National Library of Australia (NLA) collection.

Kembla/MM were taken over in 2001 by Marsh Electrical Ltd, but is actually still operating today in Gloucester Boulevard, Port Kembla.
Silovac, on the other hand, had probably wound down in the 1970s and became a shell company to hold the Metzelaar family’s property investments. Aris Metzelaar died in 1982 and Silovac Properties Pty Ltd was liquidated in 1984.