H.L Vosz, later BALM and Dulux brands, paint factory starts at Port Adelaide in 1907 as first and largest in Australia
Australia's largest paint factory at the time opened in 1907 in Lipson Street, Port Adelaide, by the H. L. Vosz Company, later taken over by Australasian United Paint Company Limited in 1907 and British Australian Lead Manufacturers (BALM) in 1919, as it expanded. The factory was South Australian state heritage listed for its important part in the history of industry.
The Dulux brand originated in a division of H.L. Vosz’s Adelaide glass-making business that became Australia's first major paint manufacturer at Port Adelaide.
H. L. (Heinrich Ludwig) Vosz, who migrated from Hamburg, Germany, in 1848, made enough money in the 1850s goldfields in Victoria and returned to Adelaide with enough money to eventually set opened a retail store at Rundle Street, Adelaide city, selling window glass, paints and wallpaper. Vosz died in 1882 but the glass business continued in his name until 1915 when it became Clarkson Ltd, in response to World War I anti-German sentiment.
In 1907, the H.L. Vosz Company opened a Lipson Street, Port Adelaide, a paint factory – the oldest and largest in Australia – designed by architects English & Soward and costing £7,000 to build by H. Slade. The South Australian Register reported on H. L. Vosz Limited manager director A. E. Clarkson and sales manager K. Schneider showing visitors over the “Paint Works” new factory when “special interest was evinced in the Crossley gas producer, installed by Messrs. James Bill and Sons. . . The big Torrance mixer and roller mill situated in the basement, attracted a good deal of attention.” The Advertiser reported that J. G. Nash erected the engine, Bromley and Ehmcke fitted up the general machinery, and Unbehaun & Johnstone installed the electric light.
The Australasian United Paint Company Limited, founded in 1912, took over the H. L. Vosz paint business that year and further modernised the factory. The Australasian United Paint Co was bought in 1919 for £40,000 by British Australian Lead Manufacturers (BALM), a consortium of British white lead manufacturers. The company branded its product BALM Paints.
In 1920, BALM also secured the rights to Dulux finishes and, in 1928, through ICI as an important shareholder, it also gained the rights to sell duco lacquers in Australia. This extra production brought a new varnish factory (“One of the most modern in Australia – The News, 1937) and duco factory for automotive lacquers, built further east on Lipson Street, Port Adelaide, in the late 1930s. The newer factory pre-war functionalist style of architecture and was designed by architect Phillip R. Claridge. .
Another BALM factory was built in 1949-52 on the adjacent site of the previous Lions Timber Mills that had been completely destroyed by fire. The modern three-storey building was to produce all the lacquers and synthetic finishes required by the growing motor body building industry in the South Australia, as well as supplying other paints for the state plus Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.
The Port Adelaide factory changed its brand name in 1971 with BALM becoming Dulux Australia. In Australia and New Zealand, Dulux Australiawas wholly owned by Orica (formerly ICI Australia) until 2010, when Dulux Group was spun off as a separate company on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). It was bought by Nippon Paint in 2019 and delisted from the ASX.