Colton, Palmer&Preston boldly shows design skills in Adelaide to make versions of top global products in 1940s
The Ezy-Bilt copy of Meccano and Peter Pan top sewing machine as a Singer 20-lookalike, made by Adelaide's Colton, Palmer & Preston.
Colton, Palmer & Preston showed the boldness and design skill of South Australian manufacturing in the early 20th Century by making its versions of some of the world’s best-known brands.
Ezy-bilt was a South Australian made imitation of Frank Hornby's Meccano construction kits. Ezy-bilt was a popular toy for budding builders and mechanics from the late 1940s until the 1960s.
Also from the late 1940s, a Singer 20–lookalike toy sewing machine, called the Peter Pan Model 0 was made at Colton, Palmer & Preston’s factories that grew from locations at Southwark (now Thebarton) to Allenby Gardens on Port Road.
The company originated with John Colton (later a South Australian premier, 1876-77) starting a wholesale harness and hardware business in 1842 with the first loan – £500 – issued by the Savings Bank of South Australia. Colton and Co. supplied horse bridles, saddles and general hardware, with premises in Currie Street, Adelaide. By the 1860s, it begun making bicycles and kerosene lamps.
Colton and Co. merged with ironmongers Harrold Bros in 1889, survived a major Currie Street fire in 1907, and joined with Palmer Preston & Co. in 1911. As wholesalers and manufacturers of hardware, saddles, bicycles, lamps and clocks, the company moved in the 1920s to Port Road factories at Thebarton (now the brewery site) and then Allenby Gardens.
In the 1930s, it had 300 employees. During World II, the company made hand grenades for the Australian army. In the mid 1950s, its leather and canvas operations were bought out by a Ken Major for what became his SarMajor business.
In the 1950s, Colton, Palmer & Preston began to concentrate on light engineering. with Roy Palmer, who grew up in Adelaide city, as managing director. The firm later tended towards retail and, In 1965, it was taken over by another long-established Adelaide-born wholesaler, the G. & R. Wills (Holdings) Limited group.
