I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter!

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Laura Frost

Victorian Margarine Act 1893 p. 1 - RHSV collection

In 1893, the Parliament of Victoria passed The Margarine Act, which outlined how margarine could be manufactured and sold. The dairy industry was a powerful lobby group, and this Act responded to their fears that margarine would become more popular than butter.

Through modern eyes, this very serious act makes for humorous reading – Health Inspectors were given the additional title of “Margarine Inspector,” and were required to ensure that those manufacturing or selling margarine followed the strict guidelines as stipulated by the Act.

Of greatest concern was the marketing of margarine as butter (when clearly, one product was natural, the other synthetic) and therefore strict regulations were outlined in the Act, ruling that margarine was not allowed to imitate butter in any way. Instead of being dyed yellow, as it is these days, margarine remained white. Further to this, shops selling margarine had to clearly label (with a black stencil) each packet of margarine, and also had to place a sign in their store proclaiming their status as purveyors of margarine. All this was required so that the humble consumer did not confuse butter with its poorer imitation!

The trafficking of margarine was also outlawed – you could face prosecution if you were caught carrying margarine in lumps of less than two pounds. This part of the act conjures up images of black market deals in darkened alleyways, people hiding lumps of margarine, doing clandestine deals. However, it was a very serious business indeed. It remained illegal to colour margarine until the 1960s.

In hindsight, the dairy industry needn’t have worried. Butter has always seemed to be the more high-class spread. During the 1930s Depression, if you could afford butter, you were not one of the poor. Who can argue that few things are tastier than hot, buttered toast? All A.A. Milne’s King wanted for his breakfast was a little bit of butter on the Royal slice of bread.

Click on each image below to read the rest of the Margarine Act of 1893.

  

Frances Ardern
BA(Hons)

Don’t Try This at Home…

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Laura Frost

During his research for the Pioneers of Bushwalking exhibition, Robin Bailey highlighted how resourceful bushwalkers could be. While the procedure described below may be an inventive way of waterproofing tents, we certainly don’t recommend that you try this at home!

During the 19th and early 20th centuries bushwalkers didn’t have waterproof tents or clothing – items we now take for granted as absolutely essential for any modern bushwalker. Tents were made from light cotton and if the tent leaked in the rain, the procedure was to find the leak and run a finger down the wall of the tent. This supposedly stopped the leak.

Up until the Second World War, waterproofing tents and clothing was a problem, as suitable lightweight materials were not yet available. The Melbourne Walking Club had a number of chemists who created a rather startling waterproofing technique – how any member survived this is purely good luck.

 

How to Waterproof Tents and Parkas

  • Take a four gallon empty kerosene tin without a top
  • Three quarters fill it with petrol
  • Take it outside
  • Put the kerosene tin on a kerosene heater
  • Stand back!
  • When the petrol is hot start dissolving chunks of paraffin wax in the petrol as much as you can
  • When all wax is dissolved in the hot petrol, dip the tent or parka in the liquid
  • Hang out to dry

Tents treated with this technique could withstand any weather.

 

Robin Bailey and Laura Frost

Henrietta Augusta Dugdale

Posted on April 18, 2011 by admin

Pioneer feminist Henrietta Augusta Dugdale holds an important place in Australian history. Her fearless campaigning resulted in breakthroughs in women’s rights in Australia throughout the nineteenth century. This biography of a thrice-married woman, who was born in St Pancras, London and died 91 years later at Point Lonsdale, Victoria, seeks to understand why and how she came to Australia, became a vegetarian, a secularist, initiated the first femal suffrage society in Australasia and, in her late middle age, published a futuristic allegory titled A Few Hours in a Far Off Age.

This meticulously researched book offers an illuminating insight into the formation of the Australian women’s movement. The author, Susan Priestley, is a past president of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

Launched this week at the Athenaeum Library, the book is now available at the RHSV for $30 plus post and handling.